Plugged In or Tuned Out? Youth, Race, and Internet Usage in the 2008 Election MARCELA GARCIA-CASTAN ˜ ON, ALISON D. RANK, and MATT A. BARRETO University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA Over the course of the last three presidential elections, young voters and minorities have become an increasingly sought after segment of the electorate. In particular, youth are also the most likely to be the beneficiaries of advances to technology, while minorities often lag behind in access. The 2008 election provided a number of examples of campaigns utilizing online technology as a means of targeting young voters. This article examines the influence of the Internet on young and minority voters, focusing specifically on Internet use for political purposes, such as visiting a candidate’s Web site or engaging in political discussions on blogs, as predictors of youth political participation offline. The authors find that engaging politics online leads to increases in political participation offline and that among younger voters, racial minorities are as connected as whites. However, among older voters, whites are far more likely to have access to and use the Internet politically. KEYWORDS online politics, political participation, race, youth INTRODUCTION If the Kennedy-Nixon campaign season demonstrated the possible impact of broadcast television on presidential politics, the 2008 presidential contest between Barack Obama and John McCain may have been a similar water- shed moment for the possibilities of the Internet and digital technology. From third-party social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace to viral videos to e-mail, campaigns and their supporters used the Internet to learn about and promote their candidates. Young voters, generally defined as those aged Address correspondence to Marcela Garcia-Castan ˜on, Department of Political Science, University of Washington, Box 353530, Seattle, WA 98195, USA. E-mail: marcegc@uw.edu Journal of Political Marketing, 10:115–138, 2011 Copyright # Taylor & Francis Group, LLC ISSN: 1537-7857 print=1537-7865 online DOI: 10.1080/15377857.2011.540209 115 Downloaded By: [Barreto, Matt A.] At: 07:10 23 February 2011