Broad topics we might want to look at

Another, kind of simple, thing we can look at would be the various sources of media primarily used, and how they correlate to votes cast... So, for instance, we can see if there is a correlation between Cable News network ratings during election season, and how the parties perform...

I.e., is there a correlation between the avg amount of viewers in the US that MSNBC gets, and the performance of Democratic party on election day?

it might give insight into whether or not media bias has measurable effect.

I think this question has a lot of potential, but I think we may want to separate it into two distinct questions. First, is there a clear connection between a news network and a party (i.e. MSNBC and the Democrats or Fox and the republicans), such that the network is designed to increase support for that party. Second, given we do find a connection between the two, does a positive relationship exist such that increases in viewership coincide with increases in party performance on election day.

I think there's a dangerous confounding variable, insofar as news networks draw viewers that share ideological inclination (the Republican-inclined choose to watch Fox), and moreover adjust their stances to match what they think their viewers want or to fill a perceived niche in the larger news market (as MSNBC may currently be attempting to do). If we're gathering cross-sectional data (as we will be, yes?), I'm hard-pressed to think of a way to unravel that, given that respondents will be poor at judging to what extent their viewpoints led to their choice of news, and to what extent they have evolved from their news choices.

Not to be unconstructive, it's a really good question to ask, I'm just drawing a blank at present on how we might home in on it...