What Influences the News Coverage that Candidates Receive on Issues?
A look at Education Coverage in the 2004 Presidential Election

Introduction | Background | Expectations | Data | Methods | Results | Conclusions | Appendix

My research project investigated the ways in which candidate coverage concerning education varied over our selected time period (Sept 1, 2003 to March 3, 2004).

After performing statistical analysis, I made the following conclusions:

• Only Howard Dean could increase his coverage by issuing press releases.
• The principle factors that affected candidate coverage were the passage of time and the number of candidates in the race. As time passed and the primaries drew near, candidates received more coverage. Similarly, as candidates dropped out, the remaining candidates received more coverage.
• More stories were published about the candidates and education on Tuesday and Friday, which I think is due to the newscycle, which publishes more stories mid-week. Another factor causing this increase in coverage could be the Congressional workweek, which runs from Tuesday through Thursday.
• The State of the Union address increased coverage for both Dean and Kerry, who were the front runners at when the address was given.
• Interestingly, more stories mentioned Howard Dean than any other candidate, and he had the most average stories-per-day mentioning him.

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Bibliography

By: Beth Daniel

© 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: 5/2/2004.