The 2000 Presidential Election demonstrated that the rules that dictate the conduct of elections are fundamental in legitimating electoral processes and outcomes. For the United States, these election rules extend beyond borders, impacting millions of Americans resident overseas. Following the 2000 Election, a number of policy initiatives directed at improving the voting process for American overseas voters were undertaken. However the effectiveness of those policies was not clear. This thesis represents the first scholarly study assessing the effectiveness of the Help America Vote Act of 2002 (HAVA) and the Military and Overseas Voter Empowerment Act of 2009 (MOVE). This assessment will show that neither HAVA nor the MOVE Act have improved the electoral participation of American overseas voters. Through a comprehensive review of the historical development of absent voting legislation in the United States, it will be shown that the events of the 2000 Election should not have been surprising to anyone. This historical review will demonstrate that problems associated with ensuring the franchise for absent voters have been recurring and highly political. In this partisan atmosphere, effective solutions to ensure the franchise of American overseas voters have not emerged. The 2000 Presidential Election also highlighted the potential impact of the political activity of Americans resident overseas on political outcomes in the continental United States. Previous research has not collected or analysed data regarding the demographics, associational involvement or the political attitudes and ideological self-identification of this group. Using data collected on a survey of American voters overseas, the thesis attempts to fill this research gap by analysing how this group relate to the United States political system from abroad and their propensity to participate.

The study looks into the 2008 American Presidential Election from two sides; the way the news channels frame the event and the way a sample of the audiences interpret it. Drawing on literature concerning framing theory which describes the practices employed by mass media to present world events in familiar and understandable formats to audiences, the study examines the coverage of the 2008 American Presidential Election on three trans-border news channels broadcasting in Arabic. A number of stories covering the American election campaign broadcasted on Alarabiya, Alhurra and Aljazeera, are included. The study assesses general frames used to describe the event by each channel. The analysis reports the frames generally employed by the three channels are relatively similar, suggesting a global effect on the media in following the Anglo-American model of journalism when reporting international events. The differences appear when reporting regional issues between the two Arabic trans-border channels Alarabiya and Aljazeera on one side and Alhurra on the other suggesting a link between journalistic ideology and framing. The second part of this thesis is the exploratory audience study which attempts to provide insights into perception of Arab news coverage - particularly in Saudi Arabia. The audience study uses a questionnaire and focus group methodologies on a sample of participants with high television news consumption levels, measuring the perception of news channels credibility in specific and credibility of media in general, and exploring the possible presence of a link between consumption level of news and perceived news credibility. Moreover, examining how audience analyse news and how their opinions about the event have been shaped by media framing.