Selected news stories about the Pew Internet Project and articles citing our data.
More using computers to follow disaster news and donate
11/25/2005 | 
Coverage
Matthai Chakko Kuruvila, The Mercury News
'"The Internet is quickly changing the way Americans donate to charities and track the news, a study has found.
These trends were dramatized in the Gulf Coast aftermath of hurricanes Katrina and Rita, when charities received online donations from roughly 13 million Americans, according to a survey conducted by the Pew Internet and American Life Project. Roughly 18 percent of Internet users said they had used the Web to donate to charities.
The figures show a dramatic growth since the Pew project conducted similar studies after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and the December 2004 Asian tsunami. In October 2001, only 10 percent of Internet users said they had used the Internet to make a donation. After the tsunami, 17 million Americans -- 13 percent of Internet users -- had made a donation online.
"When you have these catastrophic events that get saturation media coverage, people want to give,'' said Nick Allen, chief executive of Donordigital, a San Francisco company that helps non-profits raise money online. Allen, whose company was not involved in the Pew study, said online donations can be the cheapest, most efficient way to contribute.
"It's easy,'' he said. "It's one click.''
The Pew study also examined the ways that Internet users are diversifying their news sources. After the Gulf Coast hurricanes, an estimated 73 percent of Americans said they had gone to the Web sites of major news organizations, such as CNN or MSNBC. Nearly half of those users also visited at least two alternate sources of information, such as blogs, international media or alternative news Web sites.
"People were definitely going to multiple sources, going to alternative media in addition to the mainstream media sites,'' said John Horrigan, associate research director for the Pew project.
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