Politic Bulleted List
Elected Officials Attitudes Toward People
Graphs: [Location] [Age] [Gender]- The responses to this question have been the same within a few
percentage points since we began asking this question in the Fifth
survey. Of those who had an opinion, more than half (62.0%) felt that
elected officials did not care what people like them thought. Younger
respondents were less likely to think that elected officials cared
what they thought than older respondents.
Emailing Government Officials
Graphs: [Location] [Age] [Gender]- As in the previous survey, most people have not sent email to
their highest elected official (77.6% Seventh, 75.6% Sixth). Of
those who have sent mail, most have sent one or two messages. Older
respondents are more likely to have emailed elected officials than
younger respondents. On one hand this is not surprising given that
older people are traditionally more likely to write to elected officials,
but it is interesting that this activity carries over to email as
well.
Frequently Visited Political Web Sites
Graphs: [Location] [Age] [Gender]- This question included the choice "search engine" to provide
a basis for comparison for the other sites. 69.1% of respondents use
search engines frequently. The political sites that people visit
frequently are: online newspapers (46.7%), CNN (32.4%), and other
sites not listed in our choices (21.6%). These are the same three
that topped the list in the Sixth survey. In general, older respondents
report visiting political web sites more frequently than younger
respondents.
Hours Spent on Political Material
Graphs: [Location] [Age] [Gender]- Just over half of the respondents (53.6%) report spending between
15 and 60 minutes per day viewing, listening to, or reading political
news or other political material. This is the same percentage as
was reported in the Sixth survey. Older respondents are much more
likely to spend time reading political material than younger respondents.
Involvement with Issues
Graphs: [Location] [Age] [Gender]- A popular hypothesis was that having political material online
and available to more people would make people more knowledgeable of
and involved with political issues. Our results do seem to bear
this out since 44.0% of respondents report being more involved with
the issues since coming online. However, a slightly higher percentage
(46.5%) report being equally involved. Respondents from Europe are
more likely to report feeling more involved with the issues than
respondents in the US. Younger respondents are more likely to feel
more involved while older respondents feel equally involved since
coming on line.
Offline Political Activities
Graphs: [Location] [Age] [Gender]- the most popular offline political activities are: discussing issues
(63.2%), signing petitions (44.6%), and writing elected officials (32.5%).
Europeans report less activity in all categories except joining organizations and distributing information. Older respondents were more likely than
younger respondents to: attend meetings, contribute money, discuss
issues, volunteer, and write elected officials.
Online Political Activities
Graphs: [Location] [Age] [Gender]- The most popular online political activities are: writing elected
officials (22.1%), discussing issues (20.7%) and signing petitions
(19.4). A large percentage of respondents report taking part in
some other online political activity that we did not have listed
as a choice (57.4%). In general, people seem to participate in more
offline political activities than online ones. Females are less
likely to participate in online activities than males, but are equally
likely to participate in offline activities. Younger respondents
are more likely to participate in all online activities except for
writing to elected officials.
Primary Sources of Political Information
Graphs: [Location] [Age] [Gender]- For this question, respondents could check more than one answer.
The primary places that people get political information from are:
local paper (63.2%), network TV (56.2%), online news (54.5%), and
TV news channels (CNN, MSNBC, etc.) (46.8%). The only notable change
from the Sixth survey is that the percentage using TV news channels
dropped from 52.3% to 46.8%. As in all previous surveys, national
newspapers are the primary source of political information for European
respondents. Women and older respondents are more likely to cite
local papers and network TV as primary sources.
Use of Electronic White House Documents
Graphs: [Location] [Age] [Gender]- As with previous surveys, approximately 2/3 of respondents have
never used online White House documents (66.2%). This figure has been
rising very slowly since the Fifth survey. Younger respondents are
even less likely to have ever used White House documents (69.9%).
As we would expect, European users are also less likely to have
accessed these documents.
