REALITY CHECK TIME: Many bloggers think their golden words influence our nation — but a new study seemingly throws ice-cold water on that idea.
Yes, blogs are satisfying to write. And, yes, some blogs have big circulations but this new info-and-(at times)-propaganda tool has a long way to go as a major molder of opinion according to a new study. The Boston Herald reports:
Cambridge-based Forrester Research reported yesterday that fewer than 2 percent of Americans who go online read blogs once a week or more.
Even among tech-savvy pioneers – those with laptops and WiFi networks in their homes – just 4 percent say they read blogs. The surprising figures were uncovered after an exhaustive survey of 68,664 households.
“All that press coverage of the blogs, and the audience is just minuscule,” noted Forrester Vice President Ted Schadler.
Weblogs do influence the journalists, academics, some political types (but most who read blogs go to the blogs they agree with) etc. But a 4 percent readership gives bloggers this message: the world and nation will not change with the words you write. But there is another side of it:
Herald reporter Jay Fitzgerald, author of Hub Blog and the Herald’s Econoblog, notes: “The New Republic, the National Review, the Nation and other political magazines have enormous influence, but their combined circulation doesn’t come close to the readership of the top blogs.”
Still, Forrester’s findings suggest the “blogosphere” phenomenon has enjoyed some over-hyping.
Blog readership looks paltry against the 70 percent of Americans who watch ABC, 65 percent who read their local paper – or even the 18 percent who watch Home & Garden’s HGTV.
Strip out the few dozen influential blogs and most of the estimated 5 million U.S. blogs probably enjoy very few readers.
So you probably, in reality, have a small handful of truly influential blogs — but even those are must be viewed within the larger context.
Another fascinating finding in this study has to do with broadband:
Broadband use is soaring. Nearly 30 percent of U.S. households have broadband Internet connections, up from just 19 percent the year before.
Wireless home networks are the new broadband, driving the next wave of Internet use. Those with WiFi connections can access the Web from anywhere in their homes using a laptop. The result? They spend 24 percent less time reading newspapers and 23 percent less time watching TV than people in homes without the Web.
Which could mean the influence of blogs will grow.
But within limits…because of this fact:”One third of U.S. homes still have no Internet connection.”
Meanwhile, a New York Times editorial looks at blogs proliferating at rabbit-like rates and notes its key value is in expanding the conversation. A few highlights:=
If the blogosphere continues to expand at this rate, every person who has Internet access will be a blogger before long, if not an actual reader of blogs. The conventional media – this very newspaper, for instance – have often discussed the growing impact of blogging on the coverage of news. Perhaps the strongest indicator of the importance of blogdom isn’t those discussions themselves, but the extent to which media outlets are creating blogs – or bloglike manifestations – of their own….
It’s natural enough to think of the growth of the blogosphere as a merely technical phenomenon. But it’s also a profoundly human phenomenon, a way of expanding and, in some sense, reifying the ephemeral daily conversation that humans engage in. Every day the blogosphere captures a little more of the strange immediacy of the life that is passing before us. Think of it as the global thought bubble of a single voluble species.
Bubble R Us!
UPDATE: Journalism professor David Permultterr asks whether blogs will go bust and tempers the view of blogs a bit — but he may be a bit overly pessmistic.
In his Editor & Publisher piece, he notes that (a)bloggers are more educated and of higher income than most people, (b)many people have never heard of blogs, (c)many blogs are abandoned or not updated (in other words: so much for the monster number of blogs out there), (d)some blogs aren’t even blogs but set up by corporations.
He writes:
But probably the biggest challenge to blogs are those who cynically emulate their form without their soul.
An independent blogger’s greatest asset, besides wit, energy, bravery, and doggedness, is sincerity. We read them to hear a credible independent voice — not the shills of a corporation, lobbying group, a government agency, or a party. But now it seems that every auto company, PR firm, and politician is taking up blogging — to sell us the same old pitches in a sleek new package. Some bloggers, unfortunately, are selling out and jumping on the payroll of corporations and political parties.
There aren’t any signs yet of bloggers en mass jumping on the payroll of political parties or corporations. And the criticism could be made that many blog are quite partisan and seemingly become ways that their writers can battle for one party or another. But that’s the NATURE of blogs.
Perhaps it you put all of these together you realize: blogs are new info/expression/conversation/propaganda form. Those who think they’re the wave of the future feel they are a lot more important than they are. Those who don’t, tend to put greater weight to the negative.
Perhaps its simply too early to TELL. The POTENTIAL for something is there. Is that potential being realized? Is it heading in the right direction?
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.