#milifandom. No day in the sun.

The ‘#milifandom’ craze began in the ‘twitterspere.’ First there were jokes and photo-shopped images of Ed Miliband looking all ‘Beauty and the Geek.’ Then came the wave of preening and teenage commentary. On a quick glance you could see pouting and the words, ‘me thinking about Ed,’ over and over. Although this is gross, it strikes me as merely your average case of internet hysteria. However, the Sun Newspaper, as their conduct would suggest, consider this story worth breaking ethical boundaries for.

‘Abby,’ was responsible for '#milifandom's' inception. This ‘one direction-esque,’ ‘throw your pants in the air like you just don’t care’ mania, has brought The Sun newspaper to her door. Only, how did they find her? The Sun tracked down Abby’s home and that of her grandparents for comment of the ‘#milifandom’ movement. The reporters cited the electoral roll as the source which lead them to the front door, an impossibility as Abby wasn’t registered. So the Sun, who are currently under inquiry, presumably unethically obtained the respective location of both Abby and her Grandparents from her online activity, through twitter. Is obtaining comment on the ‘#millifandom’ affair really worth such an ethical breach?

a few days prior to this one I wrote on the subject of press bias and whether or not press influence can affect voter turnout (Saturday, May 2nd.) Whatever your view on our mainstream media, I wonder whether campaign executives are concerned about the rise in social media and other online platforms and their ability to reach our nation in a way that they just don’t understand.

The News Corp media mogul Rupert Murdoch has a 34% share of the domestic newspaper market and has been known to play an active role in the direction of entities like the Sun. However, as his overall market share is effectively diluted with the continued growth of new digital media, could it be that the Sun and indeed all those media entities under Rupert’s grasp would begin a subtle affront on a leftist message, that ‘monopolism’ is bad, and is Abby’s run in with News Corp the beginning of this?

Ed Miliband told the Leveson inquiry into press freedoms earlier this year that he believed in much lower ownership limits and re-bolstered his views during his kitchen date with Russell. This being said it is clear that the mogul would see the prospect of a more leftist government as a threat to his power but it is unclear as to why the Sun newspaper sees the online wittering of teenage girls as a threat.