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Length 2 pages In this assignment you will empirically test some of the generalizations about media coverage of congressional elections. These include the following: 1. Most coverage consists of “horse race” stories about who is ahead, and most events are interpreted in horse-race terms. 2. Coverage of candidates is usually in terms of personal qualifications, personal characteristics, or campaign organizations. 3. Few stories are about issues or contain much other news that informs voters about what a candidate or party stands for. 4. Incumbents tend to get the lion’s share of coverage in reporting. 5. Stories that get coverage are usually “bad news” for one of the candidates. In addition, by their coverage the media are implicitly telling voters what the election is about. It is about some issue difference, the president’s handling of some aspect of national problems, or how some events reflect on the honesty, competence, and performance of the parties/candidates. Sometimes the campaigns themselves are the news as in the case of a debate or new charges against a candidate. For the assignment you will compare two (2) days of news coverage of the
congressional campaigns. This will
include one of the national television networks on their standard one hour
news coverage, one national newspaper, and then either
one local paper or local television station.
The national newspapers to choose from are The New York Times, The
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