Democrats Beat Republicans As Social Media Political Advocates

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In the realm of social media, do liberal Democrats make better brand advocates than conservative Republicans?
 
Yes -- or at least they have been in the run-up to this year’s presidential election, according to new research from the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project.
 
All told, 52% of liberal Democrats report “liking” or promoting material related to politics or social issues that others have posted, compared to 38% of conservative Republicans.
 
What’s more, Democrats (who identify themselves as social media users) are more likely to use social media to encourage others to vote -- 42% have done so, compared with 36% of Republican social-media users, and 31% of independents.
 
“There are mixed partisan and ideological patterns among social media users when it comes to using social media like social networking sites and Twitter,” according to Lee Rainie, director of the Pew Internet Project.
 
Yet Democrats and Republicans appear to be equally willing -- 42% versus 41%, respectively -- to use social media to post personal thoughts or comments on political and social issues. Overall, some 60% of American adults report using either social networking sites like Facebook or Twitter.
 
Some social sharing activities are more likely to be pursued by younger users compared with those ages 50+.
 
Spanning political ideologies, younger users are more likely to post their own thoughts about issues, post links to political material, encourage others to take political action, belong to a political group on a social networking site, follow elected officials on social media, and like or promote political material that others have posted.
 
Pew gathered its findings come from a nationally representative survey of 2,253 adults ages 18 and older, which was conducted this summer.

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1 comment on "Democrats Beat Republicans As Social Media Political Advocates".

1. Mark Walker from aka Media Mark
   

   commented on: October 22, 2012 at 6:30 p.m.
   From what I have seen, the republicans seem to be better at smearing and tearing down the democrats and pointing out failings- and outright lies... and are rather snarky about it. The dems seem more willing to be positive, promoting their candidates and positions rather than pouncing on their opponents' failures.

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