Broad topics we might want to look at

Personally I doubt the necessity of a "cupcake question." If we're trying to establish a person's perception of an issue, I certainly feel the most efficacious way is to get right into it with questions that are as general, neutral, and utilitarian as possible. However, I agree that a basic first question to establish the respondent's political activeness/awareness should be included so we could relate levels of political activity to utilization of various media options. That said, a question that asks about respondents knowledge of party's platforms is a bit too specific in my opinion; I'd prefer something a shade more general, like "How closely do you follow British Columbian politics?", followed by a very closely --> not at all scale.

Also, I agree with Ryan: certainly one of our core questions should investigate respondents' sources of news. In my opinion, that should go directly after the general question about general political activeness/awareness before getting into more complicated questions.