Media and Presidential Nomination Campaigns: When Bad News Becomes Good News (or at least a little better)
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.15763/issn.2374-7781.2008.28.0.343-359Abstract
This paper examines the research in media and presidential nomination campaigns as it has emerged during the post-reform era and moved into the new millennia. While there has been ample progress in the field, most notable has been the change in tone in the research from “bad” news to “good” news. Interpretations from the most recent research in the area suggest that the news media do not perform as poorly as judged in the earlier decades, at least in terms of providing information to voters. Moreover, voters are now portrayed not as naïve citizens who are easily manipulated by the media, but rather more resilient to media manipulation, and active consumers of information for political learning purposes.References
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