Reason Magazine
- reason.com
- reason.tv
- reason.org
- Donate
- Site Search:
Reason on Facebook
Reason on Twitter
Reason on YouTube
Reason RSSGet Reason E-mail Updates!
Manage your Reason e-mail list subscriptionsadvertisements
60 Percent of Americans Won't Read This
A new study out from Pew finds that only 40 percent of Americans get news about the presidential campaign from the Internet. Useful for all of us pixel-stained wretches to keep in mind.
But the numbers are changing fast:
At this point in the 2004 election cycle, 31% of Americans had used the internet to get political news and information. The jump to 40% who say this now is even more striking because the population of online political users already exceeds the number of Americans who had used the internet for politics in the entire 2004 campaign. Moreover, the proportion of Americans getting political news and information on any given day in the spring of 2008 has more than doubled, compared with a similar period in 2004. In May and June of 2004, about 8% of adults were using the internet on a typical day to stay in touch with political developments. In April and May of this year, 17% of adults are getting political news online on a typical day.
And maybe, just maybe, Obama Girl actually is going to decide the election:
35% of Americans have watched online videos related to the campaign and 10% have used social networking sites to engage in political activity.
Guy Montag|6.27.08 @ 3:18PM|#
That is an infinite percentage increase from the number who got their election news from the intertubes in 1955. With this acceleration in intertubes usage, demand will exceed supply by the end of this month.
Mister DNA|6.27.08 @ 3:28PM|#
Does getting all my political news from reading the racist "Obama is a black muslim!!!!ONE!" emails I get from my fundamentalist Christian uncle count as "getting political news from the internet"?
Kolohe|6.27.08 @ 3:33PM|#
40% of all Americans (internet users and non-users alike)
have gotten news and information about this year's campaign via the
internet.
Non-users of the internet got info via the internet?
Guy Montag|6.27.08 @ 3:36PM|#
metacafe.com? I am not touching that from work any more than I would BondageCafe.com, but they will be touched a lot when I get home ;)
Mister DNA|6.27.08 @ 3:40PM|#
After watching the Obama Girl and Ron Paul Girl videos, I think we need to commission some sort of study: Does breast size correspond to the size of government one endorses?
Rev. David James Manning|6.27.08 @ 3:42PM|#
Ron Paul uses the Ron Paul Girl's 54 Double "D" to start his campaign...
|6.27.08 @ 3:43PM|#
But there's such
enlightened discourse on-line:
"Jokes" About Domestic Violence Are Never Funny
For a candidate who's trying to woo women voters, John McCain sure
acts like a sexist piece of crap sometimes. In an wide-ranging
interview yesterday with the Las Vegas Sun, he was asked why didn't
appoint the scandal-plagued piece-of-sexist-crap governor of
Nevada, Jim Gibbons, to be his state chair. The reporter asked,
"Maybe it's the governor's approval rating and you are running from
him like you are from the president?" and McCain responded:
(Chuckling) "And I stopped beating my wife just a couple of weeks
ago…" That's the kind of humor that will get the P.U.M.A.'s
growling, for sure.
|6.27.08 @ 3:51PM|#
So 40% of people actively got political news online, in a country where the turnout in national elections is only about 50%. Maybe this isn't the ego blow it first seemed to be.
|6.27.08 @ 3:56PM|#
Does breast size correspond to the size of government one
endorses?
It must be a positive correlation. How else to explain the rise in
government paralleling the increase in boob jobs on women and
man-titties on obese men?
If so, we're doomed.
Guy Montag|6.27.08 @ 3:59PM|#
"Jokes" About Domestic Violence Are Never Funny
If they would just stop expanding the definition of 'domestic
violence' . . .
Mister DNA|6.27.08 @ 4:05PM|#
Damn, SugarFree - McCain's weak attempt at humor is the least
offensive thing in that paragraph. "an wide-ranging
interview"?
I guess it's hard to write coherently when you're in the throes of
righteous indignation...
Guy Montag|6.27.08 @ 4:13PM|#
Is the right to intertube a collective right or
individual?
Don't we have to stop intertubing 60 days before the election
because of McCain-Feingold?
I never saw the intertubes mentioned in the Constitution, so it may
not even be one of the rights our government gives us.
Episiarch|6.27.08 @ 4:15PM|#
"And I stopped beating my wife just a couple of weeks ago…"
That's the kind of humor that will get the P.U.M.A.'s growling, for
sure.
I would bet you $100 that the author has no idea about the old
"when did you stop beating your wife"
no-way-you-can-answer-properly question.
Guy Montag|6.27.08 @ 4:16PM|#
"when did you stop beating your wife"
When she started paying attantion.
See? Easy! Next question.
|6.27.08 @ 4:17PM|#
GM,
They've been spending all their time getting their community blog
software up and running.
|6.27.08 @ 4:18PM|#
"What do you tell a woman with two black eyes?"
"Nothing you haven't already told her twice before."
Taktix®|6.27.08 @ 4:18PM|#
I used to beat my significant others, but I've found seasoning will tenderize the meat better...
Mister DNA|6.27.08 @ 4:21PM|#
Epi,
Years ago, we had a local judge who was more famous for the comic
book store he owned than for any judicial competence he might have
possessed.
A lawyer friend of mine told me about arguing a case in his court,
and when the defense lawyer was asking a witness a bunch of loaded
questions, my friend objected, saying, "Your honor, he might as
well ask the witness when he stopped beating his wife".
The judge turned to the witness and, in all seriousness, asked,
"You beat your wife?"
|6.27.08 @ 4:23PM|#
Mister DNA,
I guess it's hard to write coherently when you're in the throes
of righteous indignation...
If you don't post right now the patriarchy wins!
Mister DNA|6.27.08 @ 4:24PM|#
Q: What do 30,000 battered women have in common?
A: They just don't fucking listen.
|6.27.08 @ 4:44PM|#
I wouldn't make so much fun of them if they'd stop insisting they aren't
humorless while posting shit like that.
But, they can say shit like this with a straight face:
I just explain to my knuckle-dragging friends that if we lived
in a feminist utopia EVERYONE would have more sex.
Wait... maybe they do have a sense of humor...
|6.27.08 @ 4:53PM|#
What percent of Americans don't get information about the presidential election at all?
TallDave|6.27.08 @ 4:55PM|#
For the life of me, I can't figure out to get these damned pixel stains clean.
Site comments/questions:
Media Inquiries and Reprint Permissions:
(310) 367-6109
Editorial & Production Offices:
3415 S. Sepulveda Blvd.
Suite 400
Los Angeles, CA 90034
(310) 391-2245