Which newspapers really matter for campaigning – Graph of the Week

The first in an occasional series of fortnightly posts with useful graphs for campaigners.
Campaigners spend lots of time looking to get media coverage for their issue. This graph is a good reminder of the political allegiances of the readers of each paper, providing useful insight into which papers are most important for the political parties.
newspaper-reader-election-ukip-express-sun-mail-telegraph
It also broadly matches the parties they endorsed at the last election – the UKIP backing Express, and Conservative backing Independent are the only papers that backed a party different from the majority of its readership.
So if you want the Conservative government to back your campaign it can help to get coverage in The Sun rather than the Mirror, the Times rather than the Independent.
It useful to also to be viewed in conjunction with this graph, which shows the decline in readership,

Taken from The Media Briefing (http://www.themediabriefing.com/article/newspaper-circulation-decline-2001-2014-prediction-5-years)
Taken from The Media Briefing (http://www.themediabriefing.com/article/newspaper-circulation-decline-2001-2014-prediction-5-years)

This table which shows the readership changes when you take into account the online and mobile readership.
Taken from Press Gazette (http://www.pressgazette.co.uk/nrs-uk-monthly-readership-sun-falls-behind-independent-amid-mobile-traffic-surge)
Taken from Press Gazette (http://www.pressgazette.co.uk/nrs-uk-monthly-readership-sun-falls-behind-independent-amid-mobile-traffic-surge)

Either way, given its the papers that it suggests if we want to be setting the agenda with our government then as as campaigners we should spend more time reading The Sun, Daily Mail or Telegraph, and less time with the more familiar Guardian.

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