From the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press:
The internet, which emerged this year as a leading source for campaign news, has now surpassed all other media except television as a main source for national and international news.
The flip-flopping of print and the Internet as the main news source for the broader online population was inevitable given the rapid proliferation of broadband access as well as the vast intrinsic advantages of online versus print. There is probably a natural inclination to think that the elections had a lot to do with the trend however a quick glance at the top news stories for 2008 indicates that four of the top five stories (followed very closely) had to do with the economy.
I wonder if the urgency that has surrounded the financial crisis was a catalyst for the shift to online from print as more people decided they wanted their information in real-time as opposed to the next morning.
The research does raise some interesting questions such as A) What are the sources that people are turning to online? Are people just turning to the online version of mainstream publications or are they turning to news aggregators and/or blogs?
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