A friend & colleague at Mary Washington sent me an email today that asked about the demographics of the blogosphere. It contained the following quote:<\/p>\n
\n” … referred me to an article stating that bloggers are overwhelmingly white and male and implied that therefore one needs to be careful about assigning students to read blogs.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
I was astounded to read that part about being careful about assigning students to read blogs, because of the possible majority position of the authors. I guess I missed a lot these past few years. If it were true, that the majority were written by white males, would that really be a problem? Can’t people select the opinions they agree with? Can’t teachers select a collection of readings that present a balanced viewpoint?<\/p>\n
In any case, the majority of reports on blog writers state that a slim majority of the authors are male. There was one report in March that said that a large majority of bloggers are white males, but it seems this is a self-selecting\/self-reporting survey of political blogs. Results from a self-reporting\/ self-selecting survey of blog readers\/writers with a political slant by Chris Bowers<\/a> – March 22, 2005. All the reports I could find were about blogs primarily in the U.S.<\/p>\n
Here are the others I read:<\/p>\n
\nPew Internet & American Life Project: Blogosphere<\/a> – January 2005<\/p>\n
The Blogging Geyser<\/a> seems top be the most recent and pertinent part of Blog Studies<\/a> by Perseus<\/a>. – April 2005<\/p>\n