A study investigated whether reliance on television rather than on newspapers affected the way people made voting decisions. Specifically, it focused on whether television reliance was associated with greater candidate image evaluation and newspaper reliance with greater issue importance in the prediction of voter preferences. Telephone interviews were conducted with 97 adults two months before, immediately before, and immediately after the November 1980 Presidential elections. In addition, cross-sectional data were collected from a sample of 470 adults. Subjects responded to questions concerning their candidate preference and media use. They also responded to questions concerning the images of each candidate and the perceived stance of each candidate on several issues. The results showed that in their subjective estimates of how much the personal qualities (images) of the candidates entered into their voting decisions, the television reliant respondents were more likely to give higher estimates than were the newspaper reliant respondents. In addition, more voter preference was accounted for by image favorability among the television reliant than among the newspaper reliant respondents. No difference was found between the groups in their attribution of importance to the candidates' stances on the issues. (FL)