Online Video 5 Times More Popular in Election 2008 than in 2004
October 29, 2008 |
This morning Cisco has released results of an interesting study Compete conducted for Cisco to evaluate how Americans are influenced by online video and various social media tools when it comes to their political engagement. The results basically highlight the rapidly growing importance of visual networking in consuming news and information related to the presidential elections in 2008.
The study included Compete surveying 1,800 registered US voters to find out how they receive news and information about the upcoming elections. The main finding is that popularity of online video is growing – and growing fast: traffic to online video sites has quintupled since 2004.
It is definitely worth a special note that internet is becoming one of the main sources of information for the voters: 62% of respondents regularly accessed the internet over a computer to get their share of news. The only medium that managed to play a more significant role was TV with its 82%. Other sources include newspapers/magazines (49%), radio (30%), cell phone/mobile device (4%).
Probably the habit of getting news on TV in video form to a certain extent determines the role online video plays as even browsing the WWW people relied on video footage as well: about 30% of voters said that they used online video for presidential election coverage this year. Those people who watch videos online seem to be very satisfied with the experience as 75% of those admitting to watch videos online for political information also said this medium helped them follow news and events more closely. What’s more, watching video online ensures deeper engagement for a voter in the presidential campaigns compared to people who don’t watch videos online.
There is a peculiar difference between Democrats and Republicans in where they obtain their video content to watch as Democrats rely on traditional news websites and social networks while Republicans are more likely to use search engines to find the footage they want to watch.
I believe the trend here is mostly about people moving partially from the traditional form of consuming information on TV to a new medium that internet is – still sticking to the habit of wanting to see something moving and speaking in addition to only reading content. Besides, online video can be a source of some relaxation when people watch hilarious clips mocking presidential candidates in addition to watching boring news reports only so its growing popularity is quite understandable.
