Researchers recently have been focusing on the relationships between audience orientations toward specific media and their knowledge about political candidates and issues. The question of media dependency, particularly dependency on television versus newspapers, has been a focal point in the discussion. To test the relationship between media reliance, campaign knowledge, and campaign activity, subjects, 341 voting age Philadelphia residents contacted by telephone using random digit dialing techniques, were interviewed about their media orientations, media use, and campaign interest in the context of the 1986 senate and governor's races in Pennsylvania. A theoretical model based on two models of media dependency was used to analyze the data. The analysis indicated the importance of campaign interest as a predictor of campaign knowledge and activity but finds that media reliance, defined as the individual's identification of a specific medium as their dominant political information source, is unrelated to both campaign knowledge and campaign activity. Findings also showed the superiority of the newspaper as a medium for the transmission of political information. (Six figures and three tables of data are included, and 25 references are appended.) (MS)