The 2012 election is more about the internet coming of age and reaching its potential as a source for news and information on presidential campaigns. A quarter of Americans say they gather news information about the 2012 presidential race over the internet. This is nearly double the number from the 2004 election!
The internet has now become the leading source of campaign news for younger voters and the role of social networking sites such as Facebook is the leading news source. Over 42% of voters ages 18 to 29 say they regularly learn about a campaign from the internet, the highest percentage for any news source.
This is up from January 2004. Just 20% of young people said they routinely got campaign news from the internet or social media sites such as Facebook. According to the quadrennial survey by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press and the Pew Internet & American Life Project on campaign news and political communication, conducted Dec. 19-30 among 1,430 adults, shows that the proportion of Americans who rely on traditional news sources for information about the 2012 presidential election has declined slightly since the 2004 campaign.
Compared to the 2000 presidential campaign, far fewer Americans now say they regularly learn about the campaign from local TV news (down 8 points), nightly network news (down 13 points) and daily newspapers (down 9 points). Cable news networks are up modestly since 2000, but have shown no growth since the 2004 campaign.
Is your campaign focused on reaching this important voter demographic? Let us at Red Digital Media help you develop your campaigns digital and interactive campaign plan. Setup a free consultation by emailing us at info@red-digitalmedia.com