The Internet has surpassed television and other media as the most vital news and information source in the U.S., a new Zogby Interactive poll finds.

Asked what they would choose if they had only one source of news and information source, slightly more than half chose the Internet, 21 per cent chose television and 10 per cent chose newspapers and radio.

But it's clear that social media hasn't yet taken hold as a resource. Only a small fraction cited Facebook or MySpace and an even smaller cohort cited Twitter as a good source of news.

As for most popular news source, the Internet again ranked first: 40 per cent chose the Net, 17 per cent chose TV, 16 per cent chose newspapers and 13 per cent chose radio.

What's clear, Zogby said, is that the efforts by conventional media to direct readers to their sites are working.

 


Comments

Bill Dunphy link
06/18/2009 11:18

I've seen this survey's findings reported repeatedly, but nowhere have I seen any mentions of its potentially critical methodology flaw - it was a voluntary online poll.
"Almost half of 3,030 adults questioned in the online survey ..."
Do think a poll conducted exclusively via a self-selected sample of folks online, about net vs non-net news sources might just possibly suffer from some sample bias?
Polsters are increasingly turning to so-called "interactive polls" because they're cheap and easy - not because they're methodologically sound or because there's any solid evidence about their accuracy.
Sorry about the rant, but our profession's uncritical acceptance of this kind of lazy thinking is one of my hot buttons.
And an online survey I posted on my facebook page shows 63% of people agree with me....

Reply
Kirk LaPointe link
06/18/2009 11:23

Bill:

Almost all polls are conducted online now.
There are economic reasons, of course, but also some reasonable practical ones: The rate of refusal for telephone polls is more than 80%, so the sample by phone is a problem.
There is methodological soundness in them, as long as they're weighted properly.
Now, I'm a critic of polls like the next guy, but I don't think we can make these kinds of blanket statements about them.

Reply
Bill
06/18/2009 11:32

Reply
Bill Dunphy link
06/18/2009 11:42

Oops. Hit enter by accident I guess.
My point is that its hard to take seriously a poll about net vs non-net preferences when ONLY people using the net can access the poll. I can't imagine any methodologically sound way of weighting your results to repair that fundamental flaw.
Here's what they say about the issue: "A Zogby analysis of these and other similar polling questions showed that the Zogby online methodology had negligible impact on the findings of the survey."
Not the most impressive poll or polster.
And that's not even touching the issue of their confounding delivery method (internet) with content source (newspapers).
Pfui.

Reply

Comments are closed.
DA25E68FDEC14EAFA7B2A27D26C48058