During the 2016 election campaign, presidential candidates’ social media posts are serving as faster sources of news and information than their websites and Emails, Pew Research reports.
Around a quarter of U.S. adults (24%) turn to social media posts from either the Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump campaigns as a way of keeping up with the election, a new Pew Research Center survey conducted June 7 to July 5, 2016 found.
The percentage of people turning to social media postings exceeds the portions that rely on the candidates’ campaign websites (10%) or their emails (9%). Overall, three-in-ten Americans get election news from at least one of these three online sources for news about the election, the Pew said on its website.
Moreover, those who rely on the candidates’ websites and emails for news also turn to candidates’ social media posts for information, whether on Twitter, Facebook or some other platform.
Nearly two-thirds of those who get news from either candidate’s website (63%) and about the same portion who turn to candidate emails (68%) also turn to a candidate’s social media posts, findings say.
Individually, the survey found, the Clinton and Trump campaigns have about an equal reach online: Roughly the same portion of Americans turn to each campaign’s social media feeds (17% each) and campaign websites (7% for Clinton and 6% for Trump). A somewhat greater portion turn to emails from the Clinton campaign (7%) than the Trump campaign (3%), but the figures are quite low for both,.
