Our interest in studying televised legislatures was kindled by two episodes. The first was a series of rejections by the U.S. Senate between 1984 and 1986 of resolutions to permit live television coverage of floor proceedings. The second was the 1984 "Camscam affair," the media label given to a partisan war over camera coverage of U.S. House proceedings. Each episode, if nothing else, made plain the intensity of the feelings that elected representatives...