ABSTRACT
Although political communication has been a thriving field of study in communication scholarship since its inception, the major focus of this area of research has been to explore the interrelationships among policymakers, news media, and public opinion with a heavy emphasis on one-way information flow and the role of news in impacting public perceptions, attitudes, and voting behavior (Knott Martinelli, 2011). For example, the classic studies of Lazarsfeld and colleagues examined the influence of news media on public opinion and voting behavior during the 1940 and 1944 U.S. presidential elections and explicated the two-step and multi-step flow models of communication (e.g., Katz & Lazarsfeld, 1955; Katz, 1957). More recent research on agenda setting, priming, the spiral of silence, and framing has continued this trend of examining news media–public opinion relationships (e.g., Iyengar & Kinder, 1987; McCombs, 2004; Scheufele, 1999).
