摘要：THE2008American presidential election was notable for many reasons,including ethnic, gender, and financial components (Federal ElectionCommission, 2009) as well as a robust Democratic primary contest and thehighest turnout rate in 40 years (McDonald, 2008). Also, during this cam-paign, ratings remained competitive among many print and broadcast media(Stelter & Pérez-Pe.a, 2008) despite the growth of an increasingly diverse me-diascape. As part of this process, the Internet continued to expand as a newssource and Web-based technologies became more available, interactive, andreplete with user-generated political content (Pew Research Center, 2010).These political and media developments seemed so interrelated that Sanson(2008, p. 162) wrote that this election cycle "marks the first presidentialcampaign defined by new media." Given these features, the 2008 Americanelection provides a useful opportunity to empirically analyze and compare theeffects of different forms of traditional and online media
