The Atlantic | The Netroots Effect - 0 views
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Ilona Meagher on 02 Sep 09In his book, Hindman points out that technologies like the telegraph, the radio, and television were all heralded as democratizing breakthroughs in their early days, but even now, we're still debating whether TV has accomplished this goal. The Internet is still new, compared to those technologies, and its landscape changes so quickly that the Pew report-though released today-is already, in some ways, outdated. It does not include Twitter in its "social networking" category, for example, since just a few months before the data was collected only 6 percent of American Internet users Tweeted. That still-rising number hit 10.7 percent in June, and Twitter has now become a popular conduit for political activity; in the past year, people across the world have Tweeted fundraising pleas, key information about terrorist attacks, and, famously, calls to protest.