The Sarah Palin Effect and Age vs. Gender

Say what you will about the addition of Sarah Palin to the Republican ticket (here I said that most searches sought “hot” pictures of the Alaska governor); regardless of personal or political viewpoint, it is clear that McCain’s selection altered the political blogosphere.

Looking at U.S. Internet users’ interactions with political websites for the week ending with August 30, 2008 (the week of the Palin announcement), visits to over 800 campaign and blog sites grew 33.8 percent to reach the highest level of online political activity in the last three years. …

… Checking the demographics of visitors to political sites, I expected that gender composition would show the greatest difference pre- and post-Palin. In fact, the percentage of female versus male visitors was the least affected by the Palin announcement; age was the most affected.

If we look at the age demographics of online politics over time, the 55-plus crowd continues to be the predominant age group (39 percent at the end of 2007). In fact, if we look at online political interest by age group, there is a strong positive correlation: as age increases, so does percentage composition in political site visits.

The age group with the largest increase during the Palin surge during the week ending with August 30, 2008, was the 25- to 34-year-olds increasing to 14.4 percent of all visits from 13.4 percent the previous week (the 18 to 24 and the 55-plus age groups both decreased about 1 percent in the same time period). …

… Regardless of end-vote, online behavioral data indicate that recent events have ignited our interest in November’s election, especially for the 25- to 34-year-old voter.