Continuing our series this week of interesting findings from the Committee on Standards in Public Life’s third report into public attitudes towards standards of conduct in public life, today it’s the popularity of political websites:
Usage of websites which focus on politics is much less common [than TV or radio for getting political news]: only 4 per cent of respondents said that they visited these websites often, and 12 per cent at least sometimes, in a typical week.
Although the report paints this number as small – with the use of “only” and the comparison with TV – I think the figure of 16% getting political news often or sometimes from a website that focus on politics in a typical week is actually quite high because:
- The definition was drawn quite narrowly: it excludes newspaper websites and the question prompted people only with the examples of blogs, forums and podcasts.
- A further 9% also on occasion get political news from these sources.
- These figures are likely to grow as a particular election nears.
- Online news can spread to, and influence, offline news outlets.
One Comment
And also those visiting those sites are likely to be better informed and will share their knowledge (gained from the sites) at work, in the pub, etc.
The point isn’t how many people go to the site, but how much influence they have: the target audience for any local politics blog is normally the political correspondent of the local paper, any others are added bonueses