[atlarge-discuss] FYI: New Politics Report from Pew Internet and GWU's IPDI

[espresso@e-scape.net]

Some interesting and relevant information lurks below,
whether one chooses the role of political candidate or
the commoner one of "citizen trying to figure it all out".

Suffice it to say I don't much care for the notion that
anyone should be the gatekeepers of political information
or that Netizens should be passive recipients of political
messages. Thank heaven there is "the rest of the Internet"
with a creative chaos of other approaches.


<< start of forwarded material >>

-----Original Message-----
From: Amanda Lenhart [mailto:alenhart@pewinternet.org]
Sent: Thursday, March 20, 2003 1:00 PM
To: mcnutt@bc.edu
Subject: New Politics Report from Pew Internet and GWU's IPDI

The Pew Internet & American Life Project is delighted to release its
latest
report, written together with the Institute for Politics, Democracy and
the
Internet at The George Washington University.
A summary of the report, titled "Untuned Keyboards: Online campaigners,
citizens, and portals in the 2002 elections"  can be found below, and
the
full text of the report may be accessed at
http://www.pewinternet.org/reports/toc.asp?Report=85 .

Summary:
Campaigners have always tried to reach voters in order to win elections.
Citizens have always tried to read campaigns in order to vote their
interests. The Internet seems to offer a great two-way conduit for
campaigners and citizens, with plenty of room for third parties to
provide
context and commentary as well. Some are making good on the vision of a
lively online political discourse pegged to elections. But at the
milestone
of the 2002 midterm elections, the evidence shows that political
cyberspace
was populated mostly by tentative campaigners and wandering citizens.
The
major portals of Web traffic played a late, mild, yet remarkably
sophisticated role in the proceedings.

This report examines the phenomenon of online politics from three
contemporaneous perspectives. It presents data compiled in October and
November 2002 through a survey of American adults, a questionnaire
answered
by managers and communications directors for campaigns in closely
contested
races, and a content analysis of campaign information as it appeared on
three major Internet portal home pages: AOL, MSN, and Yahoo. The report
also draws on a content analysis of 102 candidate Web sites, and IPDI's
monitoring of the 2002 online campaigns on a daily basis for new and
newsworthy developments.

The surveys document two major developments in online politics. The
first
is the emergence of e-mail as a mainstream channel of political
communication. E-mail has become an increasingly popular and potent tool
for campaigners in America. Two-thirds of politically engaged Internet
users during the 2002 election cycle sent or received email related to
the
campaign. The second breakthrough success concerns interest-group Web
sites, with 73% of those who use the Internet for politics last year
saying
they checked such organization sites for information.

No one should expect campaigners, citizens, and portals to communicate
harmoniously about elections. Politics is too contentious for that,
reflecting the turbulence of capitalism and divisions in society. Still,
each of these groups of participants in online politics exhibited
frustrations with what they aspired to do. They sat at their respective
keyboards, and struck sour notes.

Candidates in closely contested races:

*Succeeded in using the Internet to conduct political research and
communicate with the press, but declined to place online advertisements
and
failed to coordinate online activities with the national parties.

*Missed an opportunity to build public confidence about the role of
money
in their campaigns by leaving it to others to package their financial
disclosure data.

*Larded their Web pages with news releases and endorsement lists, but
didn't include much from and about ordinary citizens. The online
citizenry
returned the favor by forwarding campaign email less often than jokes
about
the campaigns.

Online citizens, that is, Internet users who got political news and
information online:

*Swelled from 33 million to 46 million Americans between the summer of
2000
and November, 2002 -a remarkable 39% increase at a time of declining
growth
in the overall Internet population and plummeting finances in the
dot-com
world.

*Prized research as highly as campaigners, but did not find the
information
they were looking for (generally, details that reinforced their voting
inclinations) as often as online searchers for health and government
information.

*Enjoy participating in online polls and swapping e-mail jokes about the
campaigns and elections.

The big Internet portals (AOL, MSN, Yahoo!):

*Have the capacity to serve as gatekeepers of political information,
facilitators of political research, and matchmakers for people with
similar
political interests and views -and played those roles in descending
order.

*Developed extensive sets of directories and tools for campaign and
election activity, but did not promote them very much.

The report concludes with a list of concrete steps that campaigners,
citizens, and portals could take in 2004. These include:

*Exhibiting grass-roots support in the course of cultivating more.
*Last-minute and real-time GOTV (Get Out The Vote) operations, openly
coordinated among candidates, parties, and groups.
*Searchable databases that make a case by allowing individual Web users
to
see how a policy affects them.
*Humor and blogs (a form of online diary) to create buzz about a
campaign.

To the extent these forms of online communication proliferate, the
Internet
will mature as an instrument of democratic politics in America.

For more information about the Pew Internet & American Life Project,
please
visit: http://www.pewinternet.org/about/about.asp?page=4

For more information about the Institute for Politics, Democracy & The
Internet, please see:
http://www.ipdi.org

-end summary-

Please feel free to forward this email alert to colleagues, friends, or
family members who might be interested in it. If you have received this
message from a subscriber, you can sign up to receive your own alerts
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<< end of forwarded material >>



##########################################################
Judyth Mermelstein     "cogito ergo lego ergo cogito..."
Montreal, QC           <espresso@e-scape.net>
##########################################################
"A word to the wise is sufficient. For others, use more."
"Un mot suffit aux sages; pour les autres, il en faut plus."
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