Twice as many Americans use Internet as main source of political news

Alex Zaharov-Reutt
Friday, 19 January 2007 17:50

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A new report from the Pew Internet and American Life Project has discovered the Internet now plays a major role for Americans in sourcing political news, with the figure doubling for the 2006 mid-term Congressional Elections compared with 2002.

The report shows how mainstream the Internet has become in the everyday lives of US citizens, with 15% of all American adults saying the Internet was the primary source for campaign news during the election, up from 7% in the mid-term election of 2002 and close to the 18% of Americans who said they relied on the internet during the presidential campaign cycle in 2004.

Traditional media still gives a strong showing, except magazines which are only a major source for 2% of the survey respondents. By contrast, in 2006, 69% responded that TV was their major source of political news about the November mid-term elections, newspapers accounted for 34%, radio clocked up 17% and the Internet, as expressed above, accounted for 15% of the survey respondents.

Further details from the study indicated that some 25% of all Americans (or 37% of Internet users) say they got information online about the 2006 elections and 10% of Americans (15% of Internet users) say they exchanged emails about the candidates.

Pew’s report tells us that “many people used the Internet both ways – for news and for communication about politics. Altogether, 31% of all Americans (or 46% of Internet users) say they were online during the campaign season gathering information and exchanging views via email”.

Pew say that they call this “campaign Internet users” who represent more than 60 million people.

Broadband has played a major part in the trend, with the share of adult Americans with high-speed connections at home grew from 17% in November 2002 to 45% in 2006. Pew says that these “always on” internet connections draw people to online news of any kind,
political news included.

The full report is some 33 pages long and presents a detailed study and analysis of Pew’s findings, and is certainly worth reading if you’d like to know the full details.