Net's growing role in politics
The Internet and cable news are set to play a larger role than ever before campaign information, as smaller numbers of Americans are turning to broadcast TV and newspapers, according to a new report from The Pew Internet & American Life Project and the Pew Research Center for People and the Press. More than a third of the nation's Internet users have gone online to get news and information, exchange e-mails about the race, or participate online in the current political campaign -- that's more than 40 million people.Still, even among wired Americans, the Internet still lags far behind television and newspapers as voters' main source of political news. But the importance of the Internet continues to grow, and it now rivals radio as a primary source of political information.
Young people are increasingly learning about the campaign from comedy shows such as the Daily Show and Saturday Night Live, but those people don't know much about the current campaign, the report found. The Internet, on the other hand, has a well-informed audience, Pew found.
•22% of all Internet users have gone online to get news or information about this campaign. The figure equals the number who had done this during all of the off-year elections in 2002, so there is some reason to think that by the end of this campaign that many more Internet users will have gotten at least some news or information about the political races of 2004.
•18% of all Internet users have sent or received emails about the candidates or campaigns either from their acquaintances or from groups or political organizations.
•7% of all Internet users have participated in online campaign activities such as contributing to discussion groups, signing petitions, or donating money.
Many online political enthusiasts have done all three of these activities online -- meaning 34% of online Americans have done some form of information gathering in politics via the Internet -- more than 40 million people.
Still, TV is still the top source of information, even among Internet users.
"While there is great interest in the role of the Internet as a new tool to inform and mobilize voters, other media are far more important to Americans as they gather material related to politics," Pew says. "Even among Internet users, TV reigns supreme. Some 76% of all Internet users still say they get most of their news from TV. And the Internet even trails newspapers among Internet users (37% to 20%). Among Internet users, 20% say the Internet is the place they have been getting most of their news and 17% say radio is the place they have gotten most of their news.
"Internet users rely on big media companies for their news, rather than exclusively Internet-based news operations. Some 41% of Internet users get political news regularly or sometimes from portals like AOL; 38% get political news sometimes or regularly from the Web sites of major news organizations such as CNN and the New York Times; 10% get political news from online news magazine and opinion sites such as Slate.com.
"Internet users are more information hungry, as a rule, than non-Internet users. They are more likely to consult all kinds of media for information. Thus, Internet users who get political news are more likely than non-Internet users to get political information from cable news networks, their daily papers, talk radio, political talk shows, National Public Radio, print newsmagazines, C-Span, and comedy shows."
Jan 13, 2004 | E-MAIL | SAVE | PRINT | PERMALINK | DISCUSS(0)
Discussion
0 comments about 'Net's growing role in politics'Post a comment
Site Map
