Wired Latinos

Pew Research Center yesterday released a report about local community activity online. Below are some excepts with charts of the report we found most interesting:

Americans use a range of approaches to keep informed about what is happening in their communities and online activities have been added to the mix. Face-to-face encounters and phone calls remain the most frequent methods of interaction with neighbors. At the same time, internet tools are gaining ground in community-oriented communications.

In a poll conducted at the end of last year, we asked about online connections to communities and neighbors and found that in the 12 months preceding our survey:

* 22% of all adults (representing 28% of internet users) signed up to receive alerts about local issues (such as traffic, school events, weather warnings or crime alerts) via email or text messaging.
* 20% of all adults (27% of internet users) used digital tools to talk to their neighbors and keep informed about community issues.

Overall, physical personal encounters remain the primary way people stay informed about community issues. In the 12months preceding our survey:

* 46% of Americans talked face-to-face with neighbors about community issues;
* 21% discussed community issues over the telephone;
* 11% read a blog dealing with community issues;
* 9% exchanged emails with neighbors about community issues and 5% say they belong to a community email listserv;
* 4% communicated with neighbors by text messaging on cell phones;
* 4% joined a social network site group connected to community issues;
* 2% followed neighbors using Twitter.

These findings come from a national telephone survey conducted November 30 to December 27, 2009 among 2,258 Americans (including 565 reached on a cell phone). The margin of error for the full sample is plus or minus 2.4 percentage points. For results based internet users (n=1,676) the margin of sampling error is plus or minus 2.8 percentage points.

E-mail
Compared with telephone and in-person communication, racial differences are somewhat less pronounced when it comes to using email to communicate about neighborhood issues. Among email users 15% of whites and 9% of both African Americans and Hispanics shared email with neighbors about community issues in the preceding year, differences that are not statistically significant. Similarly, there are no significant differences on this question based on geographic location.



Community Blogs
Community blogs are particularly popular among residents of urban areas, as 17% of wired urbanites read a blog dealing with community issues. This is significantly higher than the 11% online rural residents who read such blogs. Online whites (14%), blacks (18%) and Hispanics (13%) are equally likely to read community blogs, and there is relatively little variation on this question based on income and education.





All Tools
It is also notable that relatively large number of young adults and minority Americans use tools such as community blogs, social networking sites and text messaging to keep up with neighborhood events -- especially since these groups are generally less likely than whites and older adults to talk about community issues via the telephone or face-to-face interactions.

Read full report here.

Source: Pew Research Center