This study content analyzed the on-screen visuals (i.e., candidate quotes, live Twitter feed, and poll results) displayed during the final presidential debate on the ABC News=Yahoo News live-streaming online coverage. Gatekeeping and research on political campaign coverage were used to provide rationale about the nature of the on-screen visuals. Results largely confirmed previous research into presidential campaign coverage: The on-screen visuals revealed a reliance on elite sources (media-related professionals and public figures), the on-screen visuals were largely neutral in nature for the candidates (although there was a slight pro-Obama advantage in the tweets and a slight pro-Romney advantage in the quoted material shown on-screen), and the on-screen visuals focused on horserace, strategy, and image at the expense of issue and policy discussion.Debates are a key element during presidential campaigns and are oftentimes the climax of a campaign that has spanned several years. Debates also attract millions upon millions of television viewers. The 2012 presidential debates were no different; the first debate reached an approximate 67.2 million viewers (Nielsen, 2012a), the second debate saw viewership drop slightly with 65.6 million viewers (Nielsen,
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