Journalists, politicians, and the public all have great interest in understanding how the news media cover elections and how that coverage affects voters. However, there remains a lack of contextual knowledge about the public affairs issue content of campaign stories and whether media coverage influences or inhibits voter issue learning. To address this problem, a research design was constructed that held the media market and campaign constant; took careful consideration of alternative information sources; matched learning measures with an empirical analysis of available coverage; and controlled for individual factors that result in learning.

To examine the 2010 Indiana Senate midterm election, a quantitative content analysis was performed on newspaper and television coverage available in the Indianapolis market and candidate press releases posted on their websites. While the news media focused mostly on the strategy frame, they also provided more issue coverage than had been captured using less sophisticated methodologies such as mutually exclusive framing categories. Also, the media issue agenda produced strong and significant correlations with the candidate and public agendas, indicating that all three shared an understanding of the key topics, and that the news media conveyed those issues that were sometimes bundled with strategy coverage.

Additionally, a representative mail and Internet survey of 220 registered voters in Indianapolis collected data on media use, issue knowledge, and control variables such as demographics, alternative information sources, motivational measures, and interpersonal communication. Hierarchical regression revealed that newspaper use, news website use, voting status, and general political knowledge were the most significant independent predictors of issue knowledge. However, newspaper use and news website use were not significantly correlated, indicating different yet successful patterns of campaign media use.

Overall, these findings support recent political communication research that has found that increased campaign media use is positively associated with issue learning and voting, specifically in the context of local coverage of Senate elections. Significant contributions also were made by including Internet and mobile communication variables not previously considered, and by providing analysis of differences in media use and knowledge between groups of voters and non-voters.