Posted on 04/17/2009 4:13:28 PM PDT by zaphod3000
Three-quarters (74%) of internet users went online during the 2008 election to take part in, or get news and information about the 2008 campaign. This represents 55% of the entire adult population, and marks the first time the Pew Internet & American Life Project has found that more than half the voting-age population used the internet to connect to the political process during an election cycle.
SNIP
This post-election survey finding comes after a similar poll in the spring of 2008. At that time, our survey found than 46% of Americans were online political users. In 2004, using a somewhat different set of metrics to define online political users, we found that they comprised 37% of the adult population.
(Excerpt) Read more at pewresearch.org ...
60% of internet users went online for news or information about politics in 2008, or 44% of all American adults.
Nearly 20% of the online population got political news on a daily basis during the campaign; more than doubled since the 2000 elections.
26% of all adults get most of their election news from the internet, compared with 28% who get their election news from newspapers -- although television remains the dominant source of political news in this country
Fully a third of online political users (33%) now say that when they get online political information most of the sites they visit share their point of view -- up from 26% who said that in 2004. This rise in partisan information-seeking matches a decline in the number of online political users who say most of the sites they visit do not have a particular point of view. In 2004, 32% of online political users said most of the sites they visited had no particular point of view and that percentage dropped to 25% in 2008. There was no difference between 2004 and 2008 in the number of online political users who said most of the sites they visit challenge their point of view. Those who are most information hungry are the most likely to browse sites that match their views.
In 2008, nearly 20% internet users posted their thoughts, comments or questions about the campaign on a website, blog, social networking site or other online forum.
The full report is here.
Pew should wise up and look at the very latest Internet political action news...that the Internet enabled grass-roots Americans to organize a 700,000 to 1 million person mass protest against insane US fiscal and tax policies in less than 6 weeks.
This has been TOTALLY ignored by the media which continues to say a few hundred to a few thousand people showed up at isolated local events on Wednesday this week.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.