Tweets, Polls, and Quotes: Gatekeeping and Bias in On-Screen Visuals During the Final 2012 Presidential Debate

摘要

This study content analyzed the on-screen visuals (i.e., candidate quotes, live Twitter feed, and poll results) displayed during the final presidential debate on the ABC News/Yahoo News live-streaming online coverage. Gatekeeping and research on political campaign coverage were used to provide rationale about the nature of the on-screen visuals. Results largely confirmed previous research into presidential campaign coverage: The on-screen visuals revealed a reliance on elite sources (media-related professionals and public figures), the on-screen visuals were largely neutral in nature for the candidates (although there was a slight pro-Obama advantage in the tweets and a slight pro-Romney advantage in the quoted material shown on-screen), and the on-screen visuals focused on horserace, strategy, and image at the expense of issue and policy discussion.