ABSTRACT
The 2012 presidential election was the noisiest, nastiest contest of the new media era. Media in the campaign reflected trends established in recent presidential contests taken to extremes. The quantity of messages circulating during elections has grown radically, along with the number of media platforms. In the late 1980s, entertainment media became more politically relevant. Soon after, in the mid-1990s, the Internet debuted in elections, and campaign websites, political blogs, and basic discussion boards were established. Electoral communication reached a new phase in its development with the use of social media in the 2008 presidential campaign, which encouraged sharing information, collaborating, and networking.
