ABSTRACT
This chapter considers the extent to which the issue emphases of the Barack Obama and Mitt Romney campaigns were reflected in different media outlets. It examines that the left-wing news outlets were more likely to reflect the Obama campaign's portrayal of the campaign than were right-wing outlets, and the conservative outlets paid more attention than liberal ones to Romney's campaign messages. The chapter also examines that news judgments across the course of the election to determine whether outlets aligned with one party were more likely to react to campaign developments that benefited their favored candidate. Agenda setting is particularly important during campaigns because salient issues are more likely to influence voting behavior than those that aren't on the public's radar. Americans, regardless of where they turned for news in 2012, were likely to come away from campaign coverage with a similar sense about which issues were most important.
