New Media Influence in Politics

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• New Media Influence in Politics

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• World of Media More Complicated Today
• New Technologies Web sites, e-mail, podcasts,
  blogs
• Older Technologies talk radio, television talk

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• New Media
• Mass communication forms with primarily
  non-political origins that have acquired
  political roles

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• Do New Media Matter?

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Do New Media Matter?

• Growing Audience for New Media

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Do New Media Matter?- Audience

• Talk radio listenership
• 40 percent percent of adults listen to talk
• radio at least some of the time.
• 17 percent listen regularly

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Do New Media Matter?- Audience

• The audience for talk radio
• mainly male, middle-aged, conservative,
  Republican, and well educated.
• Of regular talk radio listeners -
• 45 percent - conservative
• 18 percent - liberal

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Do New Media Matter? Audience
More people regularly going online for
news April 1998 13 April 2004 29
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Do New Media Matter? - Audience

• Percent of Internet users who read blogs
• 2004 - 17 percent
• 2005 - 27 percent
• 2006 - 37 percent

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Do New Media Matter? - Audience

• Podcast use
• 22 million adults own Ipod or Mp3 player
• 6 million have listened to a podcast from the
  Internet

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Do New Media Matter Audience Traditional
media use is declining 1993 96 00 04 Local
TV news 77 65 56 59 Nightly
Network news 60 42 30 34 Newspaper
58 50 47 42
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Do News Media Matter Political Effects

• Talk Radio Effects
• Pay Raises
• Personnel Appointments
• Policy Advocacy
• Campaign Mobilization

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Do News Media Matter Political Effects

• Internet effects

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Do News Media Matter Political Effects

• Blog effects
• September 2004 60 Minutes II
• October 2005 Harriet Miers

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Do News Media Matter Political Effects

• Effects on Newsgathering
• Journalists using blogs
• 51 regularly read blogs
• 28 use for daily newsgathering
• 53 use for story ideas
• 36 use to find sources
• 33 use to uncover breaking news

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Do News Media Matter Political Effects

• Likely Future Effects
• Growing audience
• Growing journalistic use

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Do New Media Matter?

• Other Players are Using New Media
• Governors
• Interest Groups
• News Media

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• Can New Media Substitute for Traditional Media?

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Can New Media Substitute?

• NO
• The audience is not there yet

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Can New Media Substitute?

• Main Sources of Campaign News
• 1992 96 00 04
• Television 82 72 70 76
• Newspapers 57 60 39 46
• Radio 12 19 15 22
• Internet n/a 3 11 21
• (Percentages add up to more than 100 percent
  because respondents could mention two main
  sources.)

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Can New Media Substitute?

• New Media and Traditional Media Supplement Each
  Other

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Can New Media Substitute?

• New Media lack resources to perform traditional
  media functions
• Surveillance
• Gate-keeping

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Can New Media Substitute?

• New Media can perform functions traditional media
  cant
• Media watchdog
• Specialized Content
• Partisan Reinforcement/Mobilization

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Can New Media Substitute?

• 55 percent of bloggers say they sometimes post
  news they heard or read in traditional media
• Percentage is much higher for political bloggers

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• What Should I Do?

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What Should I Do?

• Become New Media Savvy

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What Should I Do?

• Use the Opportunities of the New Media

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What Should I Do?

• New Media Forums Reach Opinion Leaders

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What Should I Do?

• New Media Forums Interested in Politics
• Traditional Media Covering Government Less

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What Should I Do?

• New Media Offer Opportunities for Unfiltered
  Message Dissemination

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What Should I Do?

• Caveats
• Recognize Limits of New Media
• Nature of Audience
• Nature of Medium

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What Should I Do?

• Caveats
• B. Understand the Rules of New Media
• Illusion of informality
• Anonymity
• Superficiality
• Not Journalism

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What Should I Do?

• Imperatives of Talk Radio
• Need to be newsworthy
• Need to be interesting
• Expect bias

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What Should I Do?

• Imperatives of Blogs
• Need Constant Involvement
• Facilitate and Expect Comment

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• The Future
• Institutional Balance of Power?

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• The Future
• Legislator-Constituent Communications