Only six percent of Americans are getting their political news from Facebook while a meager two percent do the same on Twitter, according to a study conducted by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press.
The study, which analyzed how Americans are watching the 2012 presidential race, also found that interest is down from 2008 across mediums. 29 percent of respondents have said they’re following news about the election “very closely,” down from 34 percent the same time last year.
The campaign has lost the interest of many young Americans. In 2008, 31 percent of people aged 18-29 said they were paying close attention to the political showdown. This time around, only 20 percent are dialed in.
Could it be that ambivalence on the part of younger people (who are generally more engaged with social media) is causing the low numbers of engagement with campaign news on services such as Facebook and Twitter?
While 42 percent of people aged 18-29 got campaign news primarily from the Internet in late 2007, only 29 percent are doing the same in early 2012. But their lack of engagement is reflected in all forms of media: cable news, network news, local TV and local newspapers have all seen a downward trend for political coverage and that age bracket.
However, people over 30 are using the Internet as their primary source of campaign news more often in 2012 than in 2007. And the Internet is still the place where young people who are engaged with politics turn for their politics fix, followed closely by cable news. The 18-29 age group also ranked Facebook as the place where they most often learn “something” about the political campaign, even if it’s not their primary source for news.
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