{"id":97737,"date":"2003-03-20T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2003-03-20T05:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/2003\/03\/20\/part-two-the-online-citizenry\/"},"modified":"2024-04-14T04:14:34","modified_gmt":"2024-04-14T09:14:34","slug":"part-two-the-online-citizenry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/internet\/2003\/03\/20\/part-two-the-online-citizenry\/","title":{"rendered":"Part Two: The Online Citizenry"},"content":{"rendered":"

I Still Haven\u2019t Found What I\u2019m Looking For<\/h3>\n\n

This section of the report is based on a tracking survey of 2745 U.S. adults conducted by Princeton Survey Research Associates (PSRA) for the Pew Internet & American Life Project and the Institute between October 20 and November 24, 2002.\u00a0 The section also draws on a continuous body of research conducted by PSRA for the Project, and analyzed by Project staff.<\/p>\n\n

[POL 02]<\/p>\n\n\n

A Growing Constituency for Online Politics<\/h3>\n\n

The online citizenry constitutes the segment of Internet users who pay attention to politics.\u00a0 Its ranks swelled considerably in the 2002 election cycle, as Table 4 illustrates.<\/p>\n\n

\"Growing<\/figure>\n<\/p>\n\n

[POL03]<\/p>\n\n\n

Nor can a technological innovation explain the 2000-2002 expansion of the online citizenry\u2019s population.\u00a0 While the popularization of Google, the second-generation search engine, may have eased Internet users\u2019 ways toward getting news and political information, Google did not provide them with the impetus to head in that direction.\u00a0 No public service announcements or paid advertisements lured the viewers of Google\u2019s home page into civic and political Web sites.\u00a0 Nor can the online citizenry\u2019s growth be attributed to a surge in general Internet usage.\u00a0 As the table shows, there was no big spurt in people coming online; indeed, overall Net population growth slowed after 2000.\u00a0 Finally, the data suggest that the growth of the online citizenry did not depend on the financial health and social cachet of the high-tech industry, in as much as those were plummeting at the same time the online appetite for politics was rising.\u00a0 <\/p>\n\n

A more likely explanation attributes the expansion of the online citizenry to three factors: the maturation of users, the spread of broadband, and big news stories.\u00a0 In the fall of 2000, 36% of online Americans had been on the Net for three or more years; by November 2002, that figure had nearly doubled, to 70%.\u00a0 Experienced Internet users do a wider range of activities while they are online.[10. “Getting Serious Online,” 2002: https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/internet\/Reports\/2002\/Getting-Serious-Online-As-Americans-Gain-Experience-They-Pursue-More-Serious-Activities.aspx<\/a>]\u00a0 The growth of broadband is a compatible development.\u00a0 Broadband enables people to look for political information faster, in richer media forms, and without tying up a telephone line.\u00a0 Project research has determined that, even when controlling for online experience and a number of demographic factors, having a home broadband connection has an independent and strongly positive impact on the number of activities conducted online, the frequency of logging on, and the amount of time spent online daily.[11. “The Broadband Difference,” 2002: https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/internet\/Reports\/2002\/The-Broadband-Difference-How-online-behavior-changes-with-highspeed-Internet-connections.aspx<\/a>]<\/p>\n\n

Big news stories, in which crucial details could break at any moment of the day over a period of weeks, also powered the expansion of the online citizenry.\u00a0 As people headed to news and public information sites in hopes of learning who won the Florida electoral votes and who was responsible for the 9\/11 attacks, they discovered in the process the convenience, depth, and breadth of online political communication.\u00a0 The popularity of these factors may be seen in Table 5:<\/p>\n\n

\"Why<\/figure>\n<\/p>\n\n

In sum, the enhanced capacity and facility of users to check in on breaking news and \u201cdrill down\u201d for details is probably responsible for the sharp growth in the population of the online citizenry.\u00a0 There remains considerable room for further expansion: as of November 2002, 70 million online game players, e-mailers, music down-loaders, office workers, students, and other American adults had yet to look for political news and information.\u00a0 The U.S. confrontation with Iraq has probably lured some of that 70 million into the online citizenry since November 2002, and war would draw in more of them.<\/p>\n\n

The important lesson here for political activists, and electoral office-seekers in particular, is this:\u00a0 Campaigners who can make news, shed light on the news, and empower people to act in response to the news, have a greater incentive with each passing day to try and connect with the Internet population.\u00a0 Online citizens are looking for just those qualities, and perhaps more, as they search the Web and comb through their email.\u00a0 In 2002, most of them did not find such information at campaign sites.<\/p>\n\n

Dissatisfied Searchers<\/h3>\n\n

Online citizens are, on the whole, a dissatisfied bunch. Comparative survey data compiled for the Project reveals that people who have used the Internet to get political news and information were less likely to find what they were looking for than those who have sought health information and information from government agency Web sites.\u00a0 Political information seekers had fewer bookmarks of favorite sites than health and government information seekers.\u00a0 They relied more on portals (the subject of Part Three of this report), and browsed more Web sites.\u00a0 They said they learned something new less often.\u00a0 And they said they found information which helped them make a decision less often.\u00a0 In short, the average experience of the online citizen is not as rewarding as that of the constituencies for health and government information.<\/p>\n\n

\"The<\/figure>\n<\/p>\n\n

Some of this dissatisfaction derives from qualities inherent in political information.\u00a0 Politics is often about controversial matters for which no clear answers exist, and the two-party winner-take-all electoral system tends to polarize the fuzzy answers with which we all must make do.\u00a0 A Web searcher looking for a tax form does not have to choose among Democratic, Republican, and news media versions of the form, as does a Web searcher looking to learn about tax reform.\u00a0 A Web searcher in need of relief for a strange rash may be bewildered by the variety of potential diagnoses and remedies offered online, but at least the rash-bearer will not be subjected to one source of advice attacking another, as will a Web searcher attempting to bone up on the nation\u2019s health care system.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n

[POL25b]<\/p>\n\n\n

And then there is the credibility of political information, the matter of how much the online citizenry trusts that what it sees is accurate and not misleading.\u00a0 As Table 7 illustrates, Internet users place much less stock in the veracity and integrity of what partisan and issue group sites provide than in what non-partisan and news media sites provide.[12.numoffset=”12″ A 1999 Democracy Online Project survey found similar low levels of trust. It is archived at www.ipdi.org<\/a>.] That is a bleaker situation than it may appear, because the information supplied by the latter is largely derived from the former.\u00a0 For example, DNet, the online database of campaign information produced by the non-partisan League of Women Voters, consists mainly of a matrix of candidate issue positions submitted by the campaigns themselves; DNet solicits the information and arranges it for ready comparison.\u00a0 Campaign reporting in the news media consists mainly of excerpts (sound bites) from candidate, issue group, and party press releases and news conferences, often embedded in cynical speculations about the strategy and money behind them.[13. On the negativity bias of campaign reporting, see Thomas E. Patterson, The Vanishing Voter: Public Involvement in an Age of Uncertainty<\/em> (New York: Knopf 2002), Chapter Three.] What is \u201ctrusted\u201d in non-partisan and news media versions of political information is thus more a matter of format than content.\u00a0 <\/p>\n\n

\"Which<\/figure>\n<\/p>\n\n

\"Which<\/figure>\n<\/p>\n\n

[POL09c-d]<\/p>\n\n\n

This is not a pretty picture.\u00a0 An online supplier of political information, like a struggling stand-up comedian, plays in a tough room: the audience is sparse, suspicious, impatient, and inured to the contentiousness and raggedness of the show.\u00a0 All the same, there is a chance for one or more of the performers to succeed.\u00a0 The survey points up several ways they can polish their act.\u00a0 Campaigners, civic groups, and the news media can provide some of the features the online citizenry says it wants to see at little cost and low risk.<\/p>\n\n

What Online Citizens Like to See and Do<\/h3>\n\n

The Internet offers a variety of activities to the online citizenry.\u00a0 The survey asked whether respondents ever engaged in eleven of them, and the results appear on the following page.<\/p>\n\n

\n<\/p>\n\n

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\n
Infographic <\/h5>\n

What online citizens like to see and do<\/a> <\/h4>\n

The Internet offers a variety of activities to the online citizenry. The survey asked whether respondents ever engaged in eleven of them, and this table displays the results.<\/p>\n

View \u00bb<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n

Online citizens prized the research function of the Internet as highly as campaign managers.\u00a0 Searching for more information about candidate issue positions (cited by 64%) was the most popular response by far.\u00a0 The second and third most popular answers also fall under the category of research: online citizens hunted for candidate ratings and endorsements by organizations and groups (38%), and for candidate voting records (34%).\u00a0 Getting information about when and where to vote ranked seventh (22%), but this type of research has grown steadily since 1998. <\/p>\n\n

[POL 19]<\/p>\n\n\n

After research, participating in online polls proved to be the most popular activity (32%).\u00a0 Selecting a favorite from an array of statements about issues, candidates, and other political news developments was thus the top mode of online political engagement, well ahead of sending email (17%), taking part in discussions and chat groups (7%), and contributing money (5%).\u00a0\u00a0 It is unclear how seriously people regard these polls, whether they think they are expressing an opinion that the Web site\u2019s operators and other political elites will heed, or having fun seeing how their choices square with those of previous participants.\u00a0 If it is the former, they are being fooled.\u00a0 But, again, there is a lesson here for online campaigners: the online citizenry enjoys interactive polls.<\/p>\n\n

Getting or sending email jokes about the campaigns and elections ranked fifth among the activities asked about, at 31%.\u00a0 This is a big drop from 2000, when 54% of respondents participating in a Democracy Online Project survey answered in the affirmative to a similar question.\u00a0 Of course, the 2002 election took place in a more somber time.\u00a0 Yet humor remains an effective rhetorical tactic for online campaigning.[15. For an example from the 2002 campaign, see the account of the DNC Web video cartoon \u201cSocial Insecurity\u201d in Michael Cornfield, \u201cLet\u2019s Roll,\u201d Campaigns & Elections, December 2002\/January 2003, p. 76.]\u00a0 It assuages the fuzziness, contentiousness, and anxiety of politics.\u00a0 It suits the activity of breaking from work, which many Net users are engaged in when they turn to look at political news and information.<\/p>\n\n

These findings suggest several practices for campaigners to adopt in order to increase their appeal to the online citizenry:<\/p>\n\n