The Who, When, Whys of the Blogosphere
While I was away in India, the Pew Internet & American Life Project released its survey of bloggers entitled: Bloggers: A portrait of the internet’s new storytellers.
Of course, it is old news now, but I use this blog as a public file cabinet. In other words, I like to store links here to important developments to which I can later click on when I need the information for papers, presentations or general research.
Here are some key findings:
A telephone survey of a nationally-representative sample of bloggers has found that blogging is inspiring a new group of writers and creators to share their voices with the world. Some 54% of bloggers say that they have never published their writing or media creations anywhere else; 44% say they have published elsewhere. While generally youthful, these writers otherwise represent a broad demographic spectrum of people who cite a variety of topics and motives for their blogging.
Eight percent of Internet users, or about 12 million American adults, keep a blog. Thirty-nine percent of Internet users, or about 57 million American adults, read blogs - a significant increase since the fall of 2005.
And for us here at the PJNet:
The Pew Internet Project blogger survey finds that the American blogosphere is dominated by those who use their blogs as personal journals. Most bloggers do not think of what they do as journalism.
More facts:
The most distinguishing characteristic of bloggers is their youth. More than half (54%) of bloggers are under the age of 30. Like the Internet population in general, however, bloggers are evenly divided between men and women, and more than half live in the suburbs. Another third live in urban areas and a scant 13% live in rural regions.
Another distinguishing characteristic is that bloggers are less likely to be white than the general Internet population. Sixty percent of bloggers are white, 11% are African American, 19% are English-speaking Hispanic and 10% identify as some other race. By contrast, 74% of Internet users are white, 9% are African American, 11% are English-speaking Hispanic and 6% identify as some other race.
59% of bloggers spend just one or two hours per week tending their blog. One in ten bloggers spend ten or more hours per week on their blog.
The full report is worth a read.
