For Politics, The Net Passes Radio and More: Study

For political news and information and debates in election season, the Internet has slipped past radio as a prime source for Americans, according to a new study by the Pew Internet & American Life Project.

The new Pew study says about 75 million Americans—37 percent of adults and 61 percent of American Netizens—used the Net for news and information but also for discussing candidates and issues in e-mails or joining right in the process by volunteering or donating to candidates.

Called “The Internet and Campaign 2004,” the report—a joint effort of the Pew Internet & American Life Project and the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press—“confirms that the Internet has become an essential medium of American politics,” said co-author Michael Cornfield in a statement. “It has done so gradually, like other media. Yet, the Internet’s distinctive role in politics has arisen because it can be used in multiple ways.

“Part deliberative town square, part raucous debating society, part research library, part instant news source, and part political comedy club, the internet connects voters to a wealth of content and commentary about politics,” Cornfield continued. “At the same time, campaigners learned a great deal about how to use the Internet to attract and aggregate viewers, donors, message forwarders, volunteers, and voters during the 2003-2004 election cycle.”

The report said 28 percent of Netizens called the Internet a prime source of political and campaign news compared to 17 percent who called radio a prime source, while 38 percent of broadband Netizens said the Internet was a prime source compared to 36 percent who called newspapers a prime source.

Among Netizens who leaned on the Internet for their politics, the breakdown between men and women was 53 percent of male Netizens and 47 percent of female Netizens, while the ethnic/race breakdown was 77 percent of white Netizens, 9 percent of Hispanic Netizens, and 5 percent of black Netizens, the report said.

Perhaps more significant, according to the report, of the estimated 63 million who leaned on the Net for their politics 34 million used it to research candidate positions on issues, 32 million swapped e-mails with campaign-related jokes, 20 million used it to research candidate voting records, and 6 million joined Internet-based discussion forums or chat rooms.

Those who supported defeated Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry were found to be more active in cyberspace than those supporting President Bush, even though Bush got more votes from cyberspace travelers (53 percent) than Kerry (47 percent). “However,” said report authors Cornfield, Lee Rainie, and John Horrigan, “in noteworthy ways, Kerry supporters in the Internet population were more active online than Bush supporters.”

Kerry supporters were more likely than Bush supporters to use the Net for researching candidate positions, track opinion poles, swap political jokes, join online discussions, or check accuracy of candidate campaign claims, the report said, but Bush supporters were slightly more likely to use the Net to get candidate voting record information.

Where both sides most likely agreed, according to the report, was that the Internet wasn’t just for convenience’s sake anymore when it came to their political activity and behavior.

“In the early days of online politics, when the online audience was quite elite and highly politically engaged, online news consumers liked the Internet most because it provided information from non-traditional sources,” said Rainie, Cornfield, and Horrigan. “As the audience has become bigger and more mainstream, Internet users’ tastes have shifted towards a preference for using the Internet because it is convenient. It is still the case, though, that more than half of online political news consumers say they like getting news online because it enhances or goes beyond what they feel they get from television and newspapers.”