March 9, 2005

People in the U.S. have increasingly turned to the Internet for political commentary and activity, and the trend seems to be growing.

According to the Pew Internet & American Life Project, 75 million US adults got political news and information online in 2004. The majority of these people sought political news, as Pew finds that 63 million people turned to the Net for this subject in 2004, up from 34.5 million in 2000 and just 7 million in 1996.

Interestingly, in 1996, over 50% of online political news consumers said they turned to the Net for political news because other media like newspapers or network TV didn't give them all the information they needed.

By 2004, however, only 33% agreed with that statement, while 58% cited convenience as the reason they went online for political news.

Drilling down even further, Pew found that 50% of those people who cited the convenience of online political news went most often to the sites of major news organizations, while exactly 33% turned to news sites of commercial organizations like AOL.

The Internet was an important part of the 2004 US presidential election process. For example, a number of candidates cited specific Web sites during the debates.

It is therefore not surprising that Harris Interactive found in September 2004 that 52% of online adults in the US said they relied on the Internet either "a lot" or "some" for political information, issues and elections, compared to 46% of online adults who said the same in January.

Source: eMarketer