The Fourth Branch of Government

The first part of this dissertation explores whether interest group-sponsored political advertising campaigns influence how journalists frame health policy debates. The paper employs propensity score matching techniques, media content analysis and a modified version of the Herfindahl-Hirschman Index to discern whether a prodigious and concentrated advertising campaign that aired during the health care reform debate under President Obama influenced newspaper coverage of the Affordable Care Act in markets that were exposed to the advertisements.