More people are turning to the Internet and social media as their source for news about the 2012 presidential election, but cable television remains the favorite among most Americans, a new survey by the Pew Research Center's
Project for Excellence in Journalism has found.
The survey of 1,005 adults conducted Oct. 18-21 found that 41 percent of those polled said they turned to cable TV for their news about the election, up 5 percentage points from Pew’s last survey in January.
Overall, television was seen as the "most useful" source of news in its various forms — cable, local, network — including late-night comedy shows. In that particular category, 12 percent of Americans told Pew that they received their news from such programs, up from 9 percent in January.
But the use of social media — including Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube — has doubled, to 12 percent, from 6 percent in January, Pew reports.
And the use of the Internet overall, including the websites of traditional news sources and those native to the web, posted an 11-point jump in the Pew survey, to 36 percent, from 25 percent at the first of the year.
“The numbers portray a diverse landscape in which no platform dominates as the place for politics, and the vast majority of Americans say they regularly rely on multiple platforms to get political information. Just 6 percent said they turn regularly to just one platform,” Pew said.
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