The blog report

A new Pew Internet/​American Life study released today reveals new stat­istics about US bloggers gleaned from 233 tele­phone inter­views selected randomly. The link leads to a full PDF of the research. These are some of the headline findings:

• Blogging is bringing new voices to the online world. (54% had never been pub­lished elsewhere)
• Contrary to the impres­sion created by the press atten­tion on polit­ical blogging, just 11% of bloggers say they focus mainly on gov­ern­ment or politics.
• The blogging pop­u­la­tion is young, evenly split between women and men, and racially diverse. (54% of bloggers are under 30; they are more racially diverse than the US internet pop­u­la­tion as a whole).
• Relatively small groups of bloggers view blogging as a public endeavor. (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 main reasons for keeping a blog are creative expres­sion and sharing personal experiences.
• Only one-​​third of bloggers see blogging as a form of journ­alism. Yet many check facts and cite original sources. (Well, 57% of bloggers include links to original sources either “some­times” or “often.”)
• Bloggers are avid con­sumers and creators of online content. They are also heavy users of the internet in general.
• Bloggers are major con­sumers of polit­ical news and about half prefer sources without a par­tic­ular polit­ical viewpoint.
• Bloggers often utilize com­munity and readership-​​enhancing features avail­able on their blogs. (87% of bloggers allow comments on their blog, though only 18% offer an RSS feed).

Source: Lenhart, Amanda and Susannah Fox. Bloggers. Washington, DC: Pew Internet & American Life Project, July 19, 2006.

via boing­boing

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