This study examines how electoral participation was portrayed in print news coverage of the 2008 American presidential election. Specifically, 2,241 instances of three terms— vote, voter, and voting—were subjected to quantitative and qualitative coding techniques and compared to a larger project that analyzed more than 26,000 instances of these terms in coverage of 15 presidential elections, 1948 to 2004. The findings show that print coverage of electoral participation in 2008 featured the lowest level of game framing, the second-highest level of mobilization efforts, the most positive tone, and the most mentions of electoral challenges of the past 60 years. The article interprets these trends in light of journalistic routines and the potential socialization effects of such coverage.
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