Social media steals show
THE power of social media in framing contemporary politics cannot be underestimated. It helped propel Donald Trump to the White House, is responsible for the extraordinary rise of President Emmanuel Macron in France and by all accounts contributed to Labour’s surprise showing in the general election.
Traditional media, used to framing the debate in British elections, found itself bypassed among younger voters.
There was a conviction among large numbers of people in this younger cohort that if the Tories won the election they were preparing to privatise the NHS.
This piece of fake news gained huge traction even though there was nothing in the Tory manifesto to back it up.
It is no accident that the polling organisation that best monitored the changing runes of the campaign and predicted a hung Parliament was London- quoted YouGov. Having flunked the 2015 election, YouGov went back to the drawing board with its online polling, adjusted its algorithms and came up trumps. Investors also have done well out of this process, with the shares surging. It is no secret that the Silicon Valley digital giants are eating the advertising revenue and the circulation of traditional media.
Now we learn that the luxury goods brands Louis Vuitton, Gucci and others are also moving online, potentially leaving glossy fashion magazines such as Vogue exposed.
The latest data shows digital advertising of high fashion brands has climbed 66pc over the past three years to a shade under £800m as magazine ads have fallen away.
The contention always has been that those organisations which invest in journalism – The New York Times, this paper’s owner DMGT, the FT et all – will come out on top because of the reliability of the news, analysis and commentary that they provide.
But one fears that in the British election there was a whole generation of voters who avoided established titles altogether.
That made it impossible for papers of the Right or the Left to shape the narrative of the election for a large slug of readers. So it was the falsehoods on the NHS as much as Theresa May’s complex proposal for social care – the so- called dementia tax – that shaped the way many people voted.
The established media need to embrace social media more closely.
This may require boiling down commentaries to 140 characters (that is what headlines do anyway), establishing strong Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, WhatsApp and other presences. They must find ways to combat misleading narratives and lead users and advertisers back to authoritative journalism.
GE shift
CHANGING the guard at General Electric, America’s premier industrial giant, is a rare event. After 16 years at the helm, Jeff Immelt stepped aside to make way for Jack Flannery, a 30-year GE veteran who is currently head of its health division. The shift brings to fruition a succession strategy that dates back to 2011.
Immelt’s biggest test was to navigate the world’s largest non-bank financial company through the crisis – a task which involved accepting help from the Federal Reserve. Once the financial crisis was over, GE Capital was sold piece by piece and the company went back to focus on traditional sectors, including oil and gas, power generation, aerospace engines and healthcare. Immelt also ditched GE white goods.
GE is still under pressure from activist investors, with Nelson Peltz’s Trian Fund lobbying hard for better returns. It was Peltz who set in motion events which led to Cadbury being sold to Kraft.
For decades, GE was the US’s biggest industrial enterprise and the bellwether of the Dow Jones. Strange to think that with a market value of $250bn it is now just onethird the value of Apple.
Aiming high
THERE are no profits on the horizon yet but investors in AIM- quoted Hutchisonbacked Chi-Med have enjoyed a dizzying ride from just above 400p in 2013 to 3119p in latest trading.
Hopes run high that the Shanghai drug maker is within sight of winning Chinese approval for fruquintinib – its treatment for colorectal cancer. Together with partner Lilly it is also aiming for approval from the FDA in the United States in what would be the first modern drug to come out of China for global use.
Onwards and upwards.