New media
The hot thing that isn't: Political blogs
By Heidi Dawley
Mar 13, 2008 - 6:58:19 AM

Back in 2004, during the hubbub of the last presidential election, political blogs were the hot new thing, destined to reshape the national political dialogue. Or so the talk went.

It's turned out to be just so much talk.

These four years later, political blogs are non-starters. Just over one-fifth of Americans say they read political blogs several times a month or more, according to a poll from Harris Interactive.

Americans continue to turn to traditional media for political news, with cable, broadcast and local television news coming out tops, along with newspapers.

The web finishes behind, according to Harris. “A lot of people aren’t going to web sites for political information and results,” says Regina Corso, director of the Harris Poll.

The poll surveyed 2,302 adults in January and found that 56 percent of respondents said they never went to political blogs. Just 22 percent said they visited such sites several times a month or more. Another 23 percent visited occasionally –several times a year.

“I had expected more people to actually have read them, at least occasionally,” says Corso. “You are getting the activists and that’s all.”

While the Harris Poll doesn’t have figures on the percentage that went to blogs back in 2004, Corso remembers that the excitement among both Democrats and Republicans about the potential of blogs. Given that, she would have expected political blogs to be drawing a much larger percentage of surfers by now.

“Maybe they are old hat, they are not novel,” says Corso. “It’s not that people have given up on them, but people have returned home, if you will, to the likes of CNN, MSNBC and Fox News, to see the news whenever they want.”

Certainly ratings have been up on CNN, for instance, during this primary election season. In February ratings were up 113 percent year on year. Meanwhile, MSNBC was up 62 percent and Fox News up 16 percent.

But the first choice for political news remains local news. Some 70 percent of respondents said they turn to local TV news all the time or occasionally for political news; 66 percent chose cable news, and 64 percent network news. Some 65 percent cited local newspapers.

Despite the immediacy of the internet and the money spent beefing up sites, figures for the internet were far lower.

Only 35 percent of those surveyed said they go to cable news web sites all the time or occasionally for political news. Only 36 percent said they went to the web sites of national newspapers like The New York Times or USA Today for such news.

Interestingly, national newspaper web sites scored higher than the national newspapers themselves, which only 28 percent said they turned to.

The survey also found that when it comes to political blogs, it’s actually the oldest generation that is most inclined to use these sites, rather than younger folks.

Matures, those 63 and older, are the most likely to read political blogs. Some 26 percent of them say they do, compared to 23 percent of baby boomers, 17 percent of 32 to 43 year olds and 19 percent of 18 to 31 year olds.

“The Matures have the time to search the web, and they are interested in politics. These are the people who vote,” says Corso.

But matures don’t top the list when it comes to getting political news from web sites or cable or national newspapers. It’s Baby Boomers, with 40 percent saying they visit these two types of web sites for political news occasionally or all the time.

For Matures, 30 percent say they go to web sites of national newspapers and 32 percent said they went to cable news sites.