Some new data from the Pew Research Center puts some numbers around the growing influence of the Internet on political campaigns. None of this is too surprising, but it quantifies what we already know: that the Internet is becoming more important in political campaigns, especially among younger people. Each election, teh Internet grows stronger and stronger. This data suggests that in 2008 the Internet may still not be the deciding medium in the election, but it certainly points to that being the case in 2012. Here are some tables from the report, which is based on a survey of 1,430 adults in the U.S.
Nearly a quarter of the population say they “regularly” learn something about the presidential campaigns from the Internet, up from 13 percent in 2004. the Internet is still trailing TV news and daily newspapers, but is now beating morning TV shows and radio:
Those numbers change if you look at the same question by the age of the respondents. A full 42 percent of 18-to-29-year-olds (double the amount from the last election) regularly get their campaign news from the Internet, handily beating all other sources including cable news (35 percent)nightly network news (24 percent) and daily newspapers (25 percent). In the 30-t0-49-year-old age bracket that number drops to 26 percent, below cable news and nightly news and tying daily newspapers. If this trend continues, the Internet will be the deciding factor by the 2012 election:
When asked where do they get most of their campaign news from (as opposed to regularly), TV still dominates among 18-to-29-year-olds, although it is losing ground fast:
Social networking sites are exerting a small but growing influence as a source of campaign information among younger people. Of the 18-to-29-year-olds who use social networking sites, a full 27 percent get campaign information from them, but only 8 percent have signed up as a “friend” of a candidate.
Here are the top sources of online campaign news for all ages. MSNBC.com, CNN.com, and Yahoo News top the list, with more than 20 percent each, and then it trails off after that (Google News is a distant fourth with 9 percent and the New York Times is seventh with 6 percent):
Is this really a surprise with the advent and growth of the Intenet?
Growing with this trend is http://www.20dc.com. We are a political social networking and citizen journalism startup. As the race for the White House heats up, we are seeing more and more traffic coming by. We are hoping with the combination of some of the unique features that we have and live-results coverage of the primaries and caucuses that we will convert more and more citizens. Some press wouldn’t be too bad either… *hint hint* TC…
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That’s 2 “teh”s in a row across 2 separate articles, Erick.
l337
This election is so different from the past because of the mass media coverage. It is really interesting to see how the candidates react to the celebrity status. I love to see the interner becoming a tool that is used to spead the infomation to they younger generation. A couple good site that have poped up are http://www.electionU.com and http://www.politicalbase.com. Both of these offer great looks on issues and politicians through the voice of regular individuals.
Lou Dobbs is on there? Isn’t that the guy who is middle of the pack for nightly ratings?
Yes, Lou Dobbs. And that’s just sad– the most pessimistic, clueless populist, fear-mongering windbag to ever stink up the tube, and his viewers are only two happy to chalk up any problem they might have to anyone but themselves. That stat is the worst news in those numbers.
The truth here is that people use the Internet to get news and information more and more versus traditional TV and Newspapers. It has also replaced the letter writing campaigns to do general fundraising but it hasn’t really increased voter participation to a great amount when you really consider all the off season and down ballot elections. When its all said and done the people who decide elections are older and richer, regardless of political affiliation and they generally get their information directly from their party or candidate and not just the internet or traditional media.
Remember the Rock the Vote and Vote or Die campaigns. Young people make a lot of noise but they don’t show up on election day. On election day facebook, myspace, bloggers and websites won’t be the deciding factors. They can hope that by being a source to remind people to vote the can use the event to support their marketing efforts to pick up some more users based on their usefulness as an general information resource.
Was this poll done by the same people that predicted Obama by 15 in New Hampshire?
Nothing more fun than lying to a poll taker. After all, nobody’s going to admit that they don’t want to vote for someone because they have funny ears, or that they really do read the paper every day.
Cool insight on Political culture and Internet.
I hate to shamelessly plug, but since I have no shame, here goes:
http://www.prim...imepolitics.com
We just launched the site. We post the best political news and commentary of the day. I wouldn’t go so far as to call us a social network but we have some social features and will be adding some new ones in the near future. Additionally, our users can post links and effectively act as editors to a portion of the site.
This promises to be a very exciting year. This election is going to saturate the media for the next 12 months. Awful if you’re sick of it but great if you’re a junkie.
I’d love some feedback on the site from the tech side of things so feel free…
i think it will save a lot of campaigning money in future to politicians and political parties
Hi Erick,
Check out the way that I incorporated this post into a set of discussion starters designed to promote discussion of current events in the classroom. It’s available on my blog. I’d love to hear your reactions.
Andy
I’d be curious as to how many of the internet respondents identify blogs vs. web site visits as their source. And how many of the blog people use an RSS reader.
in africa the same thing is happening, politicians down here are going crazy for the internet.
they mostly all have they’re own strategy for winning people online.
I’m tired of the Mass Media trying so hard to sell their views to us. We need to teach more people to get their news online.
The searck marketing aspect of things hasn’t even caught on yet with these candidates — They aren’t targeting the right keywords and they aren’t really using the internet for maximum potential — I was reading that this is primarily due to sophistication ?? That is so very odd — Search marketing, SEO and PPC are not complicated — By 2012, the internet will definitely be a new playing ground =o)