Newspaper Representation of the Debates in the 2007 Jamaican General Election Campaign

Abstract

This article deconstructs the newspaper representations of three debatesheld in 2007 during the Jamaican General Election campaign. The the-ory of social representation is used in this article to explain politicalbehaviour and outcomes. Representations are the images, words, sym-bols or phrases that are generated from people’s dialogic interaction thatsignify meanings. Content analysis of relevant articles covering the elec-toral campaign in the main print media in Jamaica forms the empiricalbasis for study. The majority of representations of the three main debateswere negative, revealing that political manifestos were largely ignoredand policy funding was not addressed. Significant issues such as crime,education, health, garrison politics, corruption and unemployment wereinadequately addressed, and the wider global context of these matterswas ignored. The consensus was that the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP)won two of the three debates, notably the leadership debate in whichthe Leader of the Opposition, Bruce Golding MP, performed more effec-tively than the then current Prime Minister, Portia Simpson-Miller ofthe People’s National Party (PNP). Social representation theory is usedto assess the types of political meanings generated by media coverageduring the General Election. It is suggested that the perceived success ofthe JLP candidates in the main debates was an important contribution tothe party’s overall electoral victory.Keywords: debate, electoral campaign, Jamaica, newspapers, politics,social representation theory.