Internet as a News Source
The use of internet is not new to most people. The different ways that people are able to access information on the internet is virtually limitless. The various sources that an individual normally uses to obtain information have not been untouched by politics. The internet is converting into another manner in which to campaign for many of these politicians by allowing voters to investigate why their stance is important and how credible it is by providing them with the opportunity to search for their selves. The internet is the preferred manner to obtain news by many individuals who are not able to sit down and watch television. The ease of access to the internet allows for this growth of importance to occur because it gives them another outlet to become more knowledgeable. How important is the internet when it comes to providing another source for information? How reliable of a source is it proving to be when it comes to politics?
The various techniques to get news off the internet have expanded changing the percentage of people who now use their mobile phones to get news while away. More people are using the applications that have been created which allow them to have the news at their fingertips. Fewer individuals are using search engines to find any news with the percentage decreasing. In contrast, the number of individuals using social networking sites to obtain news is increasing. 41% of adults have started using social networking sites, such as Facebook, as a news source according to PEW Research Center. . In the 2008 election 74% of internet users and 54% of adults reported going online to obtain their information (Vaccari, 2010)However, Twitter is less used according to the research to get news when looking at the general public but when narrowed to the users the percentage increases. Twitter users and social networking users prefer more journalistic sources that show an unbiased point of view. Blogs are another form of obtaining information from the internet. However, they can be tailored to fit a certain viewpoint and they are able to influence the people who read it (Shah Et.al, 2007). An experiment was conducted by Thomas Johnson, along with three others to determine the effectiveness of blogs as a news source regarding various aspects (2008). The blogs used are oriented towards politics and can serve as a source of political news which can favor one side over another. The credibility of blogs in the eyes of the public was the main focus. The respondents who completed the survey were composed of males and females. The males were more frequent visitors to the blogs. Caucasians are the main ethnic group that uses blogs as their source of news. The political affiliations of people who use blogs tend to be more Democratic than Republican. The manners in which news was obtained via internet were blogs , political websites, mailing list/bulletin boards, web portals and chat rooms. The most popular of these methods is blogs which was followed by political websites. Respondents spent 8.3 hours/week on political sites followed by 7.4 hours/week on blogs (Johnson, 2008). Blogs are viewed as somewhat credible and biased but they provide a great depth of news to the public.
Another research investigation was conducted by Sunil Wattal to look at how big of a role the internet media played in spreading news to the public during the 2008 Presidential election (2010). The different forms of media that were crucial to politicians were web pages. The web pages consisted of blogs, political websites, and social networking pages. During the 2008 election, blogs seemed to be the ones that were able to be seen as having a noticeable impact but only on well-known candidates. This means that even though blogs are highly accessible they are not as much of a resource that unknown candidates can rely on when seeking election. So the amount of information being viewed using the internet was being gathered from blogs.
Blogs are still a main source of debate due to their unrestricted nature. With the increasing influence of the internet, more people are turning towards the internet to obtain facts. When it comes to blogs, there is a fine line because people are able to manipulate the information presented to the viewers. This can impact the credibility but looking closer it is not much different than campaign ads. The only difference is that an individual is able to provide some support to their argument through links to different Medias such as online newspapers.
The various techniques to get news off the internet have expanded changing the percentage of people who now use their mobile phones to get news while away. More people are using the applications that have been created which allow them to have the news at their fingertips. Fewer individuals are using search engines to find any news with the percentage decreasing. In contrast, the number of individuals using social networking sites to obtain news is increasing. 41% of adults have started using social networking sites, such as Facebook, as a news source according to PEW Research Center. . In the 2008 election 74% of internet users and 54% of adults reported going online to obtain their information (Vaccari, 2010)However, Twitter is less used according to the research to get news when looking at the general public but when narrowed to the users the percentage increases. Twitter users and social networking users prefer more journalistic sources that show an unbiased point of view. Blogs are another form of obtaining information from the internet. However, they can be tailored to fit a certain viewpoint and they are able to influence the people who read it (Shah Et.al, 2007). An experiment was conducted by Thomas Johnson, along with three others to determine the effectiveness of blogs as a news source regarding various aspects (2008). The blogs used are oriented towards politics and can serve as a source of political news which can favor one side over another. The credibility of blogs in the eyes of the public was the main focus. The respondents who completed the survey were composed of males and females. The males were more frequent visitors to the blogs. Caucasians are the main ethnic group that uses blogs as their source of news. The political affiliations of people who use blogs tend to be more Democratic than Republican. The manners in which news was obtained via internet were blogs , political websites, mailing list/bulletin boards, web portals and chat rooms. The most popular of these methods is blogs which was followed by political websites. Respondents spent 8.3 hours/week on political sites followed by 7.4 hours/week on blogs (Johnson, 2008). Blogs are viewed as somewhat credible and biased but they provide a great depth of news to the public.
Another research investigation was conducted by Sunil Wattal to look at how big of a role the internet media played in spreading news to the public during the 2008 Presidential election (2010). The different forms of media that were crucial to politicians were web pages. The web pages consisted of blogs, political websites, and social networking pages. During the 2008 election, blogs seemed to be the ones that were able to be seen as having a noticeable impact but only on well-known candidates. This means that even though blogs are highly accessible they are not as much of a resource that unknown candidates can rely on when seeking election. So the amount of information being viewed using the internet was being gathered from blogs.
Blogs are still a main source of debate due to their unrestricted nature. With the increasing influence of the internet, more people are turning towards the internet to obtain facts. When it comes to blogs, there is a fine line because people are able to manipulate the information presented to the viewers. This can impact the credibility but looking closer it is not much different than campaign ads. The only difference is that an individual is able to provide some support to their argument through links to different Medias such as online newspapers.