{"id":88872,"date":"2013-03-17T13:04:15","date_gmt":"2013-03-17T18:04:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/2013\/03\/17\/the-media-and-campaign-2012\/"},"modified":"2024-04-14T04:11:56","modified_gmt":"2024-04-14T09:11:56","slug":"the-media-and-campaign-2012","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/journalism\/2013\/03\/17\/the-media-and-campaign-2012\/","title":{"rendered":"The Media and Campaign 2012"},"content":{"rendered":"

[youtube https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=jFG4imtvETk?rel=0]<\/p>\n\n\n

Lessons Learned About the Media from the 2012 Election<\/b><\/h3>\n\n

One of the key findings in the new State of the News Media report is that at a time of diminishing reporting resources, many newsmakers, in political, public and corporate life, are finding new ways to get their messages to the public\u2014often with little or no journalistic vetting.<\/p>\n\n

The five key lessons about the media and the 2012 presidential race include evidence of how the candidates and their allies were more effective in getting their messages through.<\/p>\n\n

1)<\/strong>\u00a0In the 2012 race for the White House, journalists played a smaller role in shaping what voters heard about the presidential candidates. <\/b>In the 2012 campaign, only about one quarter of the statements in the media about the character and records of Barack Obama and Mitt Romney came directly from journalists while about half came from political partisans. In 2000, half of the statements about the presidential candidates came from the media and only about one-third from the partisans.<\/p>\n\n

2)<\/strong>\u00a0The candidates and their allies used that leverage to push negative messages about their opponent through the media<\/b>. \u00a0Almost three-quarter of the statements about each candidate\u2019s character and record were negative compared with less than 30% positive. In 2008, most of those statements about Obama were positive while McCain\u2019s was moderately more negative than positive.<\/p>\n\n

3)<\/strong>\u00a0<\/b>Horserace coverage was down, but coverage of the issues didn\u2019t fill that gap. <\/b>In 2012, the amount of coverage devoted to tactics, strategy and polls declined to 38%, down from 53% in 2008. But that attention to policy issues\u2014both foreign and domestic\u2014barely budged, inching up from to 22% in 2012 compared with 20% four years earlier.<\/p>\n\n

4)\u00a0<\/strong>Obama made greater use of social media messaging than Romney, but the overall conversation in social media was negative toward both men. <\/b>In the period studied by Pew Research, for example, the Obama team produced about 25 times more Twitter posts than the Romney campaign. But on blogs, Twitter and Facebook, users were consistently more negative than positive about both candidates\u2014although Romney fared somewhat worse.<\/p>\n\n

5)\u00a0<\/strong>More spending on political ads did not translate into a bigger audience for media outlets. <\/b>A record $2.9 billion was spent on political advertising on local television, but news audiences fell in the key local news timeslots. The overall audience for broadcast network news also declined and on the three major cable news channels, CNN, MSNC and Fox News, the overall audience barely inched up.<\/p>\n\n

Related Research<\/b><\/h4>\n\n

“The Master Character Narratives in Campaign 2012\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n\n

\u00a0<\/b>\u201cWinning the Media Campaign 2012\u201d <\/a><\/p>\n\n

\u00a0<\/b>\u201cHow the Presidential Candidates Use the Web and Social Media\u201d <\/a><\/p>\n\n

<\/b>\u201cState of the News Media 2013\u201d chapters on local television news, network news and cable news<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One of the key findings in the new State of the News Media report is that at a time of diminishing reporting resources, many newsmakers, in political, public and corporate life, are finding new ways to get their messages to the public\u2014often with little or no journalistic 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