By Andrea Ciurej
More people are using the Internet to find campaign information for this year’s election.
Fifty-nine percent of voters have sought out election content online or have accessed some type of online communication related to the 2008 campaign, according to data from the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press.
Nearly 24 percent of Americans say they regularly learn something about the campaign from an online video source, the report said, while 22 percent use social networking sites such as MySpace or Facebook.
These numbers have almost doubled from the 2004 campaign.
Former broadcasting veteran Lee Terry Sr. said computers have changed the complexion of the 2008 election.
“Computers have really changed the dynamics of politics,” Terry Sr. said. “A heck of a lot more money is being spent.”
When Terry Sr. ran for Congress in 1976, Omaha news stations KMTV, KETV and WOWT were the primary sources of political information Terry Sr. also took advantage of the newsstands.
“I used to rely heavily on news stories,” he said. “It hammers away at voters.”
Terry Sr. also utilized door-to-door campaigning during election season. Lee Terry Jr., Nebraska’s 2nd Congressional District Republican candidate, has followed through with the door-to-door campaigning strategy.
The younger Terry has also conducted a new telephone town hall campaigning method, in which participants get a chance to discuss campaign issues with the candidate. Nearly 800 potential voters have participated.
“He likes to be more one on one,” the elder Terry said of his son.
