More Americans Engaging Politically With Information Technology

Fully 46 percent of all Americans have used the Internet, e-mail or cell phone text messaging to get news about the campaign, share their views and mobilize others, according to The Internet and the 2008 Election, a report from the Pew Internet & American Life Project.

Further, the proportion of Americans going online on a typical day at the tail end of the primary season to get political news or information has more than doubled since a comparable point in the 2004 race-from 8 percent of all adults in spring 2004 to 17 percent of all adults in spring 2008.

These are among the highlights of a new national survey of 2,251 American adults by the Pew Internet & American Life Project between April 8 and May 11. The poll found, among other things, that younger voters are among the most active and intense Internet users. These online voters are more likely to support Democrat Barack Obama and that means his partisans were significantly ahead of Hillary Clinton's supporters online in the endgame of the Democratic race. In addition, Obama backers have a higher profile in some online areas than supporters of Republican John McCain.

Three online activities have become especially prominent as the presidential primary campaigns have progressed:

• First, 35 percent of Americans say they have watched online political videos -- a figure that nearly triples the reading the Pew Internet Project got in the 2004 race.
• Second, 10 percent say they have used social networking sites such as Facebook or MySpace to gather information or become involved. This is particularly popular with younger voters: Two-thirds of Internet users under the age of 30 have a social networking profile, and half of these use social networking sites to get or share information about politics or the campaigns.
• Third, 6 percent of Americans have made political contributions online, compared with 2 percent who did that during the entire 2004 campaign.

A significant number of voters are also using the Internet to gain access to campaign events and primary documents. Some 39 percent of online Americans have used the Internet to access "unfiltered" campaign materials, which includes video of candidate debates, speeches and announcements, as well as position papers and speech transcripts.