ABSTRACT
The 2008 U.S. presidential election saw the first significant integration of Web 2.0 technologies; however; scholars know little about how Web 2.0 sources influence political attitudes. To address this, the authors test the effects of exposure to various Web 2.0 sources during the 2008 U.S. presidential election. They find that young adults exposed to television network sites and candidate Web sites consider them more trustworthy and high-quality than YouChoose '08 and Facebook. Moreover, YouChoose '08 viewers exhibit more government cynicism, whereas those exposed to candidate Facebook pages have a heightened sense that they influence the political system. Last, the authors find that YouChoose '08 and Facebook viewers were more likely to vote on Election Day.
