Effect of Media Coverage

Interesting overview of the media cover in the campaign from Pew

 


 

• Obama received no clear bounce in media coverage from the third debate. In the four days after the October 22 debate, which focused on foreign policy, 15% of Obama's coverage was positive while 28% was negative. That is similar to the previous week, which followed the second debate. Romney's coverage during those same four days was also largely unchanged from the week before, 21% positive and 34% negative.

• Hurricane Sandy dominated the news, but not campaign coverage. In the election's final week, only 4% of the campaign-related coverage was about the storm. And of those few campaign stories that focused on the hurricane, the treatment of Obama was mostly neutral or mixed. However, coverage of the storm may have had a more indirect benefit for Obama by depicting him in passing references responding to the disaster. While the president was not a major figure in these stories, they have may have influenced public attitudes about him.

• In the final week of the campaign, both Fox News and MSNBC became even more extreme in how they differed from the rest of the press in coverage of the two candidates. On Fox News, the amount of negative coverage of Obama increased-from 47% in the first four weeks of October to 56% the final week. Meanwhile, positive discussion of Romney grew, from 34% of segments to 42%. On MSNBC, the positive coverage of Obama increased from 33% during most of October to 51% during the last week, while Romney's negative coverage increased from 57% to 68%.

• The conversation on the three social media platforms studied moved in different directions during the final week of the campaign. On Twitter, Romney had his best stretch of the general election in the final week; 32% of the conversation was positive compared to 45% negative. On blogs, however, it was Obama who had his best week of the entire period studied; positive posts were roughly equal to negative (28% positive to 27% negative). The tenor of the Facebook conversation changed relatively little-the conversation about Obama stayed steady and Romney's declined a small amount.

• On Election Day, the differences between the three social media platforms emerged again as each served a different purpose. Twitter was the most instantaneous; 53% of the conversation involved users sharing breaking news or personal opinions. On Facebook, half (50%) the conversation involved personal political expressions. Blogs were more focused on the meaning of the election results, where 47% of the discussion involved post-mortem insights or the relaying of stories regarding broader themes.