Select Committees in the House of Commons and the Media

Abstract

Previous studies examining the relationship between the media and the UK Parliament have emphasised a decline in the quantity and quality of media coverage of the House of Commons from the late 1980s onwards. However, such studies have focused primarily on the reporting of parliamentary debates in the Commons Chamber. Comparatively little attention has been paid to media coverage of select committees since the modern system was established in 1979. By using an extensive content analysis of 1217 newspaper articles published between 1987 and 2007, and holding interviews with people closely associated with committees, this research sheds light on quantitative trends in select committee coverage over two decades and provides further knowledge about the types of committees that receive coverage and why.