{Crossposted at The 44th}
I'd like to tell you a little something about your friends, family and neighbors -- the folks who aren't paying nearly as much attention to the 2008 election as you and I are. If you had been watching them last week, here's what you would have noticed before being arrested:
More of them watched Dancing With the Stars than watched the Evening News on ABC, NBC and CBS -- combined. Of the 220 million adults in the United States, less than 10% of them tuned in to a network newscast.
The average age of those 10%: 60.5 years.
Those who actually did watch the news -- network or cable -- were far more interested in the story of O.J. Simpson's arrest than they were about the 2008 election. And the media obliged, by devoting more time to Simpson than any other story.
Celebrity news domination isn't all that rare, as you've probably noticed. Earlier this summer, it was Paris Hilton. This from CarpetBagger, discussing a June CBS News broadcast:
During the half-hour broadcast, the Paris Hilton "news" got more coverage on CBS than a roadside bomb killing a U.S. soldier, the immigration legislation, and passage of the stem-cell bill combined — times two.
Your neighbors aren't reading the newspaper, either. In fact, newspaper readership only consumes 4.9% of all of their time spent with media. Today, 1 newspaper is sold each day for every 6 people in America. Many never get opened.
So maybe they're getting their news online. While it's true that Americans are spending more and more time online, the things we do there seldom involve news consumption.
It's true that your neighbors are pretty busy. They work more hours than ever before, and on average, have a little over two hours a day that they regard as "leisure." After a long work day, they get in the car for an increasingly long commute time home in which they listen to CDs instead of radio.
It all adds up to a disinterested, disengaged voter. How disinterested? If you invited your neighbors to a block party, and twenty people came, four of them would tell you that they are watching the 2008 election closely.
The other sixteen are hearing bits and pieces about the election. They might hear that Hillary Clinton has extended her domination in the polls to 53%, and they might then assume that the nomination is a done deal and that backing anyone other than Hillary would be a losing cause, so they don't even bother to do their homework on anyone else.
There's somewhat better news if your neighbors are between the ages of 18 and 29. They don't read the paper or watch the news either, but they are very interested in the upcoming election.
With the exception of those younger voters, your neighbors' apathy won't wane all that much in the coming months. When it comes time for them to go the polls for primary voting this winter and spring, about 3 of every 4 won't even bother. But that won't stop them from bitching about the eventual nominee, or how none of the candidates are interested in the same issues they think are important.
So what can we do to get voters both interested and informed? A few election reform ideas in Part II, posting Monday.