By: Despite generally less interest in politics during the summer months and for midterm elections, Americans were as likely to look up political news and information online in August as they did during the peak of the 2004 presidential campaign.
Nineteen percent of U.S. adult Internet users, or 26 million, sought such information on a typical day in August, the Pew Internet and American Life Project said Wednesday. That's about the same as the 18 percent recorded in November 2004.
There was a jump from the last midterm elections 13 percent sought political information in July 2002.
John B. Horrigan, Pew's associate director, credited greater availability of high-speed Internet connections at home, which tends to boost usage of just about everything online, along with better political materials from campaigns, news organizations, activists and bloggers.
He said the interest in political news appears to be growing faster than the desire for general news, and the study found that younger people were more likely to seek out such information.
Pew conducted the telephone study Aug. 1 to Aug. 31, interviewing 1,021 Internet users. The margin of sampling error is plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.
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