1. 10% of Americans are "opinion leaders." 2. 7% of Americans regularly use the Internet for political purposes -- acting as "online political citizens"; 69% of them are "influential." 3. Nearly half of online political citizens have "attended a political rally, speech or organized protest, compared to 6 percent of the general public." 4. About 60 percent of online political citizens have college degrees; just over one-third, between the ages of 18 to 34; nearly two-thirds of them, male; 86 percent, white (compared to 81 percent of the population).
The Net is probably the most efficient means of getting word out to college-educated white male activists.
Working the Net for the purpose of political organizing, though, allows you to reach less than half (48%) of "opinion leaders." The overwhelming majority of "online political citizens" -- white (86%), male (nearly two-thirds), and college graduates (60%) -- fit into the demographic profile of "the least likely" to turn to the broad political left (much less the revolutionary left!). Political communication on the Net is prone to bypass those whom organizers who desire to revive a mass movement on the left need the most: "opinion leaders" of low-income working-class communities -- especially women leaders in black and immigrant working-class communities. -- Yoshie
* Bring Them Home Now! <http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/> * Calendars of Events in Columbus: <http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/calendar.html>, <http://www.freepress.org/calendar.php>, & <http://www.cpanews.org/> * Student International Forum: <http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/> * Committee for Justice in Palestine: <http://www.osudivest.org/> * Al-Awda-Ohio: <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio> * Solidarity: <http://www.solidarity-us.org/>