News agencies and bloggers have been buzzing about Pew’s latest research on “The Internet and Civic Engagement” since it came out earlier this week.
The buzz concentrates on the relative education-level and wealth of internet users: More well-educated people are more likely have access to computers and to use them frequently. But you knew that.
The more interesting — and unfortunately somewhat ignored — findings focus on who uses the internet and social media for some form of political engagement. And this “online participatory class” is growing. As many as 19 percent of people online use the internet for political action, when that number was previously believed to be only 5 percent or 10 percent.
Adults ages 25 to 65 tend to take part in online activities similar to those they’d do in “real life” like signing petitions and making donations. Surprisingly the 55-64-year-old demographic had the highest percentage of these kinds of online political activities, though younger people dominate the political social media arena.
Read Pew’s full report.
Tags: fundraising online, Online Public Affairs, Politics, Social Media
