Andy Carvin says,
The good folks at the Pew Internet Project have come out with a report analyzing how the public used the Internet and other media during the 2006 election cycle.
Altogether, nearly half of all Internet users, or 31% of the general population, say they went online to gather political information and exchange it via email.
This group, which Pew refers to "campaign Internet users," adds up to 60 million Americans. Nearly one-quarter of these campaign Internet users (23%), appear to be forming "a new online political elite."
By this, Pew means these Internet users were actively engaged in online political discourse, including publishing their own political commentary online, sharing someone else's commentary, creating political audio/video, or sharing other people's audio/video. So if you blogged about politics, created a political YouTube video or circulated a political video you found on blip.tv, mazel tov – you're among this new online politirati.
Link, and direct PDF Link to report. Chart shown above, from page 21:
Republican and Democratic voters were equally likely to say that the internet was their
main source of election news (17% among each group). In contrast, there were notable
differences between Republican and Democratic voters in their preferences for other
news sources.
