More Than Half of Voters Used Internet for Election News

Tomado del New York Times. ¿Iremos en esa dirección en Costa Rica?


More Than Half of Voters Used Internet for Election News
By Katharine Q. Seelye

Researchers have now confirmed what was evident to most political campaigns last year — more than half of the voting-age public used the Internet last year to find out about, write about and comment on the presidential election.

About 55 percent of all adults — about three-fourths of all people who are online — said they went to the Internet for news about the election, according to a survey by the Pew Internet & American Life Project. This is the first time that more than half the country’s adults said they used the Internet for political purposes.

Two findings of the survey stand out. One is that more people are going to sites that reinforce their partisan views.

A third of those who went online for political news in 2008 said they sought out sites that agreed with their viewpoints — up from a quarter of people who said that in 2004.

There was a corresponding dip in the numbers of those who said they went to sites with no particular point of view, that is, only about a quarter of people went to neutral sites this year whereas in 2004, about a third had sought out neutral sites.

The other striking finding was that, despite the increasing role of the Internet, it is still no match for television.

In 1996, less than 5 percent of adults went online for most of their campaign news. By 2008, that had jumped to 26 percent. That seems impressive, until you look at the numbers for television.

In 1996, a little more than 70 percent of adults got most of their news about politics from television; by 2008 that number had climbed to nearly 80 percent. The debates and primary voting nights, not to mention Election Day itself, were ratings monsters for TV.

Poor old newspapers have not fared so well. In 1996, about 60 percent of people said they got most of their election news from newspapers; by last year that had plummeted to less than 30 percent. That was more than went online, but still …

Radio as the main source of campaign news fell slightly, to about 25 percent last year. Magazines were a major source of news for less than 10 percent of people in 1996 and are now the major source for less than 3 percent.

The trends are even more pronounced among people with broadband connections at home. They are twice as likely to go to the Internet for political news as they are to pick up a newspaper.

The survey, of 2,254 adults, was conducted between Nov. 20 and Dec. 4 with a margin of sampling error of two percentage points.