The view of image as a transaction between what a candidate does and the evaluative response that voters have to it creates at least three critical questions as yet unanswered in the literature of political communication. First, although the power of the media to affect the success or failure of political campaigns and candidates has been demonstrated by researchers and is popularly believed, do the views of individual media members regarding the qualities necessary for presidential candidates differ significantly from those of the electorate? Second, although voters share many beliefs about the personal qualities that presidential candidates ought to possess, do these attributes vary from presidential election to election? Finally, although voter assessment of a candidate's image is a major determinant of voter behavior and voters have a mental picture of an ideal candidate that they use to evaluate actual candidates, do the evaluative dimensions differ by party affiliation? The answers to these questions were determined from the results of a survey of 236 professional journalists covering and 444 voting citizens attending presidential rallies in New Hampshire in 1988 and 1992.

This study examines the influence of five communication modalities on voters' perceptions of candidates during what Popkin terms"the distant phase" of the presidential primary campaign. During the final week of the New Hampshire primary campaign, researchers surveyed 315 prospective voters in four states whose primaries followed New Hampshire's by 1, 2, 4, and 5 weeks. The results revealed that political talk radio exerted the greatest influence on voters' perceptions of Bob Dole and considerable impact on perceptions of Steve Forbes. In addition, prospective voters' conversations with other people, television news, and candidate spots (only for Forbes) exerted modest influence on voters' perceptions of Republican candidates.Much less is known about the influence of communication modalities in presidential primary campaigns than in general election campaigns (Jewell, 1974). This is ironic because the potential of communication to influence voters'

No abstract

Presidential debates traditionally attract millions of viewers and heavy press coverage. There is much evidence that the media interpretation of these events is influential even for people who have viewed the debates themselves. This study examines the 1996 evening news coverage and postdebate specials of ABC, CBS, NBC, and CNN, exploring the way television journalists constructed the candidates' debate goals and expectations, their rhetorical strategies, and the effects of the debate.