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IN COLLABORATION WITH:




The Audience for Political Blogs
 NEW RESEARCH ON BLOG READERSHIP

                        By Joseph Graf
                         October 2006




   T h e G r a d u at e S c h o o l o f P o l i t i c a l M a n a g e m e n t
INSTITUTE FOR POLITICS, DEMOCRACY & THE INTERNET




                                  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
                           This project was sponsored by @dvocacy Inc. and conducted
                       by the Institute for Politics, Democracy & the Internet (IPDI). We
                       are grateful to Roger Alan Stone, John Purcell, and Daniel Bennett
                       for support and encouragement.
                           IPDI is the premier research and advocacy center for the study
                       and promotion of online politics in a manner that encourages
                       citizen participation and improves governance – in short, to “de-
                       mocratize democracy.” IPDI is non-partisan and non-profit and is
                       housed in GW’s Graduate School of Political Management.
                           This project benefited from the advice and assistance of many
                       individuals. We especially thank Chris Arterton and Henry Cope-
                       land.
                           This report was written by Joe Graf and edited by Carol Darr,
                       director of IPDI, and Julie Germany, deputy director.
                           Research assistance was provided by Chris Brooks, Peter
                       Churchill, Riki Parikh, Ryan Sullivan, and Ed Trelinski.
                           For more information about the Institute for Politics, Democ-
                       racy & the Internet, visit www.ipdi.org.
                           For more information about the Graduate School of Political
                       Management, visit www.gwu.edu/~gspm.

                               © GW’s Institute for Politics, Democracy & the Internet.
                                             The date of publication is October 2006.




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                                                                        down. Because of that, IPDI collaborated with the
                 INTRODUCTION                                           political consulting firm @dvocacy Inc. in an online
                                                                        survey that sampled a large state (California) in or-
    Political blogs have barnstormed into Ameri-                        der to reach as many dedicated political blog read-
can politics. In just a few years they have become                      ers as possible. That required casting an enormous
a finger in the eye of the mainstream media and a                        net.
closely watched forum of political debate. Political                         In the summer of 2006 @dvocacy Inc. granted
blogs have exposed lapses in mainstream media                           IPDI access to a list of registered voters in Califor-
coverage, chastened reporters with the fear of an                       nia which had been matched with e-mail address-
angry online response to sensitive stories, and at                      es. This database (assembled in accordance with
times set the media agenda. Political blogs have                        federal spam and privacy laws) allowed IPDI to
also been influential in raising money for political                     send an e-mail to more than 2.3 million registered
candidates and pushing select races into the na-                        voters in an effort to find dedicated political blog
tional spotlight.1                                                      readers.3
    An overload of bandwidth has been spent talk-                            The result was a sample of 7,863 people who
ing about blogs but little research. The ephemeral                      took an online survey. A large minority of our sam-
nature of electronic communication makes tracing                        ple has at least seen a political blog. About 40%
content like finding a needle in an Internet-sized                       of everyone we sampled said they had looked at a
haystack. Studying the audience for blogs is scat-                      blog “that discusses politics or current events” at
tershot, generally confined to online surveys from                       least once in the past month.4 Another 7% said
specific blogs. Tracking down blog readers by other                      they visited “several times a week.” However, only
means is hard because, relatively speaking, there                       9% of our sample respondents said they visited po-
are so few. Telephone survey researchers have                           litical blogs “almost every day.”
to call a dozen people before they reach one who
reads a blog regularly. And then, you have found                             This latter group is what journalists and politi-
a blog reader, not necessarily someone who reads                        cians are talking about – this select group of people
political blogs.                                                        who visit a political blog nearly every day. It is this
                                                                        small group (hereafter referred to as “daily read-
    This project of the Institute for Politics, Democ-                  ers”) to which we will turn our attention.
racy & the Internet (IPDI) focuses on the audience
for political blogs. There is a lot of conjecture about
that group but not much careful consideration.
                                                                            PROJECT SUMMARY
                                                                           Our findings expand our understanding of daily
                     THE POLITICAL                                      blog readers and why they look at political blogs.
                     BLOG PROJECT                                          Among our findings:
                                                                            • While many Internet users have seen
    Most people have heard about blogs, and many                               blogs, a much smaller proportion of
Internet users have seen them. The best estimate                               them are regular readers of political
is that about 12 million American adults, or 8% of                             blogs. Of the sample gathered here, 9%
Internet users, keep a blog and 57 million adults, or                          said they look at a political blog “almost
39% of Internet users, have read a blog.2                                      every day.”
    The regular, daily audience for political blogs is                      • Daily readers of political blogs see blogs
fairly small. We estimate in the millions of readers,                          as a news source and an alternative to
not tens of millions. This audience is hard to track                           the mainstream media, which they de-
                                                                               spise. Daily blog readers get almost all
                                                                               of their news online.
1    Some recent commentary is found at Michael M. Grynbaum,
    “Bloggers Battle Old-School Media for Political Clout: On-              • The audience for political blogs appears
    line Journals Gaining Greater Influence, Scrutiny,” The Boston              to be fairly concentrated across dozens
    Globe, 6 July 2006, Daniel Henninger, “When Blogs Rule We                  of blogs, not thousands. Daily readers
    Will All Talk Like ----,” The Wall Street Journal, 21 April 2006.
    An example of blog influence for a candidate is Paul Hackett,
    candidate for Ohio’s 2nd Congressional District in 2005, see
    Dan Balz, “Gop Says It Will ‘Bury’ Name-Calling Candidate,”         3    Additional methodological information is found at the end.
    The Washington Post, 31 July 2005.                                  4    We believe our sample is generally a bit more engaged in pol-
2    Amanda Lenhart and Susannah Fox, Bloggers: A Portrait of the           itics online. Random national surveys have found that about
    Internet’s New Storytellers [Report] (Pew Internet & American           27% of respondents read blogs (of all types). See Susannah
    Life Project, 19 July 2006 [cited 2006 6 August]); available            Fox and Mary Madden, Generations Online [Data memo] (Pew
    from www.pewinternet.org. This estimate does not count                  Internet & American Life Project, December 2005 [cited 7
    those under age 18.                                                     August 2006]); available from www.pewinternet.org..



                                                                            THE AUDIENCE FOR POLITICAL BLOGS                       | PAGE 3
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              visit the most popular blogs.                                  national surveys that men may be slightly more
          •   Daily readers are disproportionately                           likely to read blogs.7
              men, are not younger than other Inter-                             Daily readers are not as young as we might ex-
              net users, but claim greater household                         pect. The assumption that people engaged in on-
              income than other Internet users.                              line politics are disproportionately young appeared
          •   Daily readers are more likely to place                         when the Howard Dean phenomenon first took
              themselves at the ends of the political                        root. But even then, prior to the 2004 election, “on-
              spectrum. They are also more likely to                         line political citizens” were found to be older than
              take strong positions on social issues,                        Internet users in general.8 Some surveys of political
              especially those who consider them-                            blogs have suggested that political blog readers are
              selves Democrats.                                              older than expected, and our results suggest that
                                                                             as well. The key observation here is that daily read-
          •   Daily readers are heavily involved in
                                                                             ers appear no older or younger than everyone else in
              politics, and they respond to efforts
                                                                             the survey sample. The median age for all our re-
              by bloggers to participate. Daily read-
                                                                             spondents was 49, and daily readers are no older
              ers forward news stories, sign petitions
                                                                             than that. The distribution of ages between the two
              and e-mail politicians at the prompting
                                                                             groups (daily readers vs. everyone else) is also very
              of political blogs.
                                                                             similar.
          •   Daily readers think that blogs encour-
              age and improve political discussion.
                                                                             Demographic comparison of
                                                                             daily political blog readers and
         WHO ARE POLITICAL                                                   all others
            BLOG READERS?                                                                                  Daily political
                                                                                                           blog readers
                                                                                                                               All others

                                                                             Male                               75%               60%
       Our general approach in this project is to com-
    pare the daily readers with the rest of our sample.                      Female                             25%               40%
    We are not interested here in characteristics of
    the daily readers, but rather broad tendencies that                      18-24                               7%                5%
    we find when comparing them to others who took                            25-34                              14%               13%
    our survey. This limitation to our findings is largely                    35-54                              41%               41%
    because of the methodological constraints within                         55-64                              23%               25%
    which we have to work. (We discuss this issue in a
                                                                             65 and up                          16%               16%
    note at the end of the report.)

                                                                             High school graduate                3%               4%
    Demographics                                                             Some college                       23%               27%
       Daily readers are more likely to be male than fe-                     College graduate                   45%               41%
    male. This dovetails with some earlier findings.5 A                       Post-graduate degree               30%               28%
    national random survey of people who keep blogs
    – political or otherwise – suggested that bloggers                       Religious faith is “not            32%               20%
    (those who keep blogs) were more likely to be                            at all important” in my
    young men.6 There has been some evidence from                            life.
                                                                             I “seldom or never”                 75                66
    5     Blogads, which is a blog advertising firm, posted surveys on
                                                                             attend religious
         its clients’ blogs 2006 as part of its yearly surveys of the blog   services.
         audience. While the sample is self-selected from a narrow                                     n        723               7,140
         universe of political blogs, it nonetheless helped guide our
         thinking. Political blog readers who responded to the Blogads
         survey were disproportionately men – 72.4%. (This includes
         both regular and intermittent blog readers.) Sixty-two percent
         of respondents were age 41 or up, and 35% were at least age
         51. See Blogads, Political Blogs Reader Survey 2006 [Online         7    Deborah Fallows, How Women and Men Use the Internet [Re-
         survey report] (26 April 2006 [cited 6 July 2006]); available           port] (Pew Internet & American Life Project, 28 December
         from www.blogads.com/survey/blog_reader_surveys_over-                   2005 [cited 7 August 2006]); available from www.pewinter-
         view.html.                                                              net.org.
    6     See Lenhart and Fox, Bloggers: A Portrait of the Internet’s New    8     See Joseph Graf and Carol Darr, “Political Influentials On-
         Storytellers ([cited). Pew found that people who started blogs          line in the 2004 Presidential Campaign,” (Washington, D.C.:
         of any kind were younger than Internet users in general and             Institute for Politics, Democracy & the Internet, The George
         slightly more likely to be male.                                        Washington University, 2004).


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    Our survey sample is from a higher income
bracket than the general public. And daily readers                                                                       Daily political blog readers
                                                                    25%
report an even higher income. So while 42% of dai-                                                          24%
                                                                                                                         All others
ly readers reported an annual income of $100,000                                                      21%
or more, only 37% of everyone else in the sample
did so. This suggestion that readers of political                      15%          14%         14%                    14%
blogs have a high socioeconomic background has                                                                                              13%
appeared elsewhere, but we should remember that                                           12%                                         12%
                                                                              15%                                                                 10%
in both cases the samples are self-selected.9                                                                     9%           9%
    The respondents in our survey are highly edu-
cated, and daily readers are as well. This is a typical
finding from earlier IPDI research. Daily readers are
                                                                   Strong                                                                  Strong
more likely to report having a college degree, but                 Democrat                       Independent                           Republican
the difference is not dramatic (75% of daily readers
with college degrees compared to 69% of everyone
else).10 They likewise appear as likely as the rest of
the survey sample to be married.                                    32%
    Finally, in general our sample is less religious                                                              Daily political blog readers
than average Americans and daily readers are even                                                                 All others
less so. They are less likely to say that religion is                                                                                       19%
important in their lives and to attend religious ser-                  16%
                                                                                    17%
vices.11                                                                      15%                           14%                       14%
                                                                                                13%                    13%                        13%
                                                                                                                               11%
                                                                                           8%                     8%
                                                                                                      7%
Attitudes and opinions
    Daily readers are clearly politically active, and
they are more partisan in their views than those                   Strong
                                                                                                      Neutral
                                                                                                                                            Strong
                                                                   Liberal                                                             Conservative
who do not visit political blogs, although we think
the picture is more complex than that.
    A greater proportion of daily readers put them-
selves at the ends of the party continuum – more                   servative. The list of high traffic political blogs is
say they are a “strong Democrat” or a “strong Re-                  disproportionately liberal. Some observers have
publican.” At the same time, about the same pro-                   pointed out that conservatives appear to dominate
portion of daily bloggers put themselves squarely                  in talk radio while liberals have a greater presence
in the middle and call themselves independents.                    in political blogs. Our findings offer some support
The difference comes in the fuzzy areas just to the                for this picture of American political media.
left or right of the independents, where moderate                      We asked respondents whether they agree or
Democrats or Republicans reside. Fewer daily read-                 disagree with a set of statements about several
ers place themselves in this middle area.                          social issues – health insurance, poverty, the death
    We see this again when we ask respondents                      penalty and gay marriage. The results in the table
where they place themselves on a partisan scale.                   shown suggest that daily readers who consider
Here we can see a greater proportion of daily read-                themselves Democrats feel more strongly about
ers put themselves at the far ends, especially in the              the issues than the remaining respondents. In oth-
category of “strong liberal.” Fully a third of those re-           er words, daily readers who are Democrats were
spondents who said they read political blogs every                 more likely to place themselves at the far extreme
day consider themselves strong liberals.                           as someone who “strongly agrees” or “strongly
    Keeping in mind the limitations of our sample,                 disagrees.” Daily readers who consider themselves
our findings nonetheless support the picture that                   Republicans were less likely to do so.
the blogosphere is more heavily liberal than con-

9     Blogads, Political Blogs Reader Survey 2006 (cited).
10    Difference statistically significant at p < .01.
11    For data on all Americans see Pew Research Center for the
     People and the Press, Many Americans Uneasy with Mix of Re-
     ligion and Politics (The Pew Research Center For The People
     and The Press, 24 August 2006 [cited 1 September 2006]);
     available from people-press.org/.




                                                                       THE AUDIENCE FOR POLITICAL BLOGS                                          | PAGE 5
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    Responses on social issues of                               the general public is 30 to 40 percentage points.12
                                                                The rest of our sample is much closer to the general
    daily political blog readers and                            public.
    all others
                              Democrats        Republicans      Attitudes toward the media of
     Percent who
     “strongly             Daily
                                                                daily political blog readers
     agree” with          political                                                            Favorable      Unfavorable
     the following          blog        All              All
     statements           readers     others   Daily   others   Broadcast networks such           32%            68%
                                                                as ABC, NBC and CBS
     “Government            72%        53%      5%       6%
     should provide                                             Local television news             37%              63%
     health insurance                                           Cable news networks               39%              61%
     for the                                                    such as CNN, FoxNEWS
     uninsured”                                                 or MSNBC
     “Government            68%        53%      5%      7%      National influential               47%              53%
     should spend                                               newspapers such as the
     more to reduce                                             New York Times and the
     poverty in the                                             Washington Post
     U.S.”
                                                                The daily newspaper you           51%              49%
     “Mandatory              3%        9%      34%      38%     are most familiar with
     death penalty for
     murder should
     be the law”
     “Government             2%        6%      50%      46%
     should enact                                               Political involvement of bloggers
     laws to restrict                                               Many writers of political blogs exhort their read-
     gay marriage”
                                                                ers to political action, such as writing members of
                      n     287       2,709    198     2,284
                                                                Congress or donating money to campaigns. In a
                                                                few cases these efforts seem to have been success-
                                                                ful, such as the movement to raise money for Paul
                                                                Hackett, who was a largely unknown challenger for
    Attitudes toward the news                                   the 22nd Congressional District in Ohio in 2005,
    media                                                       and Ned Lamont, the Democratic Senate primary
                                                                challenger to Sen. Joe Lieberman in Connecticut in
        Daily readers get most of their news from the           2006.
    Internet. Two-thirds (66%) said they got most of
                                                                    Daily readers scored high on nearly all mea-
    their national and international news online, com-
                                                                sures of political involvement, but it is important
    pared to just a third (33%) of everyone else we
                                                                to remember that the sample we studied scored
    surveyed. By contrast, polls of average Americans
                                                                high. This reflects the greater political involvement
    consistently find that most people get their news
                                                                of people online, but especially the vagaries of our
    from television.
                                                                sample. People who took this online survey were
        One of the tropes of blog readers is their dislike      much more likely to report political involvement of
    and disdain for the mainstream media (or MSM).              all kinds, such as writing letters to their representa-
    As expected, we found a great deal of dislike for           tive or serving on a local school board. Nonethe-
    the media, especially broadcasting, and daily read-         less, even in our active sample, daily readers were
    ers are consistently more likely to say they dislike        more likely to have (1) contacted a politician, (2)
    the media than others. The daily newspaper “you             contacted the media, (3) been a member of a group
    are most familiar with” elicited the most favorable         that tries to influence public policy and (4) attend-
    reaction. Overall, daily readers were much more             ed a political speech or rally.13
    unfavorable toward the press than the rest of the
    sample. And, if we compare our data to several
    nationally representative surveys, we can see that
    daily readers are much more unfavorable toward
    the news media than the general public. Gener-
    ally speaking, the gap between daily readers and            12 For data on attitudes toward the press see The Pew Research
                                                                   Center for the People and the Press, Public More Critical of
                                                                   Press, but Goodwill Persists (The Pew Research Center For
                                                                   The People and The Press, 26 June 2005 [cited 1 September
                                                                   2006]); available from people-press.org/.
                                                                13 All differences statistically significant at p < .001.



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Political involvement of daily                                         to say they make political donations. Of daily read-
                                                                       ers, 40% said they gave to a state or local candi-
political blog readers and all                                         date in the past year and 61% gave in the presiden-
others                                                                 tial race in 2004. Of the remaining sample, 26%
                                                                       gave in a local race and 42% gave in 2004. Prior
                                          Daily                        IPDI research has shown that donors are generally
                                      political blog       All
In the past year, have you …            readers          others        more likely to look at political blogs.15
Contacted a politician?                    77%            61%
Written a letter to the editor             48%            31%
or called a radio station?                                                  THE BLOG AUDIENCE
Been a member of a group                   44%             28%
that tries to influence public
policy?                                                                     We have generally had to surmise about the dis-
                                                                       tribution of the audience for blogs. The assumption
Attended a political speech                40%             22%
or rally?                                                              has been that despite the incredible number of po-
Attended a local public                     35%            33%
                                                                       litical blogs on the Internet, the distribution of the
meeting?                                                               blog audience across these is like the distribution
Made a speech?                              29%            28%         of the audience for the mainstream media. Most of
                                                                       the audience is congregated among a small group
Served on a local committee?                23%            24%
                                                                       of immensely popular blogs that dominate the
Served as an officer for an                  22%            26%         blogosphere.16
organization?
                               n            723           7,140             Our data support the conventional wisdom that
                                                                       the audience for political blogs is generally concen-
                                                                       trated across dozens of blogs, not thousands. Our
                                                                       sample of regular blog readers was fairly concen-
     Political involvement for daily readers is more                   trated on a relatively small number of blog sites.
likely to take the form of partisan communication.                     We asked respondents if they had “regularly” vis-
Specifically, daily readers were defined by their                        ited any of 11 of the most popular political blogs.
willingness to (1) attend a political rally, speech or                 About half (52%) of daily readers of political blogs
protest; (2) become an active member of a group                        said they regularly visited at least one of this small
trying to influence public policy; and (3) write or                     group of blogs. Three-quarters (75%) said they vis-
call a politician. IPDI research saw this pattern be-                  ited one of these blogs at least “once in awhile.”
fore among Online Political Citizens a year before the
2004 election.14 Online Political Citizens, or people
generally involved in politics online (but not neces-
sarily blog readers), were more likely to have their                            BLOG READERS ON
political involvement defined by these forms of po-
litical activity and less likely to be engaged in ac-                                     BLOGS
tivities that were local and that reflected a deeper
connection to the community. Those activities in-                          One of attractions of blogs is the community
clude making a speech, attending a public meeting,                     of readers. A huge proportion of daily readers say
or serving as a club officer or committee member                        they read comments others post on the blog – 84%
for a local organization.                                              said they “very often” or “sometimes” read such
     Daily readers are highly engaged in online po-                    comments. A much smaller percentage will post
litical activity, including forwarding political mate-                 comments. About 11% said they “very often” post
rial to others and contacting their representatives                    comments and 30% said they “sometimes” do so.
online. A large proportion said they have forwarded                        Daily readers “strongly agree” that political
political news stories (84%), forwarded political
e-mail (75%) or forwarded links to blogs (70%).
In addition, a large proportion of daily readers have                  15  See Joseph Graf, Grant Reeher, Michael J. Malbin and Costas
also taken political action at the specific suggestion                     Panagopoulos, “Small Donors and Online Giving: A Study of
                                                                          Donors to the 2004 Presidential Campaigns,” (Washington,
of a political blog, such as signing an online petition                   D.C.: Institute for Politics, Democracy & the Internet, The
(63%), e-mailing a public official (57%) or making                         George Washington University, 2006).
a political contribution (31%).                                        16 Network analysis of links between blogs shows that a small
                                                                          number of blogs are focal points where many links (and many
     Daily readers are more likely than non-readers                       readers) converge. Other blogs link to and contact the central
                                                                          blogs as a way to build their audience. See Daniel W. Drezner
                                                                          and Henry Farrell, “The Power and Politics of Blogs” (paper
14   Graf and Darr, “Political Influentials Online in the 2004 Presi-      presented at the American Political Science Association, Chi-
     dential Campaign.”                                                   cago, 2004).




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    blogs enhance political discussion (56%) and are         Why do you read political
    good for democratic debate (54%). Hardly any
    regular blog readers (less than 3%) disagree with        blogs?
    these statements. Daily readers are also likely to                                          Daily      All others
    believe that blogs are an important information                                            political
    resource – 51% “strongly agree” blogs offer alter-                                           blog
    native viewpoints and 58% “strongly agree” blogs                                           readers
    give them information unavailable elsewhere.             Blogs as a news source
        Generally, people who have seen political blogs             I am very interested in      93%          75%
    but are not daily readers are more sanguine. Large                              politics
    majorities agree that blogs enhance political dis-             They provide news the         92%          71%
    cussion and are good for democratic debate, but                    mass media ignores
    less strongly. Likewise with their views about blogs
                                                                 I enjoy reading the news        92%         79%
    as an information resource. As we said earlier,
    our sample is an unusual one – active online and                   They give a different     92%         82%
    engaged in politics – but respondents generally              perspective on the news
    agreed that blogs offered alternative information              They are interesting or       84%          76%
    and enhanced democratic discussion.                                               funny
        The question of partisanship garnered a more
    unusual response. Opinions were more closely di-         Blogs as political expression
    vided. Daily readers were slightly more likely to say        As a way to express my          67%         38%
    that blogs make readers “more partisan.” People                        political beliefs
    less experienced with political blogs were less              As a way to support my          45%         28%
    likely to believe that was the case. About 43% of                       political party
    daily readers agreed that blogs make people more
    partisan, but 37% had a neutral response and 20%          Blogs as diversion/entertainment
    disagreed.                                                 They are a diversion during     44%            45%
        Finally, we asked a series of questions about                        my downtime
    why people read political blogs. The responses fall             I read blogs as a break    42%            24%
    into three categories, each category a way someone                  during the workday
    uses a political blog – as a news source, a means of                                  n    723           7,140
    political expression, or as a diversion or form of en-   Cells are percent who “strongly agree” or “agree.”
    tertainment. By far the most cited “use” for political
    blogs was as a news source. The second most pop-
    ular was as a means of political expression. Daily
    readers were much less likely to say reading blogs
    was just a diversion or entertainment.
        Among people who read political blogs less fre-
    quently, a political blog as a means of political ex-
    pression is less important. Blogs remain important
    as news sources for these infrequent readers. Per-
    haps someone sees something in the news and is
    prompted to learn more from a political blog. They
    are people who check blogs a few times a month or
    less. On the other hand, these infrequent readers
    did not use blogs for political expression. The single
    biggest difference between frequent and infrequent
    blog readers was seeing their use of political blogs
    as a means of political expression.




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                     NOTE ON                                                                  REFERENCES
                METHODOLOGY                                     Balz, Dan. “GOP Says It Will ‘Bury’ Name-Calling Candidate.”
                                                                The Washington Post, 31 July 2005, A5.
    Studying the audience for political blogs is very
                                                                Blogads. Political Blogs Reader Survey 2006 [Online survey
difficult. This is illustrated by one of the most ambi-          report]. 26 April, 2006 [cited 6 July 2006]. Available from
tious recent efforts, conducted by the Pew Internet             www.blogads.com/survey/blog_reader_surveys_overview.
& American Life Project. Pew conducts large na-                 html.
tionally representative telephone surveys and used
data from two surveys in 2005 and 2006 to find                   Bosman, Katharine Q. Seelye and Julie. “Bloggers Drive Inquiry
anyone who wrote a blog. After reaching more than               on How Altered Images Saw Print.” The New York Times, 9
7,000 people by phone, Pew was able to find just                 August 2006, C1.
233 blog writers. This is just the nature of trying to          Drezner, Daniel W., and Henry Farrell. “The Power and Politics
find members of a small group in a large population              of Blogs.” Paper presented at the American Political Science
with random sampling techniques.                                Association, Chicago 2004.
    At IPDI, we study the influence of the Internet
                                                                Fallows, Deborah. How Women and Men Use the Internet
on political life. We are interested in the readers             [Report]. Pew Internet & American Life Project, 28 December,
of political blogs. Even more specifically, we are in-           2005 [cited 7 August 2006]. Available from www.pewinter-
terested in the avid, daily reader of political blogs.          net.org.
When journalists or politicians talk about blog
readers and the effects of blogs on politics, this is           Fox, Susannah, and Mary Madden. Generations Online [Data
the group they are talking about.                               memo]. Pew Internet & American Life Project, December,
                                                                2005 [cited 7 August 2006]. Available from www.pewinter-
    Until now, our knowledge about this group has               net.org.
been drawn from the knowledge of blog writers
about their audience and a close reading of political           Graf, Joseph, and Carol Darr. “Political Influentials Online in
blogs. Both of these are valid sources of data, but             the 2004 Presidential Campaign.” Washington, D.C.: Institute
we still sought to interview daily readers of politi-           for Politics, Democracy & the Internet, The George Washing-
cal blogs for a look at the group as a whole. We are            ton University, 2004.
thus forced to discard random sampling because of               Graf, Joseph, Grant Reeher, Michael J. Malbin and Costas
the exorbitant cost necessary to obtain the sample              Panagopoulos. “Small Donors and Online Giving: A Study of
size we desire.                                                 Donors to the 2004 Presidential Campaigns.” Washington,
    With the partnership of @dvocacy Inc. we were               D.C.: Institute for Politics, Democracy & the Internet, The
                                                                George Washington University, 2006.
able to use an enormous database of registered
voters in California which had been matched e-                  Grynbaum, Michael M. “Bloggers Battle Old-School Media
mail addresses to send an e-mail survey to almost               for Political Clout: Online Journals Gaining Greater Influence,
2.4 million e-mail addresses.17 @dvocacy Inc. es-               Scrutiny.” The Boston Globe, 6 July 2006.
timates that about 1.6 million of those addresses
were functioning (and did not bounce back to the                Henninger, Daniel. “When Blogs Rule We Will All Talk Like ----
                                                                .” The Wall Street Journal, 21 April 2006, A14.
sender). Of those, about 7%, or 117,000 e-mails,
were opened by the receiver. The remainder were                 Lenhart, Amanda, and Susannah Fox. Bloggers: A Portrait of the
caught in spam filters, ignored by the receivers                 Internet’s New Storytellers [Report]. Pew Internet & American
or otherwise lost. We received 8,347 responses,                 Life Project, 19 July, 2006 [cited 2006 6 August]. Available
which means about 7% of all those who opened                    from www.pewinternet.org.
the e-mail tried to complete the survey. Of those
who took the survey, 7,863 were considered valid                Pew Research Center for the People and the Press. Many
                                                                Americans Uneasy with Mix of Religion and Politics The Pew Re-
responses because they completed at least two-                  search Center For The People and The Press, 24 August, 2006
thirds of the questions, and 723 of those reported              [cited 1 September 2006]. Available from people-press.org/.
they looked at political blogs “almost every day.”
Our main comparison in this project is between                  Seelye, Katharine Q., Jacques Steinberg, and David F. Galla-
these daily readers and the remaining valid re-                 gher. “Bloggers as News Media Trophy Hunters.” The New York
sponses.                                                        Times, 14 February 2005, A1.

                                                                The Pew Research Center for the People and the Press. Public
                                                                More Critical of Press, but Goodwill Persists The Pew Research
                                                                Center For The People and The Press, 26 June, 2005 [cited 1
                                                                September 2006]. Available from people-press.org/.
17    This project was conducted in accordance with state and
     federal spam laws.



                                                                        THE AUDIENCE FOR POLITICAL BLOGS                 | PAGE 9
The Institute for Politics Democracy & the Internet
                 The Graduate School of Political Management
                      The George Washington University
                           805 21st St., NW, Suite 401
                             Washington, DC 20052
                             1.800.367.4776 toll free
                                   ipdi@ipdi.org




INSTITUTE FOR POLITICS                             T H E G E O R G E WA S H I N G T O N U N I V E R S I T Y

DEMOCRACY & THE INTERNET                             G R A D UAT E S C H O O L
                                                   THE                                                  OF

                  WWW.IPDI.ORG
                                                   POLITICAL MANAGEMENT

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Audience For Political Blogs

  • 1. IN COLLABORATION WITH: The Audience for Political Blogs NEW RESEARCH ON BLOG READERSHIP By Joseph Graf October 2006 T h e G r a d u at e S c h o o l o f P o l i t i c a l M a n a g e m e n t
  • 2. INSTITUTE FOR POLITICS, DEMOCRACY & THE INTERNET ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This project was sponsored by @dvocacy Inc. and conducted by the Institute for Politics, Democracy & the Internet (IPDI). We are grateful to Roger Alan Stone, John Purcell, and Daniel Bennett for support and encouragement. IPDI is the premier research and advocacy center for the study and promotion of online politics in a manner that encourages citizen participation and improves governance – in short, to “de- mocratize democracy.” IPDI is non-partisan and non-profit and is housed in GW’s Graduate School of Political Management. This project benefited from the advice and assistance of many individuals. We especially thank Chris Arterton and Henry Cope- land. This report was written by Joe Graf and edited by Carol Darr, director of IPDI, and Julie Germany, deputy director. Research assistance was provided by Chris Brooks, Peter Churchill, Riki Parikh, Ryan Sullivan, and Ed Trelinski. For more information about the Institute for Politics, Democ- racy & the Internet, visit www.ipdi.org. For more information about the Graduate School of Political Management, visit www.gwu.edu/~gspm. © GW’s Institute for Politics, Democracy & the Internet. The date of publication is October 2006. PAGE 2 | THE AUDIENCE FOR POLITICAL BLOGS
  • 3. INSTITUTE FOR POLITICS, DEMOCRACY & THE INTERNET down. Because of that, IPDI collaborated with the INTRODUCTION political consulting firm @dvocacy Inc. in an online survey that sampled a large state (California) in or- Political blogs have barnstormed into Ameri- der to reach as many dedicated political blog read- can politics. In just a few years they have become ers as possible. That required casting an enormous a finger in the eye of the mainstream media and a net. closely watched forum of political debate. Political In the summer of 2006 @dvocacy Inc. granted blogs have exposed lapses in mainstream media IPDI access to a list of registered voters in Califor- coverage, chastened reporters with the fear of an nia which had been matched with e-mail address- angry online response to sensitive stories, and at es. This database (assembled in accordance with times set the media agenda. Political blogs have federal spam and privacy laws) allowed IPDI to also been influential in raising money for political send an e-mail to more than 2.3 million registered candidates and pushing select races into the na- voters in an effort to find dedicated political blog tional spotlight.1 readers.3 An overload of bandwidth has been spent talk- The result was a sample of 7,863 people who ing about blogs but little research. The ephemeral took an online survey. A large minority of our sam- nature of electronic communication makes tracing ple has at least seen a political blog. About 40% content like finding a needle in an Internet-sized of everyone we sampled said they had looked at a haystack. Studying the audience for blogs is scat- blog “that discusses politics or current events” at tershot, generally confined to online surveys from least once in the past month.4 Another 7% said specific blogs. Tracking down blog readers by other they visited “several times a week.” However, only means is hard because, relatively speaking, there 9% of our sample respondents said they visited po- are so few. Telephone survey researchers have litical blogs “almost every day.” to call a dozen people before they reach one who reads a blog regularly. And then, you have found This latter group is what journalists and politi- a blog reader, not necessarily someone who reads cians are talking about – this select group of people political blogs. who visit a political blog nearly every day. It is this small group (hereafter referred to as “daily read- This project of the Institute for Politics, Democ- ers”) to which we will turn our attention. racy & the Internet (IPDI) focuses on the audience for political blogs. There is a lot of conjecture about that group but not much careful consideration. PROJECT SUMMARY Our findings expand our understanding of daily THE POLITICAL blog readers and why they look at political blogs. BLOG PROJECT Among our findings: • While many Internet users have seen Most people have heard about blogs, and many blogs, a much smaller proportion of Internet users have seen them. The best estimate them are regular readers of political is that about 12 million American adults, or 8% of blogs. Of the sample gathered here, 9% Internet users, keep a blog and 57 million adults, or said they look at a political blog “almost 39% of Internet users, have read a blog.2 every day.” The regular, daily audience for political blogs is • Daily readers of political blogs see blogs fairly small. We estimate in the millions of readers, as a news source and an alternative to not tens of millions. This audience is hard to track the mainstream media, which they de- spise. Daily blog readers get almost all of their news online. 1 Some recent commentary is found at Michael M. Grynbaum, “Bloggers Battle Old-School Media for Political Clout: On- • The audience for political blogs appears line Journals Gaining Greater Influence, Scrutiny,” The Boston to be fairly concentrated across dozens Globe, 6 July 2006, Daniel Henninger, “When Blogs Rule We of blogs, not thousands. Daily readers Will All Talk Like ----,” The Wall Street Journal, 21 April 2006. An example of blog influence for a candidate is Paul Hackett, candidate for Ohio’s 2nd Congressional District in 2005, see Dan Balz, “Gop Says It Will ‘Bury’ Name-Calling Candidate,” 3 Additional methodological information is found at the end. The Washington Post, 31 July 2005. 4 We believe our sample is generally a bit more engaged in pol- 2 Amanda Lenhart and Susannah Fox, Bloggers: A Portrait of the itics online. Random national surveys have found that about Internet’s New Storytellers [Report] (Pew Internet & American 27% of respondents read blogs (of all types). See Susannah Life Project, 19 July 2006 [cited 2006 6 August]); available Fox and Mary Madden, Generations Online [Data memo] (Pew from www.pewinternet.org. This estimate does not count Internet & American Life Project, December 2005 [cited 7 those under age 18. August 2006]); available from www.pewinternet.org.. THE AUDIENCE FOR POLITICAL BLOGS | PAGE 3
  • 4. INSTITUTE FOR POLITICS, DEMOCRACY & THE INTERNET visit the most popular blogs. national surveys that men may be slightly more • Daily readers are disproportionately likely to read blogs.7 men, are not younger than other Inter- Daily readers are not as young as we might ex- net users, but claim greater household pect. The assumption that people engaged in on- income than other Internet users. line politics are disproportionately young appeared • Daily readers are more likely to place when the Howard Dean phenomenon first took themselves at the ends of the political root. But even then, prior to the 2004 election, “on- spectrum. They are also more likely to line political citizens” were found to be older than take strong positions on social issues, Internet users in general.8 Some surveys of political especially those who consider them- blogs have suggested that political blog readers are selves Democrats. older than expected, and our results suggest that as well. The key observation here is that daily read- • Daily readers are heavily involved in ers appear no older or younger than everyone else in politics, and they respond to efforts the survey sample. The median age for all our re- by bloggers to participate. Daily read- spondents was 49, and daily readers are no older ers forward news stories, sign petitions than that. The distribution of ages between the two and e-mail politicians at the prompting groups (daily readers vs. everyone else) is also very of political blogs. similar. • Daily readers think that blogs encour- age and improve political discussion. Demographic comparison of daily political blog readers and WHO ARE POLITICAL all others BLOG READERS? Daily political blog readers All others Male 75% 60% Our general approach in this project is to com- pare the daily readers with the rest of our sample. Female 25% 40% We are not interested here in characteristics of the daily readers, but rather broad tendencies that 18-24 7% 5% we find when comparing them to others who took 25-34 14% 13% our survey. This limitation to our findings is largely 35-54 41% 41% because of the methodological constraints within 55-64 23% 25% which we have to work. (We discuss this issue in a 65 and up 16% 16% note at the end of the report.) High school graduate 3% 4% Demographics Some college 23% 27% Daily readers are more likely to be male than fe- College graduate 45% 41% male. This dovetails with some earlier findings.5 A Post-graduate degree 30% 28% national random survey of people who keep blogs – political or otherwise – suggested that bloggers Religious faith is “not 32% 20% (those who keep blogs) were more likely to be at all important” in my young men.6 There has been some evidence from life. I “seldom or never” 75 66 5 Blogads, which is a blog advertising firm, posted surveys on attend religious its clients’ blogs 2006 as part of its yearly surveys of the blog services. audience. While the sample is self-selected from a narrow n 723 7,140 universe of political blogs, it nonetheless helped guide our thinking. Political blog readers who responded to the Blogads survey were disproportionately men – 72.4%. (This includes both regular and intermittent blog readers.) Sixty-two percent of respondents were age 41 or up, and 35% were at least age 51. See Blogads, Political Blogs Reader Survey 2006 [Online 7 Deborah Fallows, How Women and Men Use the Internet [Re- survey report] (26 April 2006 [cited 6 July 2006]); available port] (Pew Internet & American Life Project, 28 December from www.blogads.com/survey/blog_reader_surveys_over- 2005 [cited 7 August 2006]); available from www.pewinter- view.html. net.org. 6 See Lenhart and Fox, Bloggers: A Portrait of the Internet’s New 8 See Joseph Graf and Carol Darr, “Political Influentials On- Storytellers ([cited). Pew found that people who started blogs line in the 2004 Presidential Campaign,” (Washington, D.C.: of any kind were younger than Internet users in general and Institute for Politics, Democracy & the Internet, The George slightly more likely to be male. Washington University, 2004). PAGE 4 | THE AUDIENCE FOR POLITICAL BLOGS
  • 5. INSTITUTE FOR POLITICS, DEMOCRACY & THE INTERNET Our survey sample is from a higher income bracket than the general public. And daily readers Daily political blog readers 25% report an even higher income. So while 42% of dai- 24% All others ly readers reported an annual income of $100,000 21% or more, only 37% of everyone else in the sample did so. This suggestion that readers of political 15% 14% 14% 14% blogs have a high socioeconomic background has 13% appeared elsewhere, but we should remember that 12% 12% 15% 10% in both cases the samples are self-selected.9 9% 9% The respondents in our survey are highly edu- cated, and daily readers are as well. This is a typical finding from earlier IPDI research. Daily readers are Strong Strong more likely to report having a college degree, but Democrat Independent Republican the difference is not dramatic (75% of daily readers with college degrees compared to 69% of everyone else).10 They likewise appear as likely as the rest of the survey sample to be married. 32% Finally, in general our sample is less religious Daily political blog readers than average Americans and daily readers are even All others less so. They are less likely to say that religion is 19% important in their lives and to attend religious ser- 16% 17% vices.11 15% 14% 14% 13% 13% 13% 11% 8% 8% 7% Attitudes and opinions Daily readers are clearly politically active, and they are more partisan in their views than those Strong Neutral Strong Liberal Conservative who do not visit political blogs, although we think the picture is more complex than that. A greater proportion of daily readers put them- selves at the ends of the party continuum – more servative. The list of high traffic political blogs is say they are a “strong Democrat” or a “strong Re- disproportionately liberal. Some observers have publican.” At the same time, about the same pro- pointed out that conservatives appear to dominate portion of daily bloggers put themselves squarely in talk radio while liberals have a greater presence in the middle and call themselves independents. in political blogs. Our findings offer some support The difference comes in the fuzzy areas just to the for this picture of American political media. left or right of the independents, where moderate We asked respondents whether they agree or Democrats or Republicans reside. Fewer daily read- disagree with a set of statements about several ers place themselves in this middle area. social issues – health insurance, poverty, the death We see this again when we ask respondents penalty and gay marriage. The results in the table where they place themselves on a partisan scale. shown suggest that daily readers who consider Here we can see a greater proportion of daily read- themselves Democrats feel more strongly about ers put themselves at the far ends, especially in the the issues than the remaining respondents. In oth- category of “strong liberal.” Fully a third of those re- er words, daily readers who are Democrats were spondents who said they read political blogs every more likely to place themselves at the far extreme day consider themselves strong liberals. as someone who “strongly agrees” or “strongly Keeping in mind the limitations of our sample, disagrees.” Daily readers who consider themselves our findings nonetheless support the picture that Republicans were less likely to do so. the blogosphere is more heavily liberal than con- 9 Blogads, Political Blogs Reader Survey 2006 (cited). 10 Difference statistically significant at p < .01. 11 For data on all Americans see Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, Many Americans Uneasy with Mix of Re- ligion and Politics (The Pew Research Center For The People and The Press, 24 August 2006 [cited 1 September 2006]); available from people-press.org/. THE AUDIENCE FOR POLITICAL BLOGS | PAGE 5
  • 6. INSTITUTE FOR POLITICS, DEMOCRACY & THE INTERNET Responses on social issues of the general public is 30 to 40 percentage points.12 The rest of our sample is much closer to the general daily political blog readers and public. all others Democrats Republicans Attitudes toward the media of Percent who “strongly Daily daily political blog readers agree” with political Favorable Unfavorable the following blog All All statements readers others Daily others Broadcast networks such 32% 68% as ABC, NBC and CBS “Government 72% 53% 5% 6% should provide Local television news 37% 63% health insurance Cable news networks 39% 61% for the such as CNN, FoxNEWS uninsured” or MSNBC “Government 68% 53% 5% 7% National influential 47% 53% should spend newspapers such as the more to reduce New York Times and the poverty in the Washington Post U.S.” The daily newspaper you 51% 49% “Mandatory 3% 9% 34% 38% are most familiar with death penalty for murder should be the law” “Government 2% 6% 50% 46% should enact Political involvement of bloggers laws to restrict Many writers of political blogs exhort their read- gay marriage” ers to political action, such as writing members of n 287 2,709 198 2,284 Congress or donating money to campaigns. In a few cases these efforts seem to have been success- ful, such as the movement to raise money for Paul Hackett, who was a largely unknown challenger for Attitudes toward the news the 22nd Congressional District in Ohio in 2005, media and Ned Lamont, the Democratic Senate primary challenger to Sen. Joe Lieberman in Connecticut in Daily readers get most of their news from the 2006. Internet. Two-thirds (66%) said they got most of Daily readers scored high on nearly all mea- their national and international news online, com- sures of political involvement, but it is important pared to just a third (33%) of everyone else we to remember that the sample we studied scored surveyed. By contrast, polls of average Americans high. This reflects the greater political involvement consistently find that most people get their news of people online, but especially the vagaries of our from television. sample. People who took this online survey were One of the tropes of blog readers is their dislike much more likely to report political involvement of and disdain for the mainstream media (or MSM). all kinds, such as writing letters to their representa- As expected, we found a great deal of dislike for tive or serving on a local school board. Nonethe- the media, especially broadcasting, and daily read- less, even in our active sample, daily readers were ers are consistently more likely to say they dislike more likely to have (1) contacted a politician, (2) the media than others. The daily newspaper “you contacted the media, (3) been a member of a group are most familiar with” elicited the most favorable that tries to influence public policy and (4) attend- reaction. Overall, daily readers were much more ed a political speech or rally.13 unfavorable toward the press than the rest of the sample. And, if we compare our data to several nationally representative surveys, we can see that daily readers are much more unfavorable toward the news media than the general public. Gener- ally speaking, the gap between daily readers and 12 For data on attitudes toward the press see The Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, Public More Critical of Press, but Goodwill Persists (The Pew Research Center For The People and The Press, 26 June 2005 [cited 1 September 2006]); available from people-press.org/. 13 All differences statistically significant at p < .001. PAGE 6 | THE AUDIENCE FOR POLITICAL BLOGS
  • 7. INSTITUTE FOR POLITICS, DEMOCRACY & THE INTERNET Political involvement of daily to say they make political donations. Of daily read- ers, 40% said they gave to a state or local candi- political blog readers and all date in the past year and 61% gave in the presiden- others tial race in 2004. Of the remaining sample, 26% gave in a local race and 42% gave in 2004. Prior Daily IPDI research has shown that donors are generally political blog All In the past year, have you … readers others more likely to look at political blogs.15 Contacted a politician? 77% 61% Written a letter to the editor 48% 31% or called a radio station? THE BLOG AUDIENCE Been a member of a group 44% 28% that tries to influence public policy? We have generally had to surmise about the dis- tribution of the audience for blogs. The assumption Attended a political speech 40% 22% or rally? has been that despite the incredible number of po- Attended a local public 35% 33% litical blogs on the Internet, the distribution of the meeting? blog audience across these is like the distribution Made a speech? 29% 28% of the audience for the mainstream media. Most of the audience is congregated among a small group Served on a local committee? 23% 24% of immensely popular blogs that dominate the Served as an officer for an 22% 26% blogosphere.16 organization? n 723 7,140 Our data support the conventional wisdom that the audience for political blogs is generally concen- trated across dozens of blogs, not thousands. Our sample of regular blog readers was fairly concen- Political involvement for daily readers is more trated on a relatively small number of blog sites. likely to take the form of partisan communication. We asked respondents if they had “regularly” vis- Specifically, daily readers were defined by their ited any of 11 of the most popular political blogs. willingness to (1) attend a political rally, speech or About half (52%) of daily readers of political blogs protest; (2) become an active member of a group said they regularly visited at least one of this small trying to influence public policy; and (3) write or group of blogs. Three-quarters (75%) said they vis- call a politician. IPDI research saw this pattern be- ited one of these blogs at least “once in awhile.” fore among Online Political Citizens a year before the 2004 election.14 Online Political Citizens, or people generally involved in politics online (but not neces- sarily blog readers), were more likely to have their BLOG READERS ON political involvement defined by these forms of po- litical activity and less likely to be engaged in ac- BLOGS tivities that were local and that reflected a deeper connection to the community. Those activities in- One of attractions of blogs is the community clude making a speech, attending a public meeting, of readers. A huge proportion of daily readers say or serving as a club officer or committee member they read comments others post on the blog – 84% for a local organization. said they “very often” or “sometimes” read such Daily readers are highly engaged in online po- comments. A much smaller percentage will post litical activity, including forwarding political mate- comments. About 11% said they “very often” post rial to others and contacting their representatives comments and 30% said they “sometimes” do so. online. A large proportion said they have forwarded Daily readers “strongly agree” that political political news stories (84%), forwarded political e-mail (75%) or forwarded links to blogs (70%). In addition, a large proportion of daily readers have 15 See Joseph Graf, Grant Reeher, Michael J. Malbin and Costas also taken political action at the specific suggestion Panagopoulos, “Small Donors and Online Giving: A Study of Donors to the 2004 Presidential Campaigns,” (Washington, of a political blog, such as signing an online petition D.C.: Institute for Politics, Democracy & the Internet, The (63%), e-mailing a public official (57%) or making George Washington University, 2006). a political contribution (31%). 16 Network analysis of links between blogs shows that a small number of blogs are focal points where many links (and many Daily readers are more likely than non-readers readers) converge. Other blogs link to and contact the central blogs as a way to build their audience. See Daniel W. Drezner and Henry Farrell, “The Power and Politics of Blogs” (paper 14 Graf and Darr, “Political Influentials Online in the 2004 Presi- presented at the American Political Science Association, Chi- dential Campaign.” cago, 2004). THE AUDIENCE FOR POLITICAL BLOGS | PAGE 7
  • 8. INSTITUTE FOR POLITICS, DEMOCRACY & THE INTERNET blogs enhance political discussion (56%) and are Why do you read political good for democratic debate (54%). Hardly any regular blog readers (less than 3%) disagree with blogs? these statements. Daily readers are also likely to Daily All others believe that blogs are an important information political resource – 51% “strongly agree” blogs offer alter- blog native viewpoints and 58% “strongly agree” blogs readers give them information unavailable elsewhere. Blogs as a news source Generally, people who have seen political blogs I am very interested in 93% 75% but are not daily readers are more sanguine. Large politics majorities agree that blogs enhance political dis- They provide news the 92% 71% cussion and are good for democratic debate, but mass media ignores less strongly. Likewise with their views about blogs I enjoy reading the news 92% 79% as an information resource. As we said earlier, our sample is an unusual one – active online and They give a different 92% 82% engaged in politics – but respondents generally perspective on the news agreed that blogs offered alternative information They are interesting or 84% 76% and enhanced democratic discussion. funny The question of partisanship garnered a more unusual response. Opinions were more closely di- Blogs as political expression vided. Daily readers were slightly more likely to say As a way to express my 67% 38% that blogs make readers “more partisan.” People political beliefs less experienced with political blogs were less As a way to support my 45% 28% likely to believe that was the case. About 43% of political party daily readers agreed that blogs make people more partisan, but 37% had a neutral response and 20% Blogs as diversion/entertainment disagreed. They are a diversion during 44% 45% Finally, we asked a series of questions about my downtime why people read political blogs. The responses fall I read blogs as a break 42% 24% into three categories, each category a way someone during the workday uses a political blog – as a news source, a means of n 723 7,140 political expression, or as a diversion or form of en- Cells are percent who “strongly agree” or “agree.” tertainment. By far the most cited “use” for political blogs was as a news source. The second most pop- ular was as a means of political expression. Daily readers were much less likely to say reading blogs was just a diversion or entertainment. Among people who read political blogs less fre- quently, a political blog as a means of political ex- pression is less important. Blogs remain important as news sources for these infrequent readers. Per- haps someone sees something in the news and is prompted to learn more from a political blog. They are people who check blogs a few times a month or less. On the other hand, these infrequent readers did not use blogs for political expression. The single biggest difference between frequent and infrequent blog readers was seeing their use of political blogs as a means of political expression. PAGE 8 | THE AUDIENCE FOR POLITICAL BLOGS
  • 9. INSTITUTE FOR POLITICS, DEMOCRACY & THE INTERNET NOTE ON REFERENCES METHODOLOGY Balz, Dan. “GOP Says It Will ‘Bury’ Name-Calling Candidate.” The Washington Post, 31 July 2005, A5. Studying the audience for political blogs is very Blogads. Political Blogs Reader Survey 2006 [Online survey difficult. This is illustrated by one of the most ambi- report]. 26 April, 2006 [cited 6 July 2006]. Available from tious recent efforts, conducted by the Pew Internet www.blogads.com/survey/blog_reader_surveys_overview. & American Life Project. Pew conducts large na- html. tionally representative telephone surveys and used data from two surveys in 2005 and 2006 to find Bosman, Katharine Q. Seelye and Julie. “Bloggers Drive Inquiry anyone who wrote a blog. After reaching more than on How Altered Images Saw Print.” The New York Times, 9 7,000 people by phone, Pew was able to find just August 2006, C1. 233 blog writers. This is just the nature of trying to Drezner, Daniel W., and Henry Farrell. “The Power and Politics find members of a small group in a large population of Blogs.” Paper presented at the American Political Science with random sampling techniques. Association, Chicago 2004. At IPDI, we study the influence of the Internet Fallows, Deborah. How Women and Men Use the Internet on political life. We are interested in the readers [Report]. Pew Internet & American Life Project, 28 December, of political blogs. Even more specifically, we are in- 2005 [cited 7 August 2006]. Available from www.pewinter- terested in the avid, daily reader of political blogs. net.org. When journalists or politicians talk about blog readers and the effects of blogs on politics, this is Fox, Susannah, and Mary Madden. Generations Online [Data the group they are talking about. memo]. Pew Internet & American Life Project, December, 2005 [cited 7 August 2006]. Available from www.pewinter- Until now, our knowledge about this group has net.org. been drawn from the knowledge of blog writers about their audience and a close reading of political Graf, Joseph, and Carol Darr. “Political Influentials Online in blogs. Both of these are valid sources of data, but the 2004 Presidential Campaign.” Washington, D.C.: Institute we still sought to interview daily readers of politi- for Politics, Democracy & the Internet, The George Washing- cal blogs for a look at the group as a whole. We are ton University, 2004. thus forced to discard random sampling because of Graf, Joseph, Grant Reeher, Michael J. Malbin and Costas the exorbitant cost necessary to obtain the sample Panagopoulos. “Small Donors and Online Giving: A Study of size we desire. Donors to the 2004 Presidential Campaigns.” Washington, With the partnership of @dvocacy Inc. we were D.C.: Institute for Politics, Democracy & the Internet, The George Washington University, 2006. able to use an enormous database of registered voters in California which had been matched e- Grynbaum, Michael M. “Bloggers Battle Old-School Media mail addresses to send an e-mail survey to almost for Political Clout: Online Journals Gaining Greater Influence, 2.4 million e-mail addresses.17 @dvocacy Inc. es- Scrutiny.” The Boston Globe, 6 July 2006. timates that about 1.6 million of those addresses were functioning (and did not bounce back to the Henninger, Daniel. “When Blogs Rule We Will All Talk Like ---- .” The Wall Street Journal, 21 April 2006, A14. sender). Of those, about 7%, or 117,000 e-mails, were opened by the receiver. The remainder were Lenhart, Amanda, and Susannah Fox. Bloggers: A Portrait of the caught in spam filters, ignored by the receivers Internet’s New Storytellers [Report]. Pew Internet & American or otherwise lost. We received 8,347 responses, Life Project, 19 July, 2006 [cited 2006 6 August]. Available which means about 7% of all those who opened from www.pewinternet.org. the e-mail tried to complete the survey. Of those who took the survey, 7,863 were considered valid Pew Research Center for the People and the Press. Many Americans Uneasy with Mix of Religion and Politics The Pew Re- responses because they completed at least two- search Center For The People and The Press, 24 August, 2006 thirds of the questions, and 723 of those reported [cited 1 September 2006]. Available from people-press.org/. they looked at political blogs “almost every day.” Our main comparison in this project is between Seelye, Katharine Q., Jacques Steinberg, and David F. Galla- these daily readers and the remaining valid re- gher. “Bloggers as News Media Trophy Hunters.” The New York sponses. Times, 14 February 2005, A1. The Pew Research Center for the People and the Press. Public More Critical of Press, but Goodwill Persists The Pew Research Center For The People and The Press, 26 June, 2005 [cited 1 September 2006]. Available from people-press.org/. 17 This project was conducted in accordance with state and federal spam laws. THE AUDIENCE FOR POLITICAL BLOGS | PAGE 9
  • 10. The Institute for Politics Democracy & the Internet The Graduate School of Political Management The George Washington University 805 21st St., NW, Suite 401 Washington, DC 20052 1.800.367.4776 toll free ipdi@ipdi.org INSTITUTE FOR POLITICS T H E G E O R G E WA S H I N G T O N U N I V E R S I T Y DEMOCRACY & THE INTERNET G R A D UAT E S C H O O L THE OF WWW.IPDI.ORG POLITICAL MANAGEMENT