Pew/Internet Report: bloggers

A really interesting report was published Pew Research a week or so ago on the general makeup of bloggers in the U.S. This is a great bookend to the Economist's New Media Survey from some months back.
Pew states the following:

A national phone survey of bloggers finds that most are focused on describing their personal experiences to a relatively small audience of readers and that only a small proportion focus their coverage on politics, media, government, or technology. Blogs, the survey finds, are as individual as the people who keep them. However, most bloggers are primarily interested in creative, personal expression – documenting individual experiences, sharing practical knowledge, or just keeping in touch with friends and family.

Here are some highlights from the Pew pdf, which is well worth the read.


While many well-publicized blogs focus on politics, the most popular topic among bloggers is their life and experiences.

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.

Most bloggers say they cover a lot of different topics, but when asked to choose one main topic, 37% of bloggers cite “my life and experiences” as a primary topic of their blog. Politics and government ran a very distant second with 11% of bloggers citing those issues of public life as the main subject of their blog.

Entertainment-related topics were the next most popular blog-type, with 7% of bloggers, followed by sports (6%), general news and current events (5%), business (5%), technology (4%), religion, spirituality or faith (2%), a specific hobby or a health problem or illness (each comprising 1% of bloggers). Other topics mentioned include opinions, volunteering, education, photography, causes and passions, and organizations.

The blogging population is young, evenly split between women and men, and racially diverse.

The following demographic data comes from two surveys of internet users conducted in November-December 2005 and February-April 2006 (n=7,012).

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.

Only one-third of bloggers see blogging as a form of journalism. Yet many check facts and cite original sources.

34% of bloggers consider their blog a form of journalism, and 65% of bloggers do not.

57% of bloggers include links to original sources either “sometimes” or “often.”

56% of bloggers spend extra time trying to verify facts they want to include in a post either “sometimes” or “often.”


Bloggers are avid consumers and creators of online content. They are also heavy users of the internet in general.

Fully 79% of bloggers have a broadband connection at home, compared with 62% of all internet users. This high-speed access translates into heavy media consumption and creation.1 For example:

95% of bloggers get news from the internet, compared with 73% of all internet users.

77% of bloggers have shared their own artwork, photos, stories, or videos online, compared with 26% of all internet users.

64% of bloggers say they go online several times each day from home, compared with 27% of all internet users.


Bloggers are major consumers of political news and about half prefer sources without a particular political viewpoint.

72% of bloggers look online for news or information about politics; by contrast, just 58% of all internet users do so.

45% of bloggers say they prefer getting news from sources that do not have a particular political point of view; roughly the same percentage of the general internet population agrees.

24% of bloggers prefer political news from sources that challenge their viewpoint; and 18% choose to use sources that share their political viewpoint. Again, bloggers’ responses are similar to those of the general internet population.

Bloggers often use blog features that enhance community and usability.

Community-focused blogging sites LiveJournal and MySpace top the list of blogging sites used in our sample, together garnering close to a quarter (22%) of all bloggers. Features such as comments, blogrolls, friends lists, and RSS feeds on these and other blogging sites facilitate a sense of community and offer readers additional ways to receive and interact with the blog’s content.

87% of bloggers allow comments on their blog.

41% of bloggers say they have a blogroll or friends list on their blog.

Only 18% of bloggers offer an RSS feed of their blog’s content.