Some interesting stats, plus thoughts

Hello!  So this time, I thought I might take a look at what actually is happening in terms of the voting public that is concentrated on the Internet. 

I’ve found something that might look hopeful for that growing cloud of apathy in our politics – out of all voting-age Internet users in this past year, 73 percent of them used the Internet to access information about the upcoming elections or to participate in political activism.  Interestingly, that 73 percent is 54 percent of all voters.  At first, this seems like a great thing for increasing our voter participation – the Internet has been readily available for nearly all Americans and it’s becoming a greater force in our lives every day.  But what are the possible repercussions of this? 

For a study that took place from 2002 through 2010, the Internet is the only form of media (also included in the study were television, newspapers, radio, and magazines) that had any significant rise in viewers over those past eight years, increasing from 7 to 24 percent who made it their primary source of political information.  By comparison, television, radio, and magazines only had an increase of one percent (66 to 67, 13 to 14, and 1 to 2, respectively), and newspapers had a significant decrease, from 33 to 27 percent.  It looks like the Internet is indeed our primary source of information, whether it be political or not. 

However, on the negative side, we’ve seen dangerously extremist movements showing up all over.  Internet users seem to be split on what the effect of this is – about half say that the Internet gives these movements more of a chance to be heard and supported, while a third say that it decreases their power because everyone else has a chance to be heard.  Also, while a majority of users say that they are exposed to political views online they never would have considered otherwise, an almost-as-great percentage say that it is difficult to tell fact from fiction when they are being persuaded to support specific causes and certain viewpoints. 

Perhaps this is a good thing for the human side, though – if people are cautious about being drawn into extremist movements and actively look for alternative ways to express their views without attempting to blatantly demolish the opposing side, it might help fix this deepening divide that we currently have between our political parties.  Since they say they also worry about the accuracy of the debates, this points more to the hope that our voters will look more to themselves to seek out information and actively decide what’s in their best interests.

What I hope is that people will follow this lead and realize that not being apathetic when it comes to politics doesn’t necessarily mean that a person has to have a diehard, inflexible opinion when it comes to polarizing issues.  Instead, I believe that checking out the facts, strategizing, and compromising should be the way to go.

As always, thank you for reading!

Referenced article: Mike Sachoff, “Internet Playing Bigger Role in American Politics.”  WebProNews, March 17, 2011.  http://www.webpronews.com/internet-playing-bigger-role-in-american-politics-2011-03