Poll: Internets now a top election news source

[CatWoman]

ABC reports that for “the first time in polls since 1996,” a new ABC News/Facebook survey “finds the Internet rivaling newspapers as one of Americans’ top two sources of news about the presidential election. It’s also the only election news source to show growth, doubling since 2000″:

One reason is the Internet’s advance overall: Seventy-three percent of adults now go online, the most in polls since the dawn of the Internet age. Forty percent use the Internet specifically for news and information about politics and the election, surpassing the previous high, 35 percent in a 2004 survey. <…>

The four in 10 adults who use the Internet for election information are highly attuned to politics; compared with other adults, they’re 22 points more likely to be following the campaign closely, 21 points more apt to plan to vote in an upcoming primary or caucus, 13 points more apt to report having voted 2004 and 10 points more likely to report being registered. That’s engagement.

http://thinkprogress.org/2008/01/03/poll-internet-now-a-top-election-news-source/

[helderheid]

1. Well NO SHIT, given how much attention campaigns get on the MSM, as well as the quality reporting!

[SteppingRazor]

2. And most people who go online to get their news get it from ... the Web sites of newspapers.

The more things change...

[CatWoman]

3. not really, SR

TalkingPointsMemo and RawStory breaks news faster than any newspaper I've seen.

[SteppingRazor]

7. Most of RawStory's stuff comes from the wires.

Especially AP and AFP -- the very same services that have been supplying newspapers in America and Europe, respectively, for a century.

And look at the current TPM. It's campaign wire includes links to the Wall Street Journal, Des Moines Register, etc.

There's some original reporting on both of these sites, but they also rely heavily on the reporting of print sources.

[madokie]

4. not me

[Uncle Joe]

6. Even if we got some of our information from them,

we can compare notes with each other with out having to go through their corporate media filter and I believe this drives them nuts, because that make it infinitely more difficult for them to put their own spin on the news. Ultimately I believe the Internet enhances critical thinking and makes the job of brain washing the American People far more difficult.

In conclusion I believe this was the primary reason they slandered and libeled Al Gore for so long with out any regard for the truth. They didn't want the primary advocate for opening up the Internet for the people in the White House.

[SteppingRazor]

8. I agree mostly with your first part, but I somewhat doubt the second.

Yes, I believe the news aggregation allowed by online news sources makes for a better news consumer -- but only if that consumer is willing to take the proper steps. If not, it actually makes for poorer critical thinking. Look at it this way: If you only go to say, Buzzflash or, conversely, The Drudge Report, you only get news from a certain angle. If you then take your news from Drudge Report and talk about it on Free Republic, you're doing the exact same thing as tuning in to Fox News. Only it's actually worse, because instead of being censored by the media gateway, you're actually self-censoring.

To the second point, I think part of the whole definition of memes (like Al Gore is a robot, Al Gore is a serial liar, etc.) is that after a while, they take on a life of their own. I think the branding of Al Gore in 2000 is less a conspiracy of journalists to keep an Internet advocate out of the White House (believe it or not, most writers and editors are actually in favor of greater freedom of information and fight tooth and nail for it time and again) and more a case of lazy journalism. As a few journalists start branding Gore a liar, it becomes easy to simply glom on to that rather than engage in critical thinking.

[Uncle Joe]

9. I guess I have more faith in the people ultimately wanting to know the truth

and the concept of individual freedom in having the opportunity to find it, rather than having it force fed to them.

I believe with the advent of radio and television, the American People to a large extent out sourced their critical thinking to the all powerful images flickering from afar. I also believe reading the same information with the ability to converse with someone on the other side of the nation or planet regarding that knowledge, is priceless to a greater perspective, even if by accident.

Your second paragraph is an argument against your first, while I'm sure many writers and editors profess a faith in greater information, how many owners and CEOs of these one way corporate mega phones feel the same way? The last time I checked six corporations owned approximately 90% of everything the American People hear on the radio, see on the television and read in newspapers or magazines and today they want to conglomerate even more. All of those writers and editors you mention work for the same handful of bosses. It was Jack Welch who felt the need to interfere with his own news division in calling the state of Florida for Bush while it was still in dispute.

Regarding Al Gore, those memes attacking Al Gore's integrity such as the ludicrous one of "Al Gore claimed to have invented the Internet", screamed for verification! That was just one sample of many lies against him by our so called "fourth estate", the integrity deficit was with them, not Al Gore and to this day I haven't seen any of them come out with an apology for the relentless slander and libel they waged against him while giving Bush a free pass to the White House. In effect, I believe they transferred the sins of the President regarding integrity on to the Vice-President because they knew after eight years of witch hunting Clinton, that was the only way Bush could come close enough to steal the selection of 2000.

I believe information in the Information Age is the equivalent of fire during the Stone Age and as the Internet grew in power and influence thereby threatening the monopoly on information held by a few owners and CEOs in the corporate media, they came to resent the most visible political champion of opening up the Internet for the people. Information = power, money and influence, one example being the exploding cost of campaign advertising in running for public office. I call the "War Against Gore" the Prometheus Treatment with the owners and CEOs playing the part of Zeus and their "lazy" journalists as you put it or pundits, the vulture only instead of taking bites from an ever healing liver, they were biting at truth and integrity with slander and libel. The nation has been paying a heavy price ever since.

[CatWoman]

10. preach it, Uncle Joe

:)

[Uncle Joe]

11. I'm out of here, have a good night CatWoman.

:hi:

[Uncle Joe]

5. I find this to be encouraging.

Thanks for the thread, CatWoman.:thumbsup: