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By Cara Garretson

A recent research project outlined a correlation between people who engage in political and civic activity online and those who do so offline -- both groups are wealthy and well-educated. However, these researchers also discovered that online political activity could grow and start to spread to other groups, thanks to blog contributions and other forms of social networking.

The report, issued by the Pew Internet & American Life Project, an initiative of the Pew Research Center in Washington, D.C., was based primarily on surveys conducted in August 2008, during the presidential campaign.

The report was designed to examine the similarities among the politically active online -- those who, for example, might send an e-mail to a government official, sign a petition online, or make a contribution to a preferred politician -- and those who follow such practices away from their computers.

According to the study, 8 percent of adults who earn less than $20,000 a year said they engaged in political events online in the preceding 12 months; 18 percent participated in such activities offline during the same time frame. However, among adults earning more than $100,000 annually, that number jumped to 35 percent online and 45 percent offline.

One of the reasons that wealthier populations are more active online seems clear: those with lower incomes have less access to the Internet, and therefore can't go online as often for any reason, says the report.

But researchers found that Web users who engage in social networking are more politically active than typical Internet users, regardless of their economic standing.

At the time the survey was taken, 33 percent of Internet users said they had an account with a social networking site, and 31 percent of those respondents said they had engaged in activities on a social media site that had a civic or political focus, such as "friending" a political candidate.

"That works out to 10% of all Internet users who have used a social networking site for some sort of political or civic engagement," reads the report.

The report's findings suggest that economic status and level of online political activity may not be directly related going forward, depending in part on whether new social networking tools continue to be used for political and civic activities.

That so many social networkers get involved with these sites for political reasons could stem from the fact that many of them are from younger generations; the study showed that 37 percent of Internet users between the age of 18 and 29 use blogs or social media sites for political or social involvement.

"The impact of these new tools on the future of online political involvement depends in large part upon what happens as this younger cohort of `digital natives' gets older," says the report. "Are we witnessing a generational change or a life-cycle phenomenon that will change as these younger users age? Will the civic divide close, or will rapidly evolving technologies continue to leave behind those with lower levels of education and income?"

Comments (2)

	1. 09-08-2009 17:23
	While it would seem intuitive that those who are active in social media are also more politically active in that both pursuits often center around advocating a point of view, I do think that the time at which this survey was conducted (August 2008) might introduce some bias to skew the results. The 2008 election was historic and passionate, and as a result caused increased political participation among many groups that might not represent future norms. Registered

Fred Kauber

	2. 09-08-2009 19:52
	Good point, and in fact the report did point out that this past election had characteristics about it that may not carry going forward. Registered

Cara Garretson

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