by Lee Rainie, Director and John Horrigan, Associate Director for Research
The number of Americans who got most of their information about the 2006 campaign on the internet doubled from the most recent mid-term election in 2002 and rivaled the number from the 2004 presidential election year.
In all, 15% of all American adults say the internet was their 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.
While television and newspapers still dominate political communication for the majority of Americans, there is now a group of citizens who use the internet more than newspapers. They are relatively young — under 36 years old — and they have broadband connections at home. Some 35% of those in that cohort say the internet was their main source of political news during the 2006 campaign, compared with 18% who cite newspapers. For older broadband users, the internet still seems to be a supplemental source of political information and activity.
A new online political elite is also emerging as 23% of campaign internet users became online political activists.
For the first time in our politics and the internet surveys we asked respondents whether they had created and shared political content and found that among campaign internet users:
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- 8% posted their own political commentary to a newsgroup, website or blog.
- 13% forwarded or posted someone else’s political commentary.
- 1% created political audio or video recordings.
- 8% forwarded or posted someone else’s political audio or video recordings.
In all, 23% of campaign internet users (or 11% of internet users and 7% of the entire U.S. population) had done at least one of those things. That translates into about 14 million people who were using the “read-write Web” to contribute to political discussion and activity.
