Web bumps TV in '08 election coverage

August 01, 2007 With the 2008 presidential election heating up, the Internet is replacing TV as the "dominant media force in political campaigning," according to Jeffrey Cole, a USC professor behind a seven-year study on the impact of online technology. Cole, director of the Center for the Digital Future at the USC Annenberg School for Communications, estimates that Internet use as the main source for political information has tripled since 2000, with nearly 60% of Internet users going to the Web as their primary source for news about the campaigns. Cole surmised that the ease and relative cheapness of online campaigning could give rise to a "viable third-party presidential candidate based entirely on building an online constituency" or even an entirely new political party that could challenge the Republicans and Democrats in coming elections.

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