First, the Pew study focuses on political internet users more generally in the 2006 campaign. It finds, among other things, that Internet usage was way up in 2006 compared to 2002, in terms of the number of people seeking campaign information online. It also has some interesting information about the size of the political blogosphere:
In all, we calculate that 46% of internet users - or 31% of the entire adult population - used the internet for some kind of political purpose during the last election.(...)
20% [of that 31%] got news and information about the campaign from blogs. Those with relatively high levels of education and high levels of household income were particularly drawn to blogs as were campaign internet users in their 30s and their 50s. Blogs held special force with those who used the internet to get political news and information from places outside their communities.
Pew thus estimates that about 6% of the nation's adult population, or 13-14 million people, used the political blogosphere for campaign information in 2006. Their study estimates that a nearly identical, but slightly higher number, of what they call "campaign internet users" are also "online political activists." If you are familiar with any of my writings on the demographics of online political activists, Pew's description should sound a bit repetitious:
This is a population disproportionately weighted towards the young, the relatively well-educated, and the well-to-do. And, most notably, it is a group dominated by those who have broadband connections at home. In their partisanship and ideology, online political activists mirror the general population of those who are civically active. However, liberals are more likely to be online political activists than conservatives. Some 15% of internet users who describe themselves as liberals are such online activists, compared with 9% of online conservatives. Online political activists as a group are evenly divided between men and women. And their racial and ethnic composition is not very different from the general population.
Online political activists are highly active and engaged citizens, not only on the internet, but in civic life in general. Compared with many of their fellow citizens, online political activists report higher levels of interest in public life. They are heavy consumers of news in all forms.(...)
They had a statistically meaningful preference for Democratic candidates: 52% of those activists voted for the Democratic candidates, while 35% voted for Republicans. This might stem from the more liberal intensity of political content creators and sharers, though liberals are not the dominant ideological group among political content creators.
Here are the netroots: progressive, intense news consumers, relatively wealthy and well-educated, highly politically active, somewhat younger than the general population--you have heard all of this before. I am just glad Pew is saying it instead of me, so people will actually believe it now. I would also like to note, once again, that just because daily political blog readers (the blogosphere) and online political activists (the netroots) are progressive, that does not mean their primary goal in politics is to see candidates toe their ideological line. This was one of the main focuses of
the netroots survey last June.
What strikes me as interesting is that while the gender and ethnic makeup of online political activists is not all that different from the rest of the national population, we know that is not the case among blog readers who tend to be more male and more white. This is where GWU's study comes in:
While many Internet users have seen blogs, a much smaller proportion of them are regular readers of political blogs. Of the sample gathered here, 9% said they look at a political blog "almost every day."
Daily readers of political blogs see blogs as a news source and an alternative to the mainstream media, which they despise. Daily blog readers get almost all of their news online.
The audience for political blogs appears to be fairly concentrated across dozens of blogs, not thousands. Daily readers visit the most popular blogs.
Daily readers are disproportionately men, are not younger than other Internet users, but claim greater household income than other Internet users.
Daily readers are more likely to place themselves at the ends of the political spectrum. They are also more likely to take strong positions on social issues, especially those who consider themselves
Democrats.
Daily readers are heavily involved in politics, and they respond to efforts by bloggers to participate. Daily readers forward news stories, sign petitions and e-mail politicians at the prompting of political blogs.
The GWU study, which has significantly more methodological flaws than the better funded Pew study, also found that 75% of daily political blog readers "seldom or never" attend religious services. This adds an interesting dynamic to online demographic research, as I have never previously seen online political activists surveyed on religious preferences and habits. This 75% compares to about 54% in
2004 exits polls, although the two questions were not asked identically.
Again, the GWU study tells us much about what we already knew. Daily political blog readers skew progressive, politically active, and wealthy. The daily audience of the political blogosphere--on the left and the right--is concentrated in a small number of blogs, and is somewhere between 5-8 million people (though the occasional audience is much larger). Further, both studies also bring up a recurring, and more disturbing, question: if online political activists and campaign internet users are not disproportionately white or male, why are daily political blog readers disproportionately white and male?
I have spent years trying to figure out an answer to that question, and to date I consider the best answer to be one of cultural voice. Political blogs, which tend to be headlined by either one or a small group of writers, will almost inevitably attract an audience with similar cultural backgrounds to the individual or individuals who produce the majority of front-page content. Blogs, even political blogs that have become activist and media institutions, are still closely connected to the personal voice and characteristics of the people who write the most visible material on a given blog. Given the personal nature of blogs, and the dominance of a small number of highly trafficked blogs, it seems entirely reasonable that the male and white skew among blog readers is the result a white and male skew within the small group that makes up front page writers on major political blogs. The latter skew could be reinforced through reading and linking patterns within that group, a pattern that would occur because those writers generally read, trust, understand know one another due to a shared cultural connection.
This means two things. First, major bloggers can help to alleviate this skew by allowing more women and minorities to post front page content, which should in theory attract more female and minority readers. It might be in the best interests of larger blogs to do this,m since it would expand their audience. Second, there remains significant growth potential for political blogs, both small and large, if they can speak to the large audience of female and minority "campaign internet users" and "online political activists" who are not currently regular political blog readers. In other words, if large political blogs are not reaching a given audience, that is their problem and something they need to fix (if they desire to fix it). However, there is nothing keeping smaller and newer blogs back as long as those blogs can tap into what is a currently under-served market. In fact, it could be argued that larger blogs have inadvertently left a clear opening for smaller blogs to rise in prominence because they are not serving the full range of the campaign internet user and online political activist market. The rapid rise of female dominated Fire Dog Lake in 2005 could perhaps be partially explained in this manner.
Of course, as along as blogs remain largely personal enterprises, no one political blog, or even no one political blogosphere, will be able to speak to the wide range of cultural voices within the Democratic Party, much less the entire country. Bloggers succeed largely because people are attracted to distinct voices and niche content you can't get anywhere else. If blogging success is most often achieved through narrow targeting of content, it should perhaps be expected that the demographics of blog readers will also be skewed. A problem arises in this area only when a given blog does not reach a representative sample of its targeted market, since that is self-limiting within the target market. As such, this problem is more of an issue for the given blog rather than an extension of structural oppression, it limits the audience, revenue and potential power of that blog. It is not representative of a barrier to access for women or people of color, unless a given blog is somehow understood to be a nearly permanent public institution. I, for one, certainly do not conceptualize individual blogs in that manner, although when it comes to blogospheres that might be a different story. Blogs are easy to create, and their prominence within a given blogosphere waxes and wanes on an almost daily basis. As such, mandating that a given blog must provide a certain amount of diversity in its links, or have a certain amount of its diversity in its writing core, wouldn't solve the problem of diversity within the blogosphere as a whole. No one controls the blogosphere, and reading patterns within it. People can only control their own individual blogs, and the content found on those blogs.
The problem of diversity and the blogosphere will only be solved when more writers who can speak to, and attract the regular readership of, neglected portions of the political blogosphere's target audience emerge in prominent locations within the political blogosphere. This can happen--and is happening--in a variety of ways. Over the past few years, the progressive political blogosphere has slowly become more diverse, and I imagine this trend will continue. Meritocracy is an important element in our realm, and you can't keep strong, dedicated writers down forever (especially when no one is trying to keep them down). I honestly believe that whatever criticisms are currently leveled at the political blogosphere for its relative (I emphasize
relative here, because we are a lot more diverse than, say Congress or the establishment pundit class) lack of diversity will be far less credible in just two or three short years.
