This study analyzed the coverage of Time, TT.S. News and World Report, and Newsweek's coverage of the 1992 presidential campaign. The four research questions posed concerned the newsmagazines' overall direction of coverage concerning the campaign; the individual and collective direction of newsmagazine coverage concerning the candidates and the election, the percentage of attribution given to the newsmagazines, or other sources; and the issues that were covered.The time period of this study spanned the traditional Labor Day kick off of the campaign to Election Day. A total of 29 lead presidential campaign stories were used for this investigation. The sentence was the unit of analysis; the method employed was a directional content analysis. A coder judged each sentence for source, subject, content, and evaluation. In addition, the coder evaluated each sentence as either positive, negative, or neutral.After the raw scores were converted into percentages, the researcher used a chi square to test the level of significance.Findings showed overall the newsmagazines were neutral in their coverage of the 1992 presidential campaign. Time, Newsweek, and U.S. News all contained more negative than positive sentences about the candidates, issues, campaigns, and party.In respect to candidate coverage, George Bush received more than 70% negative coverage in all three magazines. Bill Clinton received more negative coverage in U.S. News than positive or neutral. Time, printed more positive than negative sentences about Clinton, and Newsweek printed more neutral statements about Clinton than either U.S. News, orTime.Consistent with past research, the bulk of statements contained in the lead articles were judged to come from the writers. Finally, coverage during the 1992 campaign overwhelmingly centered around the "horserace" aspects of the campaign instead of the substantive issues. / Department of Journalism
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:BSU/oai:cardinalscholar.bsu.edu:handle/184815 |
| Date | January 1994 |
| Creators | Keas, Laura C. |
| Contributors | Ball State University. Dept. of Journalism., Popovich, Mark N. |
| Source Sets | Ball State University |
| Detected Language | English |
| Format | iv, 60 leaves ; 28 cm. |
| Source | Virtual Press |
| Coverage | n-us--- |
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