This may be the election of change, but it will not be the election of the internet. A new study on voters’ media consumption habits in advance of next month’s election, conducted by MediaVest, found that voters are engaging with web media to get their political news in surprisingly small numbers. Though there’s been a huge increase in interest in this election compared to 2004, with 65 percent of respondents saying they are more interested, they are still getting much of their news about it from traditional media sources such as TV. Respondents were asked to rank how likely they were to use certain media sources, and five of six online media categories came in at below-average use or worse. The study found that of utmost importance to voters in this election is finding trustworthy, reliable sources of information, and they still do not trust the internet. John Spiropoulos, vice president and group research director at MediaVest, talks to Media Life about the differences in media consumption between John McCain and Barack Obama supporters, the lack of trust in the web, and why media buyers should take note.

 
What did you find most surprising or most interesting about this study?
 
I think the use, or lack of use, of web-based media, especially those that have no traditional media component or history to them. The limited use there was a little against what was assumed going into this election.
 
And this isn’t a political ideology issue but a broad circumstance.
 

What's the most important thing media buyers/planners can take away from it?
 
I think, relative to that first point of the web not being used at the level of other media, it is the fact that before you jump into other media vehicles, you have to understand what drives users to those vehicles.

Before this election cycle, there was an assumption that the growth of the internet would apply to the growth for political use as well, and that has not been the case.

Why does traditional media still dominate for political news and information, especially TV?
 
The key component for news and media for both political and non-political is trust of those vehicles themselves. That’s the key driver for deciding which vehicle to use. Trust in that you trust the announcers giving you the information, and that you trust it’s fair and accurate and factual.
 
We looked at 18 different communication vehicles, including discussions with friends and families and various media sources.

Web-based political news and information sites did not do well at all. People are not using them, nor do they seem likely to increase usage through the election. What we find is there’s a statistical correlation between the trust component and the current use, as well as intended future use.
 

How do trust levels differ for new and old media? How important is that to getting consumers to use them?
 
One thing we found is the web-based vehicles that have traditional components, like CNN.com, although they don’t have the current usage of their traditional counterparts, intended future use is much stronger than other web-based components.
 
So consumers I think are interested in using those sites maybe when it comes to election night, but it’s not a longstanding interest in using those sites for political information. They’ll go to TV stations and watch it there.
 

Why is interest in this race so much higher than in 2004?
 
I think it started in ‘06 with the midterm election. There was much more interest on the liberal side relative to Bush. You saw the interest from liberal political voters to go in and make change in the congressional elections. And that has carried through this year.
 
We asked the question around the primaries, “Compared to four years ago, what’s your interest level?”

Liberals were much more interested than they were four years ago, and they still are, but not as much as they were during the primary, and now conservatives have closed that gap.

So I think what you’re seeing is the interest of change relative to Obama’s platform, and now it’s matching on the conservative side now that the election is very close.
 

What differences in media usage did you find between McCain and Obama supporters?
 
What we found when we talked about different media in terms of level of use, we clustered respondents into five different areas. One is media generalists, which are voters that use all media at different levels, but are relatively heavy users across the board. And these tend to be Obama supporters, they were statistically more likely to fall in that bucket.
 
And the next was TV-dominant, people who were using TV much heavier than other media and very light non-traditional media users. And McCain supporters were statistically more likely to fall into this bucket.
 
I think one of the drivers of this difference is age. Obama has a broader spectrum of supporters from young to old, and that group is more willing to go online. Whereas McCain supporters tend to be more on the older side, and they have no interest.
 
Just to fill out that response, we also have conversationalists, people who talk to friends and family but are moderate media users, as well as traditionalists, which use traditional media in a moderate level and aren’t interested in new media. And then the last segment is light users. They don’t follow the election to the degree that other people have who have already made their decision do.
 

How did undecided voters' media usage differ from those groups?
 
Many of them fall into the light users group.

The problem, to a degree, for both candidates is that these people don’t use political news and information vehicles, they’re very light users. Very simply they’re just light political junkies, if not anti-political.

That’s why we see the candidates airing ads well outside of political outlets, because they have to get those voters elsewhere. Obama supporters statistically are less likely to fall into that bucket.