The Pew Internet and America Life Project conducted a thorough survey of bloggers, what topics they blog on, what demographics blogs (age, race, socioeconomics, DSL/dial-up), what motivates them to blog, how often they blog and more. This information was then crossed with other behaviors such as where they get their news from, what politic party they were, the validation of their sources and so forth.
Some bloggers blog for personal use, some for creative outlet, some for politic reasons, and some to communicate with family and friends.
The most compelling part of this article for me was the political and journalistic motivations of bloggers. In this new world of independent news sources and where "everyone is a journalist", it is interesting to peek into the minds and methods of these conveyers of information. The idea of having a more (non-corporate and non-mainstream) media source and something more (as the article puts it) democratized is a healthy thing for society that I certainly support. So it was interesting (and perhaps not surprising) to find out whether they actually verify information, cite sources, quote people directly and so forth. The numbers of whether they do act "journalistically" seem to be split down the middle...but one must bear in mind that these are SELF-reports and most will err on the side of self-protection and flattery. (But i don't know how much of this is conducted in the "real" media either).
One other thing that stuck out was a racial issue. Hispanic people tended to blog almost twice as much as their general Internet population. This is a very compelling statistic! Why is this? Blogs are used for sharing your voice, blogs are used for community building/sharing, for politic reasons, etc. Why would Hispanics make more of a showing than any other ethinicity in the blogosphere?
One survey I would like to read about is "Where do Blog readers go?" I don't read blogs, don't have time, and don't always know where to look...this information, to me, is more elusive.
BTW: Here I am practicing putting in a video. It has the lion hunt that I shared with the class on the first day...
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5 comments:
"In this new world of independent news sources and where "everyone is a journalist", it is interesting to peek into the minds and methods of these conveyers of information."
I too think it is very interesting that "everyone CAN be a journalist". Like you also mentioned that it gives a different perspective to the information that you received. One can question their sources and content, but at the same time, if you don't like what they blog you can always look at another blog. And that is the great thing of Web 2.0, you don't like that person's opinion, look at another people's opinion. Sometime in the mainstream journalism field, readers do not have that choice since most big news report companies are affliated to some political parties.
It is also surprising to see that Hispanics blog twice as much as other people, wonder why is that?
When it comes the news, I don't take thing seriously if I know it's on the blog. I only read blog for the entertainment.
I too wonder why Hispanics blog in such great numbers. What software or services are available to them? Are those services available to others? Is there a topic or topics that get more attention than blogs of other ethnicities?
I guess the blogosphere will be dominated by Hispanics -we are an opinionated bunch!
Thank you for the video posting. Do you know there is a great flood in Uganda? My friend who is a teacher e-mailed me to pray for them. Many schools are washed away.
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