With advent of the 24-hour news cycle and our “need-it-yesterday” society, it’s only natural the internet is on its way to becoming the top source for political news. That is already the case in California among younger adults, upper income residents, independents, and college graduates, according to a Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC) survey of more than 2,000 adults, released on Nov. 2, 1010.
One need only look as far as this November’s Election Day coverage on Twitter – with tweets from Sacramento press corps heavyweights John Myers (@KQED_CapNotes), Juliet Williams (@JWilliamsAP), and Torey Van Oot (@CapitolAlert) – to see the appeal of online news.
Though still lagging behind TV as the main source for political news overall, internet use has increased from 17 percent in 2007 to 24 percent in today. In fact, the Internet is the only medium in the survey that has seen an increase over the past 3 years, while radio and print remain stagnant.
Along with the survey showing more and more Californians looking to the Internet as their primary source for political coverage, comes the news that fewer and fewer are using print media to get their news. Print version readership of newspapers is down from 38 percent in 2007 to 24 percent today. Click here to see complete results from the PPIC survey.
Armando Botello II is a communications associate at California Forward.
