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January 17, 2007
New Report Dissects Impact of Web 2.0 on Election 2006
The good folks at the Pew Internet Project have come out with a report analyzing how the public used the Internet and other media during the 2006 election cycle. While the percentage of Americans relying on newspapers and magazines for political coverage declined dramatically over the last decade - from 60% to 34% for newspapers and from 11% to 2% for magazines - the percentage of Americans relying on the Internet grew from 3% to 15%. (Radio remained stable, hovering at around 17%.)
Altogether, nearly half of all Internet users, or 31% of the general population, say they went online to gather political information and exchange it via email. This group, which Pew refers to "campaign Internet users," adds up to 60 million Americans. Nearly one-quarter of these campaign Internet users (23%), appear to be forming "a new online political elite." By this, Pew means these Internet users were actively engaged in online political discourse, including publishing their own political commentary online, sharing someone else's commentary, creating political audio/video, or sharing other people's audio/video. So if you blogged about politics, created a political YouTube video or circulated a political video you found on blip.tv, mazel tov - you're among this new online politirati. Granted, only one percent of these folks posted original audio or video online, but this is the first political cycle in which these tools were readily available to a broad public. But that one percent managed to bring us the Macaca Moment and Conrad Burns imitating a narcoleptic - and this probably contributed to the Dems regaining the Senate. So if you thought YouTube was influential this time around, imagine what'll be like in '08.
In case you're wondering if Democrats and Republicans consume political media differently, it appears they do, but not by much. The Pew data shows no difference among Dems and Repubs when it came to the Internet or newspapers. Democrats were more likely to rely on newspapers as a source, along with CNN and MSNBC. Republicans, on the other hand, were more likely to watch Fox News and listen to the radio. Take note, my NPR brethren! -andy
Posted by acarvin at January 17, 2007 5:13 PM
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