Unfortunately, French mass media are heavily tilted towards Sarko. The narrative that has gone over up to now (a sub-text narrative, not clearly stated) is that Royal is a woman and however nice she may be she can't cut it and makes blunders he-he-he, (and she doesn't have a programme), while Sarko is obviously a competent man in a suit (who has a programme, of course).
Otherwise, I don't really think either candidate has run a good campaign to date. Sarkozy can't get his image straight between authoritarian right and a need to look for voters in the centre; Royal has staked a great deal on the participative process and now finds herself up against a make-or-break moment I wish she and her campaign people had been smarter about.
There's not much talk about swing voters for the moment. (I take it that's what you mean by "moving bloc"). However, polls show about 20% undecided.
A pleasure I therefore claim to show, not how men think in myths, but how myths operate in men's minds without their being aware of the fact. Levi-Strauss, Claude
so theya re like small groups with no cohesion? well, that can certainly be true.
Public broadcasting is supposed to be neutral, but the more it is mass (the main TV channels) the less that ie really true. The information/news services of the two most popular public channels (France 2 and 3) pass Sarko's stuff unquestioningly.
It's a pay channel and not one of the (supposed) information/news purveyors.
But you don't mean to say that the "masses" by and large incline rightward (and thus put pressure on the main TV channels to serve up more right-friendly fare), do you? Truth unfolds in time through a communal process.
The chief managers are quasi-political appointees (meaning they are professionals but chosen for the side they lean towards) and the heads of news/magazines/political interview and debate programmes are carefully picked, along with news anchors etc. No one's around who might rock the boat politically, unless it's after midnight... ;) The left under Mitterand did the same (so it's not response to demand), but it's true the right has tended to view the Republic as their property, and public broadcasting with it, in a more consistent way throughout the half-century of the Ve Republic.
