Who Reads the Blogs?

[Adam's Apple]

Gallup Poll on Blogs
By Mike Blumenthal for www.mysterypollster.com
March 11, 2005

My blogger status compels me to report as a "must read" a new survey on blogging released today by the Gallup Organization. Under the headline "Bloggers Not Yet in the Big Leagues," Gallup's Lydia Saad concludes:

Relatively few Americans are generally familiar with the phenomenon of blogging...Three-quarters of the U.S. public uses the Internet at work, school, or home, but only one in four Americans are either very familiar or somewhat familiar with blogs...More to the point, fewer than one in six Americans (15%) read blogs regularly (at least a few times a month). Just 12% of Americans read blogs dealing specifically with politics this often.

The analysis is worth reading in full, as Gallup's data will provide an important benchmark for tracking the blogging phenomenon. However, though Saad delivers a powerful rebuke to anyone who might confuse blogs with one of the "dominant sources of information for the American public," I fear she misses the point.

MP has never been much of a believer in "blogger triumphalism," the notion that blogs will inexorably destroy or supplant the "mainstream media." I tend to agree with this observation from former Salon.com managing editor Scott Rosenberg (as quoted by Jay Rosen):

Typically, the debate about blogs today is framed as a duel to the death between old and new journalism...This debate is stupidly reductive -- an inevitable byproduct of (I'll don my blogger-sympathizer hat here) the traditional media's insistent habit of framing all change in terms of a "who wins and who loses?" calculus. The rise of blogs does not equal the death of professional journalism. The media world is not a zero-sum game. Increasingly, in fact, the Internet is turning it into a symbiotic ecosystem -- in which the different parts feed off one another and the whole thing grows.

No, the collective reach of blogs is nowhere near that of television or print media, but focusing on the relatively small percentages misses the rapidly growing influence of the blog readership in absolute terms. The 12% that say they read political blogs at least a few times a month amount to roughly 26 million Americans. That may not make blogs a "dominant" news source, but one American in ten ads up to a lot of influence.

The most remarkable finding is the pattern we would expect in blog readership by age that gets buried near the end of the report. According to Gallup, monthly readership of all blogs (not just political) is 15% overall, but much greater among younger Americans:

Monthly-plus readership of blogs is 21% among 18- to 29-year olds, 16% among those 30 to 49, 14% among those 50 to 64 and just 7% among those 65 and older.... The age gap in blog reading is particularly noteworthy because it is a complete reversal of the typical age pattern gap for news consumption. Gallup finds Americans' use of all traditional news media to be positively correlated with age. (For instance, only 32% of 18- to 29-year-olds read a local paper every day, versus 61% of those 65 and older) [emphasis added].

Sounds like almost like something of a "revolution" to me.

 

[Annie]

http://www.blogads.com/survey/2005_blog_reader_survey.html

I was happily surprised by last year's blog reader survey. This year's survey continues the trajectory of happy surprises.

Last year, we got 17,159 responses. This year, 30,079 blog readers responded.

Last year, 61% of responding blog readers were over 30 years old. This year, 75% are over 30 years old.

Last year, 40% had family incomes greater than $90,000. This year, 43% exceed that figure.

Year over year, some figures are remarkably stable. One reader in five is a blogger. As was the case last year, exactly 1.7% are CEOs. Almost the same number (44%) spend more than $500 for air tickets. 86% purchased music online, last year and this. Last year, 79% were men. This year, 75% are men.

The most interesting news comes in section 8. Aficionados of PR-speak will recognize these questions as benchmark tests to identify who is an opinion maker, a member of the ten percent of Americans who are believed to set the agenda and steer the opinions of the other 90%. To qualify as an official "influential," RoperASW, the leading firm consulting in the field, you have to answer 3 of those questions (excluding a petition) in the affirmative. Clearly the blogosphere is crawling with certified grade A opinion makers. (When we can get SurveyMonkey's filtering software to behave properly, we'll be able to tell you exactly how many.)

How much credence should you give this survey? The survey was designed as much to provoke as to prove. I'll paraphrase what I wrote last year: the survey's responses are a fragment of a sample of a subset. There are millions of bloggers. Last week I e-mailed roughly 100 of them -- some of the biggest bloggers, many of whom focus on politics and/or sell blogads -- suggesting they link to they survey. Some of the bloggers I wrote to (and some I didn't) linked to the survey; some of their readers clicked; some were offended by questions written mostly for Americans; some aspiring respondents were unable to complete Surveymonkey's sometimes buggy forms. So wield a salt shaker as you munch on this data.

But remember also that the blogosphere is all about biases and conversations and boot-strapping and not waiting for some authority-- a newspaper editor or university dean or foundation officer or venture capitalist or government agent -- to tell you something but figuring it out yourself, and, finally, about sharing fragments of imperfect data with peers to arrive at some useful collective knowledge.

As Trent Lott and Howell Raines learned, the blogosphere's numerous voices can capture and amplify ideas that are too complex or contrary for traditional organizations to see or speak. (This year, we can add Howard Dean, Dan Rather, George Bush, Eason Jordan and Jeff Gannon to the list of public figures rerouted by bloggers.)

Soon bloggers who directed readers to the survey will get their own breakouts to use or share. And more survey results -- breakouts by party affiliation and other metrics -- coming next week.

Henry Copeland
March 12, 2005
www.blogads.com/weblog

 

[Adam's Apple]

All I can say is that Gallop's small percentage of blog readers sure did make a WHOPPING big change in this country. Just ask Dan Rather.

 

[Annie]

All I can say is that Gallop's small percentage of blog readers sure did make a WHOPPING big change in this country. Just ask Dan Rather.

Yup. A big reason is those that read them are 'influencers,' no doubt about that.