PEW: Peer Networks and Youth Political Media Consumption

PEW has released some interesting data on the news consumption habits of Americans, and they were kind enough to break out the 18 - 29 demographic in their analysis. By itself, the topline is pretty unremarkable: "young people get news on the internet," but there is a lot of useful information buried in the report

Pulling out some interesting findings:

• Cable news remains a very important distribution outlet for news if you want to reach young voters, but Sunday talk shows are virtually worthless for reaching young people.
• About a quarter of young people get their news through daily newspapers, but that influence doesn't translate online, where major political news outlets like the New York Times and Washington Post get relatively little attention from young people.
• Only 10% cite late-night talk shows (read: Daily Show, Colbert Report) as sources of information. This cuts against conventional wisdom, though it's not that surprising. Relatively speaking, those shows have a rather small, though granted highly influential and informed, audience.
• The Long Tail is a substantial source of news for young people - this means political blogs, blogs of friends, chat boards, email forwards - an amalgamation of sources that likely rely more on peer networks than and influence than broadcast capability. As the report notes:

However, even as the variety of campaign web information resources has expanded, there are indications that most internet users do not go online for the sole purpose of learning about the campaign. Rather, a majority of web users (52%) say they “come across” campaign news and information when they are going online to do something else. This practice is particularly prevalent among younger web users: 59% of web users under age 30 come across campaign news online compared with 43% of those ages 50 and older.

This seems particularly important because 52% is more than double the 20% who get their news from long-tail sources. This means that even for campaign news found via myspace, CNN.com, Facebook, or any other on-line source, odds are better than even that a young voter found that information through random searches or through exposure via a peer network.

Millennials are at a tipping point in their media consumption habits - particularly as it applies to politics. Broadcast outlets like the cable news networks remain important for the moment, but more and more it is exposure to news and information through online peer networks that is the dominant way of distribution information.