TABLE 7.10
| The types of Web sites people used to get political news and information, 2004 | ||
| Broadband users | Dial-up users | |
| SOURCE: John Horrigan, Kelly Garrett, and Paul Resnick, "The Kind of Web Sites People Use to Get Political News and Information,"The Internet and Democratic Debate, Pew Internet and American Life Project, October 27, 2004, http://www.pewinternet.org/pdfs/PIP_Political_Info_Report.pdf (accessed December 11, 2004). Used by permission of the Pew Internet and American Life Project, which bears no responsibility for the interpretations presented or conclusions reached based on analysis of the data. | ||
| Web site of major news organizations, such as CNN.com | 72% | 51% |
| Web site of an international news site such as al Jazeera | 24 | 14 |
| Web site of alternative news site like AlterNet.org or NewsMax.com | 16 | 7 |
| Web site of politically liberal group such as People for the American Way or MoveOn.org | 15 | 7 |
| JohnKerry.com, the Democratic nominee's official site | 14 | 8 |
| GeorgeWBush.com, the president's official re-election site | 13 | 7 |
| RNC.com, the official site of the Republican National Committee | 11 | 5 |
| Web site of a politically conservative group such as the American Enterprise Institute or the Christian Coalition | 10 | 11 |
| DNC.com, the official site of the Democratic National Committee | 6 | 6 |
twenty-five million Americans, one-sixth of all Internet users, visited a political Web site in October 2004. The JohnKerry.com Web site drew in 3.7 million visitors in the month before the presidential election, while GeorgeWBush.com logged 3.2 million visitors.
As Table 7.10 reveals, most Internet users did not look for their information and political news on official political candidate sites. A large majority of dial-up (51%) and broadband (72%) Internet users got their online political information from major news organizations such as CNN or MSNBC, according to the October 2004 Pew/Internet report The Internet and Democratic Debate. The second most popular Web sites were international sites, including those maintained by al Jazeera and the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC). Alternative news sources, such as AlterNet.org and NewsMax.com, were the third most popular and tended to appeal to liberals. Individual candidate sites came in fifth and sixth in the survey. According to the Pew/Internet poll, Americans preferred not to get their news from a biased source. Nearly two-thirds (61%) of Americans replied that they wanted news sources that did not represent a political point of view. However, a quarter of the survey respondents (27%) did prefer news sources that shared their point of view, while 18% said they used sources that challenged their views.
Preferred News Sources
How does the Internet compare to other media with regard to where people get their news? Table 7.11 shows
TABLE 7.11
| Basic news sources on an average day, June 2004 | ||||
| All respondents | Broadband-at home | Dial-up at home | Non-internet users | |
| Survey of 1,510 Americans adults (age 18 and older). "At home" internet users represent 93% of all internet users in the sample. | ||||
| SOURCE: John Horrigan, Kelly Garrett, and Paul Resnick, "People's Basic News Sources on the Average Day," in The Internet and Democratic Debate, Pew Internet and American Life Project, October 27, 2004, http://www.pewinternet.org/pdfs/PIP_Political_Info_Report.pdf (accessed December 11, 2004). Used by permission of the Pew Internet and American Life Project, which bears no responsibility for the interpretations presented or conclusions reached based on analysis of the data. | ||||
| Television | 74% | 72% | 77% | 73% |
| Radio | 54 | 60 | 61 | 39 |
| Newspapers | 51 | 52 | 56 | 45 |
| Email (including listservs) or the web | 34 | 64 | 43 | * |
| Magazines | 21 | 26 | 22 | 15 |
that when it comes to the basic news sources people use on an average day, television was still number one in June 2004. Some 74% of respondents in The Internet and Democratic Debate reported that the television was their source for daily news. In terms of all people surveyed, the Internet came in fourth with only 34% of people citing the Internet as a daily news source. Having broadband Internet service, however, appeared to change things. Sixty-four percent of broadband users got their news from the Internet, beating out both newspapers and radio. On the whole, the Internet appeared to be slowly eroding television's political news audience. Table 7.12 reveals that from January 2000 to June 2004, the number of Americans who considered the television their primary source for campaign information dropped 8%. At the same time, those who turned mainly to the Internet for such information rose from 7% to 15%. As broadband continues to find its way into more and more American homes, these numbers will likely continue to shift in favor of the Internet.
Nearly half of those people who went looking for political information on the Internet, however, did not find what they were looking for. Untuned Keyboards (Washington, DC: Pew Internet & American Life Project, March 2003), a study by Michael Cornfield of the Institute for Politics, Democracy, and the Internet at George Washington University and Pew/Internet Project director Lee Rainie, revealed that only 55% of Internet users found what they were looking for the last time they searched for political information on the Internet. This rate of success was significantly lower than other Web searches involving complex subjects. For instance, some 78% of people found the health information they were looking for the last time they searched for it on the Web. The report cites the confusing nature of political rhetoric, the perceived lack of credibility associated with politicians, and the myriad opposing viewpoints as reasons why people felt
TABLE 7.12
| People's main sources of presidential campaign news over time, January 2000, January 2004, and June 2004 | |||
| June 2004 | January 2004 | January 2000 | |
| Survey of 1,510 American adults (age 18 and older). Numbers add to more than 100 due to multiple responses. | |||
| SOURCE: John Horrigan, Kelly Garrett, and Paul Resnick, "People's Main Sources of Campaign News over Time," in The Internet and Democratic Debate, Pew Internet and American Life Project, October 27, 2004, http://www.pewinternet.org/pdfs/PIP_Political_Info_Report.pdf (accessed December 11, 2004). Used by permission of the Pew Internet and American Life Project, which bears no responsibility for the interpretations presented or conclusions reached based on analysis of the data. | |||
| Television | 78% | 78% | 86% |
| Newspaper | 38 | 38 | 36 |
| Radio | 16 | 15 | 14 |
| Internet and email (including listservs) | 15 | 13 | 7 |
| Magazines | 4 | 2 | 4 |
dissatisfied when searching for political information. On the whole, the study concludes that when it comes to politics, Americans are a suspicious, impatient, and beleaguered lot.
Political Web Sites and the Howard Dean Campaign
Extensive use of the Internet by political campaigns did not really begin until the 2004 presidential elections. Untuned Keyboards included the results of a survey taken of campaign staff from thirty-three Senate and Congressional campaigns in the 2002 elections. On the whole, the campaign staffers in these races found the Internet most useful for simply conducting campaign research and emailing the press. On a scale of one to five, with one indicating "not effective" and five being "very effective," the staffers rated research at a 3.9 in terms of effectiveness and press relations at a 3.8. Most campaign Web sites simply contained series of news releases and lists of endorsements for the candidate. A large percentage of campaign managers believed that Internet fundraising was neither effective nor easy to implement. Mobilizing volunteers using the Internet also received a mediocre rating of 3.2. Advertising on the Internet barely made a passing grade with an effectiveness score of two. The fact that most campaign offices did not maintain or know how to maintain a secure Web site compounded the problem. Without such security in place, constituents were reluctant to give out any personal information or make contributions online.
While some national and state politicians in the past had employed the Web piecemeal to raise money or to organize rallies, most pundits agree that the 2004 Howard Dean Democratic presidential primary campaign was the first to utilize the Internet to its potential. Using outside contractors from the public sector, the Dean campaign set up a Web site that provided a number of services for supporters. The site contained a link to Meetup.com (www.meetup.com), where supporters could log in, find like-minded Dean supporters in close proximity, and arrange a meeting. The matchmaking service brought together people all over the country and led to hundreds of ad-hoc campaign centers for Dean. The Web site also supported an official blog where supporters could read opinions from campaign staffers and comment on the campaign and political issues. By reading the blogs and responses, strategizers in the campaign could gain insight into what supporters wanted from Dean. Perhaps the most important feature on the Dean site was the "Contribute" button. According to Grant Gross in "Dean Profits from Web Campaign" (CIO Magazine, January 15, 2004), Dean collected $7.4 million in online donations between April 1 and September 30, 2003, from 110,786 separate online donations. The online donations represented 67% of the total $11 million in donations the campaign received. All told, by the end of September 2003, Dean had raised $25.4 million total, which was $5 million more than John Kerry, who ended up winning the Democratic nomination.
The campaign and the Internet donations also worked within the confines established by the McCain-Feingold law passed by Congress in March 2002 to reform campaign finance. This legislation was designed to prevent a relatively small number of organizations and individuals from having disproportionate influence in politics. The laws banned "soft money" campaign contributions (large donations by corporations, labor unions, wealthy individuals, and special interest groups that skirted federal campaign regulations by supporting political parties rather than individual candidates). The bill also set maximum campaign contribution that can be given by an individual to $25,000. As the Dean campaign revealed, the Internet provided a way for many Americans to contribute smaller sums of money to their favorite candidate, thus making campaign finance more democratic. Many of the other 2004 presidential candidates began implementing similar Internet strategies when they saw Dean's success.
Political Advertising on the Internet
According to Thomas B. Edsall and Derek Willis in "Fundraising Records Broken by Both Major Political Parties" (Washington Post, December 3, 2004), total spending on the presidential campaign topped $1.7 billion by all sources who had an interest in directing the outcome of the election. Of this, $925 million was spent on campaigning for John Kerry and $822 million was spent in support of President Bush. In "Election Ad Battle Smashes Record in 2004" (USA Today, November 25, 2004) Mark Memmott and Jim Drinkard reported that nearly all of the money raised ($1.6 billion) was spent on television ads. Presidential Campaign Advertising on the Internet, an October 2004 Pew/Internet data memo by senior research consultant Michael Cornfield revealed that roughly $1 was spent on Web ads for every $100 spent on television ads in the 2004 campaign. Using this as a conversion ratio, total Web spending on the presidential campaign likely amounted to $16 million. The Pew/Internet data memo stated that between January and August 2004, the main candidates in the presidential election dropped an estimated $2.66 million on website banner ads. The Kerry campaign spent nearly three times as much money on online advertising in this time period ($1.3 million) than the Bush campaign ($419,000). At the same time, the Republican National Committee spent $487,000 on online advertising, as opposed to the $257,000 spent by the Democratic National Committee.
In general, the most common type of Internet ads centered on fundraising, typically asking voters for campaign contributions of $25 and $50. Presidential Campaign Advertising on the Internet indicated that most of the ads were fairly mild in content, carrying no endorsements or invitations to political events. Only rarely did the content presented in the ad attempt to rally voters or target voters in a specific groups or localities. The ads exhibited few of the negative attacks customary in television commercials.
Nearly 78% of Kerry ads centered on fundraising. Table 7.13 displays the top twenty Web sites where Kerry ads were posted. Most of these were top local and national news sites mixed with a few liberal-leaning Web sites such as www.villagevoice.com and www.salon.com. Many of the local Web sites serviced regions with a majority of Kerry supporters, such as San Francisco (www.sfgate.com) and Seattle (www.seattlepi.com and www.seattletimes.com). All of this fits with an attempt by the Kerry camp to utilize the Web to obtain contributions from people who already supported Kerry.
Cornfield suggested in Presidential Campaign Advertising on the Internet that the Bush campaign employed the Web to focus on recruiting and persuading Americans to vote for Bush. Table 7.14 lists those sites where Bush ad placement was highest. Many of the local news sites listed in the table were in hotly contested swing states in the 2004 campaign, such as Oregon (www.oregons12.com and www.kgw.com) and Missouri (www.stltoday.com). The Bush campaign also targeted women by advertising on such sites as www.parents.com, www.ladieshomejournal.com, and www.epicurious.com (which includes the Web sites of Bon Appetit and Gourmet magazines). The average visitor to Gourmet.com, for instance, was forty-four years old, college educated, and female, with an average income of over $74,000, according to the October 2004 Pew/Internet memo.
Cornfield concluded in Presidential Campaign Advertising on the Internet that while the presidential campaigns did a good job of using the Internet to raise money and gain supporters via their own sites, online advertising could have been much more aggressive. The memo points out that the $2.66 million spent on online advertising between January and August 2004 was only
TABLE 7.13
| Top twenty campaign ad placements for John Kerry, January–September 2004 | ||
| January–mid–September, 2004 | ||
| This information was compiled by a TNSMI/CMAG affiliate company, Evaliant Media Resources. Using its "spidering" technology, Evaliant searches thousands of Web sites seeking brand-related banner advertising. Once found, these advertisements are tagged and collated according to Web site location, daily frequency, and estimated media-buying expenditure. Thus, the numbers in the above table correspond to the number of times an ad with the brand name was encountered in daily sweeps for the first seven months of 2004. | ||
| SOURCE: Michael Cornfield, "Table 6. Kerry Top Twenty Placements: January–mid-September, 2004," in Pew Internet Project Data Memo, Pew Internet and American Life Project, October 2004, http://www.pewinternet.org/pdfs/PIP_Pres_Online_Ads_Report.pdf (accessed December 11, 2004). Used by permission of the Pew Internet and American Life Project, which bears no responsibility for the interpretations presented or conclusions reached based on analysis of the data. | ||
| 1. | SFGate.com | 1,144 |
| 2. | Newsweek.com | 938 |
| 3. | Village Voice.com | 766 |
| 4. | Reuters.com | 462 |
| 5. | L.A.Weekly Media.com | 437 |
| 6. | US News & World Report.com | 435 |
| 7. | Seattle P-I.com | 416 |
| 8. | Seattletimes.com | 288 |
| 9. | Hollywood Reporter.com | 195 |
| 10. | Salon.com | 194 |
| 11. | MSN Slate.com | 166 |
| 12. | TheBookMarc.com (textbook vendor) | 151 |
| 13. | MSNBC.com | 130 |
| 14. | Sun Times.com (Myrtle Beach SC) | 97 |
| 15. | El Nuevo Herald.com (Miami FL) | 87 |
| 16. | Washington Post.com | 86 |
| 17. | CNN.com | 77 |
| 18. | Ohio.com | 69 |
| 19. | Monterey County Herald.com (CA) | 46 |
| 20. | Sun Herald.com (Biloxi MS) | 45 |
half of the $5.7 million brought in online via the Kerry Web site on the day Kerry gave his nomination speech.
IT and the Voting Booth
In 2002 Congress passed and the president signed the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) to bring IT into voting booths. The act was a direct response to the hotly contested 2000 presidential campaign in which disputes over punch-card ballots in Florida contributed to a month-long delay of nationwide presidential election results. The punch-card ballots were prone to human error in that people would sometimes punch out the wrong perforated circle or not punch the card all the way through. HAVA required states to upgrade to electronic voting systems. The bill allotted $3.9 billion to help states replace old punch-card and lever systems with new voting machines. Though HAVA did not specify precisely which voting machines states were required to use, the act did provide a list of features the machines should have. Among other things, the machines should keep an electronic and paper record of the votes, be accessible to those with disabilities, allow voters to review their ballots before they are cast, and notify voters if they misvote (for example, vote twice for the same office).
TABLE 7.14
| Top twenty campaign ad placements for George W. Bush, January–September 2004 | ||
| January–mid-September, 2004 | ||
| This information was compiled by a TNSMI/CMAG affiliate company, Evaliant Media Resources. Using its "spidering" technology, Evaliant searches thousands of Web sites seeking brand-related banner advertising. Once found, these advertisements are tagged and collated according to Web site location, daily frequency, and estimated media-buying expenditure. Thus, the numbers in the above table correspond to the number of times an ad with the brand name was encountered in daily sweeps for the first seven months of 2004. | ||
| SOURCE: Michael Cornfield, "Table 5. Bush Top Twenty Placements: January–mid-September, 2004," in Pew Internet Project Data Memo, Pew Internet and American Life Project, October 2004, http://www.pewinternet.org/pdfs/PIP_Pres_Online_Ads_Report.pdf (accessed December 11, 2004).Used by permission of the Pew Internet and American Life Project, which bears no responsibility for the interpretations presented or conclusions reached based on analysis of the data. | ||
| 1. | KPTV Oregons12.tv.com (FOX, Portland OR) | 970 |
| 2. | Parents.com | 938 |
| 3. | KNVA-TV.com (WB, Austin TX) | 551 |
| 4. | El Nuevo Herald.com (Miami FL) | 471 |
| 5. | KPHO CBS 5 News.com (CBS, Phoenix AZ) | 335 |
| 6. | AZFamily.com | 303 |
| 7. | KGW.com (NBC, Portland OR) | 272 |
| 8. | WOOD TV8.com (NBC, Grand Rapids MI) | 233 |
| 9. | Bon Appetit.com | 222 |
| 10. | KXAN-TV.com (NBC, Austin TX) | 217 |
| 11. | CondeNet/Epicurious.com | 215 |
| 12. | Ohio.com | 214 |
| 13. | ParentCenter.com | 201 |
| 14. | Gourmet.com | 186 |
| 15. | ColumbusDispatch.com | 176 |
| 16. | KHOU-TV.com (CBS, Houston TX) | 165 |
| 17. | LadiesHomeJournalOnline | 153 |
| 18. | Miami Herald Internet Edition.com | 141 |
| 19. | STLToday.com (St. Louis MO) | 118 |
| 20. | FoxNews.com | 113 |
As of 2004 only two types of machines met HAVA's laundry list of requirements, and both were used heavily in the 2004 presidential election. The first type is the optical scanning (Marksense) voting system. This system operates much like the paper-based standardized tests given in high schools and colleges. Using a dark lead pencil or black ink pen, voters darken ovals next to candidates' names for whom they wish to vote. With the sheet in front of them, voters can review their ballots before casting them. The sheet is then fed into a scanner. If an error or misvote occurs on the ballot, the scanner spits the ballot out. It is then discarded and the voter votes again. If the ballot is acceptable, the machine scans the ballot using lasers and the votes are registered in the machine. Optical scanning systems, however, are not accessible to disabled people who have trouble seeing or do not have complete control of their fine motor skills.
The second type of machine, known as a direct recording electronic (DRE) voting system, covers all the requirements laid down by HAVA. DRE systems are akin to touch-screen ATM machines. The voter stands in front of the touch screen and a list of candidates for a given political contest is displayed on the screen. The voter simply touches the candidate's name to vote for that person, and the machine displays the next list of candidates. DRE systems can be equipped with Braille keyboards and headsets for the blind, and voting choices can be made larger on the screen for those who lack fine motor skills. The machine notifies the voter if he or she has misvoted, and the machines allow the voter to review the votes on a final checkout screen before they are cast. A paper record is printed out by the machine at the end of the voting day. Proponents claim that DRE is better than an optical system because the DRE system eliminates the potential human error involved in coloring in circles, and it is easier for the disabled.
Controversy has surrounded DRE systems nonetheless. Many people are concerned that hackers could somehow tap into these systems and change the votes. A second and perhaps more realistic concern is that the complicated computer hardware and software in these systems could malfunction. In "Is E-voting Safe?" (PC World, June 2004), Paul Boutin discusses a study on DRE systems conducted by computer scientists at California Institute of Technology and Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2001. The study concluded that touch-screen machines were slightly more accurate than punch-card machines. The residual error of margin for the DRE machines, which equates to the percentage of votes thrown out due to error, was 2.3%. This is only marginally better than the 2.5% error generated by old punch-card systems. Optical-scan paper ballots, on the other hand, had an error rate of only 1.5%.
During the presidential election of 2004 most DREs functioned properly, but some developed unusual problems. In "E-voting Results: Mixed" (Information Week, November 8, 2004), George V. Hulme reported that some forty million Americans cast votes on 175,000 touch-screen voting machines. However, in Carteret County, North Carolina, 4,500 votes were lost when a DRE machine's memory became full and the machine stopped recording votes. In Florida's Miami-Dade county, voters reported that the checkout screens on various DREs displayed incorrect votes. A similar problem occurred in western Washington State when a few badly calibrated touchscreens recorded the wrong vote when touched. One possible solution for the DRE systems that some states have implemented is the use of redundant paper ballots. In this instance, receipt printers are attached to the DRE's. When the person is done voting, the printer prints a version of the person's vote. This paper can then be reviewed and placed into a ballot box for later review if necessary.
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