The American Internet Voter

Abstract

Since the creation of the Internet, there has been a seemingly never-ending number of books and analyses about the role of the Internet in politics. Many of these books fail to keep in mind that the behavior of elites—the well-educated and politically active individuals who often represent the peer group of these authors—is not generally representative of the behavior of the public at large. Pundits and scholars alike have remarked that 2008 appeared to be a revolutionary year in the use of the Internet in political campaigns, but few have systematically examined the role of the Internet in participatory politics for the average voter. Instead of relying on case studies, this article uses nationally representative survey data from 2004 through 2008 to determine how the general public uses—or does not use—the Internet in their political lives. The authors then consider whether the patterns of use for this technology appear different in the November 2008 general election cycle. They consider this issue in the context of increasing polarization among some fraction of the American electorate and in the policy platforms of elected officials.

KEYWORDS:

• American voter
• 2008 general election
• Internet use

Acknowledgments

The authors thank the members of their panel at the 2009 American Political Science Association Meeting in Toronto, Canada, for helpful discussion and Danielle Glazer for research assistance.

Notes

Note. Source: U.S. Census Bureau, Current Population Survey, November 2007 and November 2008.

**The data are missing.

Note. Source: U.S. Census Bureau, Current Population Survey, November 2007 and November 2008.

Note. Source: PEW Internet and Life Project November 2004–2008 surveys. Specific question wording is including in the appendix. Standard deviations are in parentheses below each mean. While these patterns denote potentially interesting trends, note that no values are statistically distinguishable across years.

Note. Source: PEW Internet and Life Project November 2004–2008 surveys.

Note. Values in bold indicate coefficients that are statistically significant at the 95% level. Dependent variable is an indicator that describes whether the respondent has Internet access.

Note. Values in bold indicate coefficients that are statistically significant at the 95% level. Dependent variable is an indicator for whether the respondent accesses news online.

Note. Values in bold indicate coefficients that are statistically significant at the 95% level. The dependent variable is an indicator for whether the respondent acquires political news online.

Note. Values in bold indicate coefficients that are statistically significant at the 95% level. The dependent variable is an indicator for whether the respondent reports accessing e-government resources.

Note. Values in bold indicate coefficients that are statistically significant at the 95% level. The dependent variable is an indicator for whether the respondent reports sending political e-mails.

Note. Values in bold indicate coefficients that are statistically significant at the 95% level.

Of course, as Ambinder notes in the article, the well-functioning post office, newspapers, and radio were also revolutions in politics as well.

For an example of such a study, see Arceneaux, Kevin, and David Nickerson. (2006). Even if you have nothing nice to say, go ahead and say it: Two field experiments testing negative campaign tactics. Unpublished manuscript. Prepared for presentation at the 2005 Meeting of the American Political Science Association, September 1–4, Washington, DC.

The Pew Internet and American Life Project publishes an analytical report for each election. See Smith 2009; Rainie and Smith 2008; Rainie, Horrigan, and Cornfield 2005.

Data from this project and related reports can be found at http://pewinternet.org/Reports/2009/6--The-Internets-Role-in-Campaign-2008.aspx (2008 report); http://pewinternet.org/Reports/2007/Election-2006-Online.aspx (2006 report); and http://pewinternet.org/Reports/2005/The-Internet-and-Campaign-2004.aspx (2004 report).

The specific questions used to code each of these categories are listed in the Appendix.