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Despite numerous reports that women are now as likely as men to surf the Web, there's still a big gender gap when it comes to e-politics. Men -- especially conservative men -- are far more inclined to get political information from the Net than are women, according to a new poll.
The survey, by the Los Angeles Times, found that men are more than twice as likely as women to use the Internet as their primary source for political information. Overall, 10% of men and 4% of women rely on the Web for political news, chat, and direct communication with campaigns.
CLOSING IN ON RADIO. What's more, there's a huge ideological divide in the electronic world. Those who consider themselves conservatives are far more likely to look to the Internet for the latest political news (9%) than are self-described moderates or liberals (5% each). Independents are slightly more Net-savvy (9%) than Republicans (8%), while Democrats lag far behind (4%).
The Times survey found the Internet has emerged in the past four years to become an important -- though still secondary -- source of political information. In this regard, the Net already has surpassed magazines, TV commercials, neighborly chitchat, and person-to-person communication with political organizations -- and is closing in on radio news. Television news (53%) and newspapers (51%) still lead by a wide margin.
The survey was based on telephone interviews conducted on Sept. 23-25 with 694 likely voters. It has a 4% margin of error.
By Richard S. Dunham in Washington Edited by Douglas Harbrecht
Copyright 2000, by The McGraw-Hill Companies Inc. All rights reserved.
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