e.politics: online advocacy tools & tactics

Candidates Had Better Keep an Eye on Wikipedia

April 25th, 2007

A new study from the Pew Center for the Internet and Public Life finds that 36% of online Americans use Wikipedia, roughly half the time getting to the site from a search engine link. Better-educated folks and broadband users were more likely to turn to Wikipedia than their less-educated and slower-connected brethren, meaning that the collectively-written online encyclopedia is disproportionately likely to reach potential voters (since voting tends to rise with education). Hmmmmmm, the presidential campaigns are reputedly already monitoring Wikipedia just as they monitor blogs, but what about down-ballot races? Coverage of big-city mayoral, senatorial and congressional elections may start popping up in its pages, and candidates had better be aware of what’s written about them. Thanks to Micropersuasion for pointing the study out.

Update: by focusing on political races, I forgot about issue-advocacy. What are people writing about YOUR issues? You might wanna check….

– cpd

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