About 10 percent of voters said they got information about the 1996 election from the Internet, but only one in four online users said they found the information useful, according to a new study released Monday by the Pew Research Center For The People & The Press.
Some 21 million Americans obtained political or policy news from online sources, according to the Pew study, which tracked the use of online sources for information about the campaign in the past year, and surveyed 1,003 online users in October. But 38 percent of those who regularly read online political sites - PoliticsNow being the most popular election-specific site - were characterized by the Center as "political junkies."
The Pew study also reaffirmed earlier studies that found few partisan differences between online users and the public at large. Online users are no more interested in politics than most Americans, according to the study, but they are substantially more knowedgeable. For instance, 71 percent of online users were able to identify Bob Dole as the candidate who called for a 15 percent tax cut, compared to 59 percent of the general public.
But in an election year that failed to captivate the public, politics wasn't the biggest draw to news sites on the Net. More online users regularly follow science, health, and technology news on the Internet than politics, and the largest increase in online activities this year occurred among "users who go online to get entertainment-related information" - about 30 percent weekly, up from 19 percent in 1995, according to the study.
