Campaign 2008: 'Wired voters' prevailed

by Mark Silva

If a lot of campaign 2008 was waged online - and President Barack Obama's record fundraising and grassroots organizing can attest to that fact - most of America was there.

More than half the voting-age population used the Internet to get involved in politics last year, the first time that has happened, according to a Pew Internet and American Life Project survey.

Some 74 of all Internet users -- representing 55 percent of the entire adult population - went online in 2008 "to get involved in the political process or to get news and information about the election,'' Pew reports today.

" In particular, Americans were eager to share their views on the race with others and to take part in the online debate on social media sites such as blogs and social networking sites,'' Pew notes.

Pew found that:

• Nearly one in five (18 percent) of all Iinternet users posted their thoughts, comments or questions about the campaign on an online forum such as a blog or social networking site.

• Fully 45 percent went online to watch a video related to the campaign.

• One in three Internet users forwarded political content to others.

• Young voters were "heavily'' engaged in the political debate on social networking sites.

• Fully 83 percent of the youngest adults -- ages 18-24 -- have a social networking profile, and two-thirds of them took part in some form of political activity on these sites in 2008.

"The relative importance of the Internet also continued to grow within the overall political media ecosystem,'' Pew reports. "The internet is now equal to newspapers and roughly twice as important as radio as a source of election news and information.''

"Among internet users, Obama voters were more likely to share online political content with others, sign up for updates about the election, donate money to a candidate online, set up political news alerts and sign up online for volunteer activities related to the campaign.'' Pew notes.

"Online Obama voters were also out in front when it came to posting their own original political content online- - 26 percent of wired Obama voters did this, compared with 15 percent of online McCain supporters.''

The report is based on an analysis of daily tracking survey of Internet use, drawn from interviews conducted between Nov. 20 and Dec. 4, 2008. The survey of 2,254 adults carries a possible margin of error of plus or minus 2.9 percentage points.