Internet's rise has led to low voter turnout, says study
September 18, 2016 12:06
The rise of internet may have led to a decreased voter turnout, due to people facing an overwhelmingly large pool of political information and not knowing how to efficiently filter relevant knowledge, a new study has claimed.
The internet has transformed the way in which voters access and receive political information, researchers said. It has allowed politicians to directly communicate their message to voters, circumventing the mainstream media which would traditionally filter information.
Stephan Heblich from the University of Bristol in the UK studied data from a number of countries, comparing voter behaviour of municipalities with internet access to the ones without in the early 2000s. The study showed municipalities with broadband internet access faced a decrease in voter turnout, due to voters suddenly facing a large pool of information and not knowing how to filter relevant knowledge efficiently.
Similarly, the internet seemed to have crowded out other media at the expense of information quality.
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