Most Americans still get campaign info on TV |
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 The quadrennial survey by
the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press and the Pew
Internet & American Life Project on campaign news and political
communication has found that although most people still rely on their
TV to gather information on political campaigns, the number of those
using the internet for this purpose is constantly increasing.
In
2000, 48 percent of Americans were learning about the campaign mostly
from local TV news, while only 9 percent used the Internet. Four years
later, the numbers were 42 percent for local TV and 13 percent for
Internet. This campaign, Internet usage almost doubled to 24 percent,
together with a 2 percent decline in TV importance.
Perhaps the
second most important finding was that negative views of the decision
to go to take military action against Iraq are at their highest point
since the war began almost five years ago. No less than 56 percent of
Americans think that it was wrong to invade Iraq, while only 36 percent
think it was a good decision.
It is good that most people
realize the news they receive are biased. Around 62 percent of
Americans understand there is political bias influencing the media, of
which 31 percent say there is a great deal of bias while the rest 31
percent think there is a fair amount of political bias embedded in the
way reality is interpreted in news.
As far as Internet is
concerned, in the 18 to 29 age group, 42 percent said that they got
campaign information from the Web, higher than any other source such as
cable news networks and daily newspapers.
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