Politics and The Internet

BuzzMachine takes up a new report by the Pew Internet And American Life Project in which the 2006 mid-term elections are analyzed in terms of the role of the internet. Read the full report here. Here's the article abstract:

Twice as many Americans used the internet as their primary source of news about the 2006 campaign compared with the most recent mid-term election in 2002.

Some 15% of all American adults say the internet was the place where they got most of their campaign news during the election, up from 7% in the mid-term election of 2002.

A post-election survey shows that the 2006 race also produced a notable class of online political activists. Some 23% of those who used the internet for political purposes – the people we call campaign internet users – actually created or forwarded online original political commentary or politically-related videos.

What NPH finds most interesting about this is the new content being created and distributed. That internet video technology allows people to have a more active role in the political process, even if it means simply being the guy holding the camera when George Allen utters a racial epithet.