BLOGS MIGHTS MATTER, AFTER ALL.

Julie Bosman had an interesting piece in The New York Times yesterday about the way online media, blogs, and online organizing are playing a much less prominent role in Iowa than they are elsewhere. In particular, she noted a survey that found that "only about 7 percent [of likely caucus-goers] visited candidate pages on the social-networking sites MySpace and Facebook."

So I was intrigued while reading The Iowa Independent this morning by this paragraph in John Deeth's liveblog of the John Edwards Iowa SEIU endorsement press conference:

Professor David Redlawsk says the endorsement helps Edwards immensely in Johnson County, "though there's also a sizable Obama contingent." We exchange grumblings about a New York Times article than noted that Iowans, particularly those at the Johnson County Dems barbecue, don't read blogs. "Our research shows 22 to 23% of caucus goers read blogs, which was higher than I expected," he said. "It's still kind of a niche, but... the people who MATTER are reading blogs," he adds, trying to make me feel better. He's more surprised that only 5% of Iowans have donated to a campaign online.

I e-mailed David Redlawsk, the professor of political science at the University of Iowa, and he was kind enough to send me his data from his August survey, the second such survey he and his colleagues have done about internet use among likely caucus-goers. The results show that a substantial fraction of likely caucus-goers have had some online involvement with political content:

Have you ever:

Given Money/Sent or Rec. Pol. Email/Read Pol. Blog

Likely Caucus Goers 72.6% 63.1% 28.1%
n=572

Not Likely 36.2% 38.5% 17.1%
n=724

Given Money Online/ Read Pol. News Online/ Visited Cand. Website

Likely Caucus Goers 8.0% 59.4% 43.5%
n=572

Not Likely 1.2% 41.4% 18.4%
n=724

While it's clear that most of the likely caucus-goers are still pretty old-school in their media consumption habits, the fact that 43.5 percent have visited a candidate's web site shows those direct-to-the-voter communication vehicles have the potential to play a huge role in shaping opinion among likely caucus-goers. And more than a quarter of the likely caucus-goers had read political blogs.

Of course, the question was "have you ever," so it's unclear how many have done so recently, or will do so again in the future. Still, at every level, likely caucus-goers were more involved with online media and online campaigns than those who did not plan to attend the caucuses. And that's nothing to sneeze at.

--Garance Franke-Ruta