Each campaign cycle since 1994 has generated its own internet story. In 1994, it was the appearance of the first campaign Web site by Senator Diane Feinstein. In 1996, Web politics turned Presidential. One of the top stories was that Republican nominee Bob Dole gave the wrong url for his site during a nationally televised debate. But he didn\u2019t seem to suffer any serious problem from the gaffe, demonstrating how peripheral internet politics was to the basic structure of the campaign just a decade ago.<\/p>\n\n
By 1998, some clear internet effects began to emerge. Independent Jesse Ventura stunned the Minnesota political establishment by conducting an insurgent campaign that featured email communications. Two years later, GOP presidential candidate John McCain proved that candidates could raise a lot of money online and the power of the internet as a source of political news and information was well documented.[1. See \u201cInternet Election News Audience Seeks Convenience, Familiar Names\u201d available at https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/internet\/PPF\/r\/27\/report_display.asp<\/a>]<\/p>\n\n In the mid-term election of 2002, work by the Pew Internet & American Life Project and the Pew Research Center for The People & The Press showed that many voters were turning to the internet to get political information from multiple sources. The newest class of websites shaping online politics that year was interest group and advocacy organization sites. <\/p>\n\n In the presidential race of 2004, Howard Dean\u2019s campaign showed political actors how social networking tools like blogs and Meetups could be effective in generating voter interest, in recruiting and motivating volunteers, and changing the interplay between citizens and campaigns. <\/p>\n\n The 2006 campaign produced its own story lines. Many of the online activities from previous years matured and were quickly embraced and built into the campaigns of 2006. More political Web sites emerged \u2013 both by campaigns and interest groups.\u00a0 More money was raised. More online activism was evident. People exchanged more emails about politics and wrote more political blogs. <\/p>\n\n Innovations emerged in 2006 as well. Outside the boundaries of the internet, robo-calls (pre-recorded telephone calls soliciting votes) became a prominent part of the political environment.[2. See \u201cRobo-calls in the 2006 campaign,\u201d available at https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/internet\/PPF\/r\/197\/report_display.asp<\/a>] On the internet, the rise of online video as a political force was a major story. <\/p>\n\n This report attempts to document the varied uses of the internet by citizens during the 2006 campaign. It builds on similar work that began in 1996 by the Pew Research Center for The People & The Press and has been repeated and updated in each campaign since then. <\/p>\n\n While material gathered in this survey repeats questions from past surveys, there were some notable changes in this year\u2019s version that have reduced our capacity to do election-to-election comparisons. We did not lightly give up that capacity to look at some trends, but we felt that adjusting the structure of the survey was necessary to reflect the technical and social realities of 2006. Simply put, people think about the internet differently from the way they did in 1990s when many of our original questions about the internet and politics were formulated. <\/p>\n\n Perhaps the most significant change comes in our definition of campaign internet users or, as we have called them in the past, political news consumers. In our past work, we have defined them as people who answered \u201cyes\u201d to the question: \u201cPlease tell me if you ever do any of the following when you go online. Do you ever look for news or information about politics and the campaign?\u201d\u00a0 <\/p>\n\n The language felt a bit archaic and somewhat imprecise. So, we have now defined campaign internet users as anyone who answered \u201cyes\u201d to one of several questions in our survey. \u00a0Campaign internet users in this report are those who say the internet was one of the top two news sources they used to get news \u201cabout the November elections\u201d or who say \u201cyes\u201d to this query: \u201cDid you get any news or information about the November elections on the internet or through email?\u201d Or they answered \u201cyes\u201d to this: \u201cDid you send or receive emails about the candidates or the campaigns \u2013 either with personal acquaintances or political organizations \u2013 or did you not happen to do this?\u201d<\/p>\n\n Using these questions, we calculate that 31% of all American adults (or 46% of internet users) can be considered campaign internet users. This figure isn\u2019t precisely comparable to our past reports about the size of the campaign internet user group because it was constructed in a different way. Nevertheless, in some key instances it is still reasonable to talk about growing use of the internet for political information and conversation \u2013 and we do so.<\/p>\n\n Several other changes in the way we conducted and report on our survey are discussed in the section on Methodology at the end of this report. <\/p>\n\n The basic findings about the media universe in this survey continue to highlight patterns that have been well documented in previous work by The Pew Research Center for The People & The Press. The news market has been fracturing for more than a decade and news audiences have become increasingly politicized as trust in the mainstream media has declined and public perceptions of the credibility of mainstream news sources has fallen.[3.numoffset=”3″ See \u201cOnline Papers Modestly Boost Newspaper Readership\u201d available at http:\/\/pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/politics\/reports\/display.php3?ReportID=282<\/a> and \u201cNews Audiences Increasingly Politicized\u201d available at: http:\/\/pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/politics\/reports\/display.php3?ReportID=215<\/a>] Over this period, the internet is playing an ever-more-important role in the news diet of Americans.[4. See \u201cOnline Papers Modestly Boost Newspaper Readership\u201d available at http:\/\/pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/politics\/reports\/display.php3?ReportID=282<\/a>. Also see \u201cInternet Sapping Broadcast News Audience\u201d available at: http:\/\/pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/politics\/reports\/display.php3?ReportID=36<\/a>] A decade ago, just one-in-fifty Americans got the news with some regularity from what was then a brand new source \u00ad– the internet. Today, nearly one-in-three regularly get news online.<\/p>\n\n In addition to asking detailed questions about political news consumption, we asked Americans about their consumption of general news. To capture a snapshot of news consumption on a \u201ctypical day,\u201d we queried respondents about their behavior \u201cyesterday\u201d (the day before the respondent was contacted to take our survey), Americans report the following:<\/p>\n\nWe created a new definition of \u201ccampaign internet users\u201d in this survey.<\/h3>\n\n
The American news mediascape is in flux.<\/h3>\n\n
Television still dominates the typical day of news consumption.<\/h3>\n\n