Selected news stories about the Pew Internet Project and articles citing our data.
Study illustrates power of the Internet in political campaigns
1/17/2007 | 
Coverage
Frank Davies, The Mercury News, Politics & Government
'"Candidates and those who run their campaigns have known for some time how the Internet has energized politics and reshuffled the old rules of how office-seekers, the media and the public operate. A study released Wednesday about online activities and the 2006 election shows just how dramatic that shift has been.
Americans who received most of their political information online (15 percent) has doubled since the previous midterm election in 2002. And almost a third of the public - 31 percent - used the Internet during the 2006 campaign to get political news and discuss the election through e-mail.
Those findings came from a telephone survey of 2,562 adults, conducted for the Pew Internet and American Life Project between Nov. 8 and Dec. 4, and included interviews with 200 people who use cell phones only, to reflect the growing number of people without traditional land lines.
Spurred by greater broadband use, a growing number of Internet political activists - about 14 million people, according to the survey - are generating and sharing political content, including video clips that had a major impact on some races.
"There's a viral, grassroots system for sharing information now that gets around the traditional gate-keeping function of the mainstream media," said Lee Rainie, director of the project for the nonpartisan Pew Research Center, which reports on trends and attitudes.
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