While I'm in the habit of publishing obnoxiously long papers I've written, I decided I may as well throw this one into the mix- while I'm publishing this as post-dated, its date is about right, so it's all good. Enjoy!
Opening the Floodgates- Does Internet News Inform Better Than Print News?
In the last decade, the internet has brought us more than even Al Gore could have imagined in the early 1960's- our weather, entertainment, business, education and social lives will absolutely never be the same as they were before the explosion in internetusage. Now it is, quite literally, virtually impossible to engage in any kind of communication dialog without at least some mention of the internet- our lives have changed that drastically. However, despite hype about whether it causes psychological damage or disorders, this change is a positive and lasting feature which has still untapped potential, like some final frontier for communication which has yet to be fully explored.
As with the rest of the world, internet communication is changing the way people think about politics, and in a very interesting way. Particularly when it comes to internet communication, the news and information community has come a long way in increasing access to all people at all times. Now, we're beginning to see readership of newspapers declining as people begin to use the internet versions of the same services. And yet as more newspapers become free online, there are more available sources for the same kinds of news. So what process is going on with the readership side of this equation? How has this new availability of information increased the overall education of the public news consumers? Does increased availability increase consumption? Perhaps most interestingly, does increased consumption of internet news lead to an overall increase in voter education about political issues? That is the purpose of this review- to determine what prior evidence surrounds the topic of media consumption, and how to make that relevant.
The Importance of Voter Education
Numerous studies have already been done on the importance of voter education. There are studies already done about the advantages of educated voting. One survey found that when voters are not fully informed, they make “significantly better [choices] than they would by chance, but significantly less well than they would with complete information” (Bartels, 217). This should be a more obvious point, and it also has other effects.
To understand how political knowledge is acquired in the first place, it is important to look at the theories of knowledge accumulation, specifically the rational choice theory of public opinion discussed in Glynn, Herbst, O’Keefe, Shapiro and Lindeman. This economic theory boils need for additional knowledge down to self-interest- at the equilibrium of personal demand and information “supply”, one may find the range of political knowledge. Using this interpretation, there is just enough political knowledge available for people to act within their rational self interest. Voters without enough information may not vote when the relative costs of participation- information acquisition and voting- are too high. In fact, there may be a free-rider effect, where less-educated citizens rely on better informed citizens to vote for them rather than taking in the knowledge as well (Glynn et. al. 270). In fact, the concept that voter turnout may be increased through increased voter education is supported by the findings of Niemi and Weisberg in 2001, where it is shown that less educated citizens are more likely to feel disengaged than citizens with a higher level educational background (25). Abramson, Aldrich and Rohde enforces this point by citing a study which showed the greatest decline in voter turnout coming from the two least educated groups while college graduates maintained a consistent turnout (95).
The Internet as a Service
The internet is an increasingly well-used tool in the 2008 election, and studies show that more people are using electronic media to form opinions on candidates than ever before. 42 percent of voters now look to the internet for information about candidates. Of that percentage, traditional news sources dominate at 88% of voters looking at internet for information, while the actual campaign websites for the candidates garnered only a paltry 30 percent. 42 percent go to what this report calls “social media” sites. As the age group gets lower, more people visit these social media sites. Specifically, 61 percent of 18-24 year olds and 55 percent of 25-34 year olds look for election information on user-driven content sites ranging from YouTube to Wikipedia and various blogs (iCrossing, 2007). 75 percent of college students have a Facebook account and 82 percent had checked that account within 24 hours. (Pew Research Center, 2007). This trend suggests a specific focus for younger voters in greater numbers using social networking to find information about candidates.
Newspapers Online and Print
Studies have been done which show a correlation between online newspapers and real life print media. According to the Pew Research Center in 2006, research shows that while internet news is growing in popularity, only 9% of those polled read internet news for 30 minutes or longer at a sitting. Altogether, internet news readers spent an average of 32 minutes on online news and print media consumers spent an average of 40 minutes reading print newspapers. Print newspapers are visited online in significantly lower margins than websites featuring quick snippets of the news. Younger news readers are more likely to go to online newspapers now because they are listed online, breaking with the overall trend of lower newspaper consumption overall. A generational gap is cited as a reason more of the younger news consumers are looking online for their news, and the medium has a lot to do with this. Those dissatisfied with print news cite time constraints as the reason they read less, while praising internet news for its instant access and availability (Pew Research Center, 2006). This fits a lot of the expectations I had for this kind of study.
Political Knowledge, Then and Now
Studies also show that while there have been across-the-board increases in information access, overall political knowledge has dropped. This survey looks at overall political knowledge over time. Since 1989, name recognition has dropped for the name of the vice president of the US (5%), the state governor (8%), and the president of Russia (11%). The study has some overlapping data with what I am looking for in my study, showing that:
Internet news sources, National Public Radio, news magazines, and Rush Limbaugh's radio show have the best educated audiences, with each of these having at least 36% of their regular readers and listeners having graduated from college. The internet sources along with the comedy news shows attract younger-than-average audiences, though many older Americans regularly get news from these sources as well (Pew Research Center, 2007).
This study also found that news magazine readers were in the “high knowledge group” at 48% and newspaper readers at 43%. Internet news sites such as Google and Yahoo scored at 41%, TV news sites scored 44% and online blog readers scored 37% for regular audiences (Pew Research Center, 2007). These findings do not fully answer the question about relative consumption as it looks at regular audiences rather than consumption over time, but simply generalized about overall audiences. This is important to note, especially as the previously quoted study stated that each has a different overall consumption rate.
Theory and Expectations
Common sense dictates that the more time one spends on reading news articles, the more knowledge one will acquire. For the past generations of voters, there has been a relatively static choice of news media options available for the general public. There would be a local newspaper, the local radio, the evening TV newscast, and perhaps a national subscription to balance things out. Not only were a significant limit on the amount of news the average person was exposed to, but there was also a premium for content- in radio and television, there were entire sections of time that were blocked off, costing the consumer time and interrupting the content. In addition, the material is not always available, and if one misses a news story, there is no guarantee it will be replayed, and definitely not on demand. In newspapers, there was a dollar amount attached to the premium- while the ads may not interrupt the constant flow of information and you could read around them, the content was associated with a real cost in dollars. One of the chief concerns with these mediums is that their content is entirely editorial-driven. While there are some consumer concerns that come into play as these must have ratings to survive, the content is always decided by an editor rather than the consumer, creating an inherent barrier between the editor and the consumer. These premiums created a substantial barrier to entry that made direct consumption and full understanding of electoral processes limited to some, and practically impossible to others. Much of the voter apathy and corresponding drop in turnout may have something to do with the lack of connection many voters feel with their surrounding political environment. Therefore, it will be important to see if there are any differences in voting behavior which can be tracked across the different variables. If internet news is shown to be a predictor of voting behavior, later studies can show how motivation effects can be applied to internet news and similar sources. Political knowledge has already been shown to change per medium, but by looking more directly at the relative consumption, perhaps more accurate assessments can be made as to which is more educational. Given the improvements and increases in accessibility, a given population of consumers of online newspapers should be better informed and more likely to be politically involved than a given population of consumers of print newspapers. In this application, the expectation is that as consumption for print or internet news rises, so will turnout and political knowledge, but for online newspapers, the trend will be at a higher rate than for print media.
Research Design
One of the best ways of gauging general voter political knowledge is to ask political knowledge questions. I feel this provides a somewhat universal predictor of engagement with the media and provides a general idea of how much retention the reader has. It would be ideal to use the findings of the 2006 Pew Research Center study to provide a control for amount of time spent consuming news in print and online, but the closest variable I can find is average days per week spent. Regardless, this variable still looks at the question of consumption with more depth than the earlier 2007 Pew Research Center study. Also, I will look to see whether the 2004 figures fit with the overall trends of political knowledge shown by its data. By looking at figures more related to the actual consumption vs. knowledge, the actual differences can be isolated. Also, as the 2007 study showed similar education background for both internet and print news, there doesn't need to be the same level of control in place. There will be two independent variables- print newspaper consumption and online newspaper consumption. Both will be tracked for the dependent variables of voter turnout and basic political knowledge.
Data
Data was found by using the SDA American National Election Study (ANES) 2004 data sheet. The independent variables looked at were based on the question “How many days in the PAST WEEK did you read a daily newspaper on the Internet (online)?” and “How many days in the PAST WEEK did you read a daily newspaper?” These were both cross-tabulated with questions about turnout and. Figure 1 shows how turnout across the two variables:
Fig. 1- Election Turnout as a result of news media consumption
The political knowledge graphs showed more interesting data, and were gauging questions about political knowledge, specifically name association with office title of three significant political figures- Dick Cheney, William Rehnquist and Tony Blair.
Fig. 2- Name Recognition, Dick Cheney
Fig. 3- Name Recognition, William Rehnquist
Fig. 4- Name Recognition, Tony Blair
Analysis
The data clearly shows that in nearly all cases, there is a higher relationship between internet newspapers and consumer political knowledge than exists with print newspapers and political knowledge. This challenges the earlier findings of the Pew Research Center 2007 study, but it looks to the consumption rather than the aggregate findings. This is relative when looking at the 2006 study which showed the differences between consumption between the two, therefore showing The problem with this data is not that it has outliers, but that it does not conclusively prove that the separation is significant because the increase in political knowledge is not higher to a significant enough degree.
Turnout statistics showed similar results. While still not statistically significant, there seems to be a clear correlation between online news consumption and turnout at a higher rate than with print media. The difficulty with this data is that a lot of the data is predicated on the voter having voted. Out of the whole survey overall, few total survey takers would admit to not having voted. However, the correlation remains, and serves to prove the findings of Abramson et al which showed that as voter education improves, so does participation. The Pew studies cleared the way for looking at the Internet as a source for that education. From there, it will be increasingly important to see where this trend of voter participation goes, and whether the internet continues to exert a force on voter participation well into the next century.
Appendix A – Variables
Independent variables:
How many days in the PAST WEEK did you read a daily newspaper on the Internet (online)?”
“How many days in the PAST WEEK did you read a daily newspaper?”
Dependent variables:
Percentage correct answer
Percentage voted in elections
Appendix B: Tables
Turnout | Print | Internet | ||
0 days | 70.6 | 77.8 | ||
1 days | 85.5 | 85.1 | ||
2 days | 80 | 93.5 | ||
3 days | 82.5 | 90.1 | ||
4 days | 75.5 | 77.7 | ||
5 days | 80.9 | 100 | ||
6 days | 88.8 | 100 | ||
Every day | 88.7 | 84.7 | ||
Bibliography
Abramson, Paul R., et. al. Change and Continuity in the 2004 and 2006 Elections. Washington, D.C.: CQ Press, 2007.
Bartels, Larry M. Uninformed votes: Information Effects in Presidential Elections. American Journal of Political Science: 40 (1996).
Glynn, Carroll J., Herbst, Susan, O’Keefe, Garrett J., Shapiro, Robert Y. & Lindeman, Mark. Public Opinion. 2nd ed. Cambridge, MA: Westview Press. 2004.
iCrossing. 2007. “How America Searches: Election '08.” iCrossing Digital Marketing Company http://www.icrossing.com/articles/how_america_searches_election_2008.pdf
Lawrence, Christopher N. 2007. Should Voters be Encyclopedias? Measuring the Relative Performance of Sophistication Indicators. New Orleans: Tulane University, 2007.
The Pew Research Center. 2006. “Online Papers Modestly Boost Newspaper Readership.” http://people-press.org/reports/pdf/282.pdf
The Pew Research Center. 2007. “Public Knowledge of Current Affairs Little Changed by News and Information Revolutions - What Americans Know: 1989-2007” http://people-press.org/reports/display.php3?ReportID=319
Niemi, Richard G., and Herbert F. Weisberg. Controversies in Voting Behavior. 4th Ed. Washington, D.C.: CQ Press, 2001.
Survey Documentation and Analysis. Survey Methods Program (CSM), University of California, Berkeley. http://sda.berkeley.edu
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