What Influences the News Coverage that Candidates
Receive on Issues?
A Look at Same-Sex Marriage Coverage in the 2004 Presidential
Election
Introduction
Introduction | Background | Expectations | Data | Results | Conclusions | Appendix
The role of the media in covering political primaries and elections
has long been the focus of many papers, dissertations and lectures. Should
the media be setting agendas, simply reporting the statements of candidates,
or maybe a combination of the two? While this question is incredibly important
question, it is first necessary to determine the current relationship between
candidates
and the media. What tools of influence do candidates hold that empower them
to shape media coverage and how effective are they? Ultimately, what actor
is more powerful and how do they use their power and influence? These are
the questions that were raised during the initial stages of this academic research
project, and can be applied to any issue and any candidate. An examination
of how candidates attempt to gain coverage on an issue and the media’s
response to those attempts was the way in which we set out to understand
this complicated relationship. Each student chose an issue, and this paper
examines
the interactions between the media and those candidates in the Democratic
presidential primary.
Gay marriage was chosen because it has proven to be one of the most important
sleeper issues in the current battle for the White House. This new wedge issue
has been the topic of one news broadcast after another and has left many politicians
seeking refuge from the shrapnel and fallout generated by this political bombshell.
In past elections gay rights has been a minor issue in American politics, but
the November Massachusetts Supreme Court ruling in favor of same-sex marriage
substantially raised the stakes. The status quo had been up heaved and politicians
faced a new challenge, how to deal with the gay marriage in a manner that would
not jeopardize their chances at the White House in 2004.
The following research model analyzes the issue specific coverage
candidates in the Democratic Primary received from the New York Times and the
Washington
Post from September 1st through March 3rd. The model focuses on the top six
most viable candidates: Joe Lieberman, Wesley Clark, Howard Dean John Edwards,
Richard Gephardt, and John Kerry. The goal of the research is an attempt to
uncover the causes of fluctuations in the coverage that a candidate receives
on the issue of gay marriage. The possible explanatory variables used were
candidate’s press releases, the days of the week, the President’s
State of the Union Address, the Massachusetts’s Supreme Court ruling
on gay marriage, the number of days left in the primary, the debates held between
the candidates, and the number of candidates remaining in the race for the
nomination. The quantities and dates of press releases and media coverage were
gathered and quantified so that the relationships between the possible explanatory
variables and the amount of coverage could be compared and statistically analyzed.
Introduction | Background | Expectations | Data | Results | Conclusions | Appendix
By Jack Hubbard
© Davidson College, 2004, Department of Political Science,
Davidson College, Davidson, NC 28035
Send comments, questions, and suggestions to Patrick Sellers
Created: 4/27/2004. Last updated: 4/27/2004.