Dow Jones Insight-2008 Presidential Election Media Pulse: Obama Regains Momentum on the Issues; Economy and Financial Crisis Dom
October 14 2008 - 5:11PM
PR Newswire (US)
NEW YORK, Oct. 14 /PRNewswire/ -- According to results from the Dow
Jones Insight-2008 Presidential Election Media Pulse, the coverage
pendulum has swung back toward Barack Obama on the key tracked
issues associated with the election -- where it had been for much
of the campaign season prior to the Palin and convention bump in
September. In the nearly 20,000 mainstream media and 2 million
social media sources analyzed, the candidates' names occurred in
conjunction with one or more of the 26 tracked issues 1,395,917
times in the past 30 days, up slightly from 1,394,277 in the
previous 30-day period. The latest analysis (September 12 through
October 12) shows that Obama drew higher coverage on 10 issues to
McCain's 9, gaining the lead in six categories (bailout, faith,
abortion, immigration and same-sex marriage, all formerly too close
to call, plus NAFTA, which McCain had led in coverage in the last
analysis). McCain stayed at nine, losing NAFTA but adding Iran,
which was formerly a tie. In our previous analysis covering the
period September 8 through October 8, half of the 26 major issues
tracked by Dow Jones Insight had become too close to call, and of
the other half, McCain had outpaced Obama by 9 to 4 in terms of
share of coverage on each issue. However, in our most recent
analysis, the two candidates essentially split ownership of the
issues, with Obama grabbing a one-issue lead, and the number of
issues that were once too close to call shifted from 13 to seven.
In this analysis, only a few of the issues themselves saw
significant increases in overall coverage, relative to the other
issues (this is defined as moving up or down the list by more than
one spot). Those included taxes, which advanced two spots from last
time, and Iran, which climbed three. Education and abortion each
fell two places. Of the issues-related mentions: -- 47% were
related to the economic crisis (up 3 percentage points) -- 22% were
related to the candidates themselves (down 1 percentage point) --
17% were related to non-economic domestic issues (down 1 percentage
point) -- 14% were related to the wars and the Middle East
(unchanged) *Note that figures in the previous period don't total
100% due to rounding. Coverage of the Economy Outpaces All Other
Issues Since Super Tuesday Analysis of 20,000 mainstream media
sources tracked by Dow Jones Insight reveals that the economy has
always been the top election issue since Super Tuesday, rarely
falling behind other issues. Dow Jones Insight tracked mainstream
media coverage for the eight months beginning on Super Tuesday,
February 5, and found that: -- The economy and/or taxes drew the
highest coverage in every week except in mid- to late-May, when
McCain and Obama stepped up their dispute over whether or not to
talk with Iran, and in late July, when Obama made his trip to the
Middle East. -- The economy drew 109,356 mentions in mainstream
press sources for the entire eight-month period, compared with
100,943 combined mentions of the four tracked issues related to the
Middle East that drew the most coverage -- Iraq (23,677), Iran
(20,044), Afghanistan (21,279) and terrorism (35,943); meanwhile,
the second most frequently occurring economic issue, taxes,
generated 67,387 total mentions in the tracked timeframe. --
Breaking it down by month, the issue of the economy alone exceeded
the total combined mentions of the four Middle East issues in five
of the eight months analyzed. When the economy is combined with
taxes, the two issues exceeded the four foreign-policy topics in
six of the eight months, with May and July again being the
exceptions. Newly Discovered Phrases Confirm Campaigns' Past Shift
Toward the Personal Over the past seven days, the majority of terms
newly discovered by Dow Jones Insight appearing in relation to
Obama largely reflect coverage of the McCain campaign's efforts to
tie Obama to former Weather Underground member William Ayers (with
a total of 14,199 mentions). Additionally, the Obama team has made
subsequent efforts to remind voters of McCain's history with the
savings and loan scandal of the late 1980s and early 1990s (with a
total of 5,454 mentions). The Dow Jones Insight-2008 Presidential
Election Media Pulse provides a high-level view of a competitive
media landscape and demonstrates how candidates and issues are
covered in the media and how that coverage changes over time. Dow
Jones Insight combines proven research methodologies, trusted
content and advanced text-mining and visualization tools to deliver
strategic qualitative and quantitative media measurement metrics.
Organizations use the analysis to nurture their reputation,
demonstrate the effectiveness of their communications strategies
and achieve business objectives. The platform processes nearly a
million articles, Web pages, blogs and message board posts per day.
The charts are available at http://dowjonesinsight.blogspot.com/
and can be reproduced in print and online media. For further
information about the Dow Jones Insight solutions visit
http://www.dowjonesinsight.com/ and to learn more about The Dow
Jones Insight-2008 Presidential Election Media Pulse, please
contact Shannon Sullivan at +1 609 627 2312 or . ABOUT DOW JONES
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