Unleashed: Internet takes over.
The internet has become, in just nine years, a significant source of election information for voters. In 1998, when we first asked about the internet in the AES, only 4 percent of voters said that they had used it to follow the campaign. By 2004, that had grown to 12 percent, rivalling radio and newspapers.
More starkly, our analyses of both the 2001 and 2004 ACS surveys have indicated that a lower house candidate with a personal website could expect to receive just over 2 percent extra first preference votes compared to a candidate without such a website. And this is net of other factors, such as resources, staffing, incumbency, and so on. In a closely fought contest, this could mean winning or losing.
2004 was an eternity ago in terms of the Internet. If the trend has continued since 2004 then we can expect the Internet to be highly significant in determining the outcome on 24 November.
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