ABSTRACT
In modern democratic societies, election campaigns have been portrayed as a three-player game involving the candidates, the media, and the voters (Covington, Kroeger, Richardson, & Woodward, 1993). Candidate images and campaign issues conveyed by the news media become important determinants of voting decisions (Choi & Becker, 1987). The media have emerged to fill the power vacuum created by the declining influence of political parties (Patterson, 1989) and have become a pivotal corner of the candidate-media-voter triangle, the so-called “golden electoral triangle” (Buchanan, 1991).
