by Andrew Kohut
Andrew Kohut, director of the Pew Research Center for The People & The Press, is a regular cjr columnist, writing about public attitudes toward the media. He has served as president of The Gallup Organization and the American Association of Public Opinion Research. In 1989 he founded Princeton Survey Research Associates, an attitude and opinion research firm specializing in media, politics, and public policy studies.

More and more people are turning to the Internet for news, but this may not necessarily lead to a better informed public. Surveys by the Pew Research Center suggest that the Internet is likely to accelerate the trend initiated by cable television toward discrete and more specialized news audiences, while not meaningfully increasing public engagement in politics and public affairs.

These surveys find that online audiences go to Internet news sites to get more information about subjects that interest them rather than to seek out general enlightenment. Further, a new national survey finds that people’s knowledge of issues, interest in public affairs, and propensity to vote are minimally affected by whether and how often they go online for news. In fact, reading a newspaper regularly makes more of a difference in these areas than getting the news online.

Numerous recent polls have shown that the public’s appetite for Internet news and information is growing exponentially. As the year ends, half of the American public has access to the Internet, up from about 40 percent a year ago and 23 percent just three years ago. Almost two in three of those people (or 30 percent of the public at large) say they go online for news at least once a week, with 12 percent saying they read the news online every day. Only 6 percent reported doing so in April 1998.

Not only are more people logging on to news sites, but for many Americans those sites have become primary sources of information. Eleven percent of adults said in an October 1999 survey that they mostly rely on the Internet for national and international news. That figure was 6 percent last January. These nationwide figures mask the impact of the Internet in key demographic groups. Among college graduates under fifty years of age, for example, a much heftier 23 percent say they principally depend on the Internet for national and international news, rivaling the percentage who said this about network TV news (26 percent), radio (27 percent), and local TV (21 percent). Only cable news (32 percent) and newspapers (46 percent) score better in this important demographic category.

Now the thought-provoking news: Pew Research Center surveys find that online audiences turn to news Web sites mostly to get information of specific interest to them rather than to browse the news and find out what’s happening. Thirty-eight percent go online for updates on stock quotesýand sports scores, 41 percent to follow up on news they’ve heard about that interests them, and in the same vein, 44 percent are motivated by the ability to search for news on a particular topic. Considerably fewer (29 percent) say they go on for general news updates or to keep informed about the day’s events.

The Internet’s ability to customize news delivery and provide an extraordinary depth of information about specific topics may actually work against the public’s aggregate level of information about the larger world, much in the way cable TV has. Ironically, Americans on average know less about politics and Washington since the advent of C-SPAN. This great public resource is hardly a factor, while other cable networks such as ESPN and The Weather Channel have enabled many people who are less interested in public affairs to go directly to the sports and weather at six or eleven without sitting through the news that’s good for them.

Thus, there is some evidence that the Internet may not be a great boon to civic engagement. In a nationwide survey of 4,000 adults conducted by the center, respondents were asked two quiz questions: Which political party controls Congress? And, is the federal government spending more or less money than it is taking in this year? Two-thirds of the online audience (68 percent) answered at least one of these questions correctly, compared to 57 percent of those who do not get news on the Internet. But even this modest gap is deceptive because Internet users currently come from demographic groups that traditionally have had a relatively high degree of interest in public affairs. When these demographic differences are factored in, the online news audience is only slightly better informed. Relative to online use, newspaper reading and even cable news viewing make a bigger difference. The same pattern holds for how closely people follow public affairs issues. Reported voting is also linked more to newspaper reading than to Internet use.

Despite the growth of the Internet as a public news source, it still mostly co-exists with traditional news in the lives of online Americans. But the early signs of displacement suggest that it is the general television news formats that are most likely to be adversely affected. An October 1999 survey found only 17 percent of the online news audience saying that they rely on the Internet more than on print or broadcast news media. The vast majority (68 percent) say that their news habits have not been affected by their Internet use. Surveys comparing the media use of the Internet audience with those not online largely confirm these self reports. When gaps in demographics and news interest are accounted for, relatively small differences exist between the two groups. However, Internet users who are heavy consumers of national news do report watching relatively less television news than their unconnected counterparts, while still reading newspapers just as often.

But it is not the whole category of television news that suffers, say the surveys. Rather, the online news audience watches less broadcast television news and newsmagazine programs on ABC, CBS, and NBC. In contrast, reports of cable news viewing (CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, et al) are actually greater for the Internet news audience than for those with similar interests and backgrounds.

A word of caution about these trends. The ever-changing character of the Internet audience makes it a moving target. Internet “newbies” this year, who account for 37 percent of the online universe, are quite different from the early adopters demographicaly and in their motivations to go online. Increasingly, people without college training, those with modest incomes, and women are joining the ranks of Internet users, who not long ago were largely well-educated, affluent men. Consequently, even in the short history of the Internet news audience, we have seen some significant changes. Three years ago, when just 23 percent of Americans were online, stories about technology were the top news draw. By late 1998, with 41 percent of adults using the Internet, the weather was the most popular online news attraction.

Trends may also be slow to emerge because the news habits of Internet newcomers evolve slowly. Going online for news is not a passive exercise, like turning on the TV set for the first time. It simply takes time for people to understand how to use the Internet to suit their needs. And at any given moment there are a lot of newbies trying to work it out.

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