Abstract:
At the turn of the 21st century, the U.S. public flocked to the Internet, social media, and other digital tools. Political candidates took note, and integrated these into campaigns. These tools allowed politicians to reach the public directly, bypassing the journalists who once were the only way to reach mass audiences. As digital communication has increased, it is unclear how much journalistic mediation these tools receive. This study analyzed news coverage of incumbent Barack Obama's and opponent Mitt Romney's digital communication in the 2012 U.S. presidential campaign. The researcher identified 292 articles (containing 372 specific mentions) from 10 leading newspapers and The Associated Press that mentioned Obama's or Romney's campaign websites, Twitter, Facebook, and mobile applications. In addition to describing overall prominence, aspects mentioned, tone, and level of mediation coverage, the study compared coverage by candidate and by specific tool. Of 20,968 articles about Obama's and Romney's campaigns carried by the news outlets, only 1.4% mentioned digital tools or messages. Further, prominence for the stories was low, with 53.4% running inside sections and only 6.2% on the front pages. Within the stories, mentions of the candidates' digital tools were quite brief. Only eight stories, (0.04% of all coverage) were wholly devoted to digital communication. The mentions most often focused on message content (covered in 57.5% of the mentions), followed by use of digital tools for political means (41.4%). Fact-checking (18.3%) and the use of digital tools for attacking politics (10.8%) were rarely discussed. Nearly half of the mentions had no tone, and more than half of the mentions had little to no mediation, suggesting little critical analysis of digital communication. Journalists were most likely to cover websites and Twitter than the other tools. Obama tended to receive more coverage overall, more coverage of his Twitter feed, and more neutral coverage. Romney's mentions focused on his website and were more likely to be negative. Journalists appear to be doing little to mediate candidates' digital communication. Because of the importance of an informed voting public in U.S. democracy, this raises concerns about the future role of journalism in the political process.
