The Television still was America’s number one resource in the election, as reported by Tech News World, though they say it is on a gentle down climb. Statistics show that in the 2000 and 2004 elections about 68% of people got election news from their televisions. However, in 2008 it was supposedly dropped down 8%. The reason why the number is still over half is probably due to the fact that the older generations would still prefer to watch election coverage on television than via the Internet. Carroll Doherty, associate director of the Pew Research Center says, "I would expect that on the night of the primary, you're getting people who are interested in politics, so there may be age differences there.” It seems hard to imagine the television not being a prominent part of the election process, but as our generation becomes the majority; it appears that television statistics will continue to fall while Internet use statistics will rise.
People are still relying on newspapers as well, though not like our grandfathers did. It can be questioned whether the newspaper articles online is part of the new technology or the old, but it still accomplishes the same job. In Pew’s surveys people of ages across the board turn to Internet new sites. MSNBC has the higher vistitors at 26% followed by CNN and Yahoo. Drudge Report, MySpace, and Youtube also sit low on the list, each below 3%. A more detailed graph can be seen below of the changes in online Internet newspaper readers.
Resources:
Election 2008: Web Gains But TV Still Rules by Katherine Noyes
The Internet's Role in Campaign 2008 By Aaron Smith
I find it very interesting that Tv was still the dominant medium in this past election. I for one used the internet far more than the television. I even watched the debates via my computer. Intertesting fact!
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