The Audience for Political Blogs: New Research on Blog Readership (PDF; 88 KB)
Source: Institute for Policy, Democracy & the Internet

Among our findings:

• 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.
• Daily readers think that blogs encourage and improve political discussion.

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 26th, 2006 at 2:20 pm and is filed under Government and politics, Internet. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.