This thesis examines the factors affecting the outcome of the 1948 presidential election. The factors which will be take up are not a complete list of all those influences on the election but will be those which appeared most frequently in writings on the subject and those which, in the writer's opinion, exerted the strongest influence. By combining specific studies of the tree large pivotal states, with the investigation of general factors affecting the election, it is believed that certain rather definite conclusions can be drawn concerning what happened in the country as a whole.

This study investigates how television coverage of the 1968 Democratic National Convention largely determined the negative public impression of the convention and its candidate. The coverage had a definite effect on the workings of the convention through the images and information it conveyed to the delegates. The coverage also shaped the broadcast picture of the event by linking the convention to the violence in the streets.