ublic's knowledge the political issues at stake and who is likely to be the nextpresident of the United States of America. (Kalb 1999, p.h2) Coverage of a political event or campaign also plays a significant role in the eye ofthe public and also to the candidate. "Candidates who do well will receive more attentionfrom the news mediaactive candidates will receive more coverage. The greater theactivity by a candidate, the more likely the candidate will receive more coverage." (Haynes1998,p.420) News coverage and their input to the public's information environmentalenvironment in presidential campaigns are very critical in determining the outcome of theelection. Elections are influenced by two factors. The first being the strength and politicalskills of the incumbent and the second being the interpretation of the incumbent'sperformance by the mass media, particularly television. A study was taken during the1996 presidential election race between Bill Clinton and Bob Dole. Clinton regainedpositive news coverage by the major television newscasts by battling with Dole overMedicare and the United States budget. This event was covered live by the media anddisplayed to the public in an encouraging manner in favor of Bill Clinton which in turnstrengthened Clinton's political image in the eye of the voters. Many news stories cameabout depicting Clinton as the strong incumbent and it proved successful with an easyvictory over Dole in the 1996 election. (Dover 1998,p.47) As seen here the mass mediacoverage does structure voters ' opinions about their political leaders. Many domestic and foreign policy issues are affected by the media in which arebrought to the politicians. These domestic issues consist of education, healthcare,poverty, and crime. The foreign policy issues at hand are the Russian relations, terrorism,and the Arab-Israeli conflict. Crime and terrorism has a high interest value amonghumans. "Sensitive to contextual cu...
