This page is part of an undergraduate assignment at Davidson College.
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Introduction
When thinking about what aspect of political manipulation of the media to investigate this semester, the political news coverage of the upcoming Democratic primaries had been more or less dominated by different candidates’ endorsement announcements. Most of the sound bites had to do with what big name celebrities were endorsing whom. This was not just limited to late night comedy shows making jokes either, but even more serious sources would give it some attention, perhaps critical, but nevertheless attention. However, I did not give these celebrity endorsements much thought because I do as a rule write them off as meaningless. One announcement that really did strike me was Gore’s announcement of endorsing Dean over Liebermann, which truly seemed to legitimate the doctor from New Hampshire. Also, whenever I turned on the news or read a paper around then, I was bombarded with the Gore announcement as they were anticipating it, raving during it, and laughing after it. Gore’s endorsement announcement certainly seemed to impact media coverage. But what about the other endorsement announcements throughout the primaries? In this paper, I am going to look at this “framing” relationship between endorsements by politicians and newspaper coverage. The politicians must think that it helps them; otherwise, they would not make it such a priority.
© Davidson College, 2004, Department of Political
Science, Davidson College, Davidson, NC 28035
Send comments, questions, and suggestions to Dr.
Patrick Sellers, Professor of Political Science.
Created: 4/29/2004. Last updated: 5/03/2004.