Our surveys of Russian-language bloggers and their English-language counterparts present an opportunity to compare what topics these bloggers write about, which institutions inspire their confidence, and whether they prefer to blog anonymously or not.  The survey results offer a glimpse into these two diverse blogging cultures: Russian-language bloggers are more likely to blog about politics, remain anonymous online and exhibit low levels of confidence in many civil institutions.  Their English-language counterparts prefer to blog about more lifestyle topics, use both pseudonyms and full names, and display higher levels of confidence in certain institutions.  The full survey results are available here.

For Russian-language bloggers, it’s all politics—and it’s mostly local

When we asked Russian bloggers to list the topics they had blogged about in the past month, one subject quickly emerged as the frontrunner: politics.  The word clouds below show that politics is one of the most popular topics in both groups of bloggers we surveyed.[1]  We tallied up the actual responses, too, which shows that about 20 percent of Russian-language bloggers and nearly 40 percent of highly linked to Russian-language bloggers have blogged about politics in the past month.

Highly linked to English-language blogs are on par with their Russian counterparts in blogging about politics.  However, politics is a less popular topic among English-language bloggers, who tend to write more about hobbies, family issues and professional interests. When we tallied up their responses, only about 5 percent of English-language bloggers said they had blogged about politics in the last month.

Blogged about Politics 

Russian-language bloggers

Highly linked to Russian-language bloggers

English-language bloggers

Highly linked to English-language bloggers

The finding that Russian-language bloggers frequently discuss politics supports results from the qualitative coding of more than 1,000 Russian blogs the Berkman Center completed as part of its earlier study of the Russian blogosphere, which was based on  linked-based social network analysis. It also counters many of the assumptions made in the academic and popular press of an unengaged or apathetic civil society in Russia, both online and offline.  We surveyed bloggers between November 2011 and January 2012, around the December 2011 Duma (Parliamentary) election, an event that mobilized many Russians to participate in large-scale protests not seen since the fall of the Soviet Union.

Protests in Russia continued through the March 2012 presidential election that put Vladimir Putin back into power for a third term.  Given the notable role attributed to social media and blogs in organizing protests and spurring election-related conversations offline and online, politics undoubtedly continued to dominate the blogosphere after we completed our survey.[2] However, our survey suggests that Russian-language bloggers were engaged in political conversations even before protests mobilized many Russians into action on the streets, suggesting that they are far from being disengaged even when politics is not the topic du jour.

When they do blog about news or politics, both Russian- and English-language bloggers share an affinity for what’s happening in their backyard, preferring to blog about domestic issues over international ones.

Russian-language bloggers prefer pseudonyms when blogging—but are ambivalent to the necessity of anonymity

Both sets of Russian-language bloggers in our survey prefer to blog under a pen name, especially when compared to their English-language counterparts.  However, among those that write pseudonymously, anonymity is far more important to English-language bloggers than Russian-language bloggers.

Fifteen percent of Russian-language bloggers use only their first or last names, 18 percent use their full names and 67 percent opt for pseudonyms.  Highly linked to bloggers are not more likely to use their full names, either, with only a quarter of them reporting that they blog with their full name.

Do you blog under your own name, or do you use a pseudonym or a made-up name?

Among Russian-language bloggers using pseudonyms, though, only 34 percent said it was very or somewhat important to maintain anonymity on their blogs.  Comparatively, almost three-fourths of English-language bloggers using pseudonyms think it is important to preserve anonymity.

Why are pseudonyms, then, so popular among Russian-language bloggers when the anonymity presented by pseudonyms seems less important?  Unfortunately, our survey does not ask bloggers to identify factors that led them to choose pseudonyms over full names.  However, use of pseudonyms may simply be a reflection of the convention among Russian-language bloggers to use a pseudonym, even though readers often know their real names.  It may also be affected by technology, as LiveJournal, the most popular blogging platform for Russian-language bloggers, may encourage pseudonyms by asking users to create unique usernames for their accounts when they start their blogs.

Russian-language bloggers exhibit less confidence in civil, social institutions

Our survey asks bloggers about how much confidence they have in various institutions, yielding some fascinating data about the low levels of institutional confidence Russian-language bloggers display across the board.  While the levels of confidence vary institution by institution, no single civil or social institution garners high levels of confidence from a majority of Russian-language bloggers.

Russian-language bloggers report the most confidence in charitable and humanitarian organizations (43 percent report absolute or a lot of confidence) and environmental organizations (42 percent). In contrast, they report the least amount of confidence in political parties (93 percent report not very much or no confidence) and television (89 percent have not very much or no confidence).  English-language bloggers display a similar lack of confidence in political parties (86 percent report not very much or no confidence) and television (80 percent report not very much or no confidence).  Almost three-fourths (71 percent) of English-language bloggers also say they have absolute or a lot of confidence in charitable and humanitarian organizations.

Where the two diverge significantly is when they were asked about their level of confidence in the armed forces, police and judicial system.  More than half of English-language bloggers report high levels of confidence in the police and armed forces, and 45 percent report absolute or a lot of confidence in the courts.  In contrast, Russian-language bloggers show low levels of confidence in all three institutions (26 percent in armed forces, 11 percent in police and 17 percent in the courts).

The following graph compares the percentage of Russian-language and English-language bloggers who reported having absolute or a great deal of confidence in various institutions.

There is some variation in which institutions are favored by highly linked to Russian-language bloggers compared to the random sample of Russian-language bloggers.  For example, 17 percent of highly linked to bloggers report absolute or a lot of confidence in the press versus 7 percent of Russian-language bloggers.  On the flip side, 8 percent of highly linked to bloggers say they have absolute or a lot of confidence in women’s organizations compared to 19 percent of Russian-language bloggers in our survey.

The Press

Women’s Organizations

In general, Russian-language bloggers in our survey show lower levels of confidence in their civic institutions, not only compared to their English-language counterparts but also to the general population as well, according to a 2006 World Values Survey that measured institutional confidence among the Russian population with a set of similar questions.[3]  Political parties garnered low levels of confidence in comparison to other institutions (only 20 percent of those Russians surveyed said they have absolute/a lot of confidence), but a majority of respondents from the general population reported higher levels of confidence than Russian-language bloggers in the armed forces, environmental organizations and religious organizations.[4] In fact, nearly two-thirds of Russian respondents to the World Values Survey said they have a great deal or quite a lot of confidence in churches and the military.

Many of the factors that social scientists suggest influence the low levels of institutional confidence among Russians—perceptions of corruption, historical experience and lack of civic engagement—may similarly apply to the Russian-language blogosphere.  However, the overall lower levels of confidence among Russian-language bloggers both when compared to English-language bloggers and the general population offers a glimpse into what Russian-language bloggers think about the offline world.

ABOUT THE SURVEY   

These findings come from a survey of 267 Russian-language bloggers, age 18 or older, carried out between November 2, 2011 and December 12, 2012. The survey was conducted among a sample of 97 Russian-language bloggers, drawn from a list of 50,000 Russian-language blog URLs randomly scraped from the web by Berkman Center researchers, and 170 “highly linked to” bloggers, drawn from a link-based sample generated by Morningside Analytics. In the survey, we addressed respondents’ blogging habits and experience and their motivations for blogging.

Findings related to the English-language blogosphere come from a survey of 439 English-language bloggers, age 18 or older, carried out between January 31 and March 24, 2011. The survey was conducted among a sample of 182 English-language bloggers, drawn from a random list of blog URLs generated by Spinn3r, and 285 “highly linked to” bloggers, drawn from a link-based sample generated by Morningside Analytics.  Survey questions were identical to those in the Russian-language survey.

DOWNLOAD REPORTS

Download this report (PDF)

Download survey questions and aggregated answers (PDF)

What captures bloggers’ attention? When we asked English-language bloggers to report the topics they had written about in the month prior to taking the survey, a mix of pleasures—food, music, travel—and daily responsibilities—parenting, life, family, and health—topped the list, with friends, education, and a smattering of hobbies (knitting, photography, movies) rounding out the top dozen topics. Among highly linked to blogs*, politics took the top spot, followed by technology, culture, music, and media.

What did you blog about in the past month?
All English-language bloggers

What did you blog about in the past month?
Highly linked to bloggers

Highly linked to bloggers are more likely to write about news, technology, science, and business; English-language bloggers in general are more likely to write about hobbies/crafts and parenting.

When given a list of possible blog topics and asked whether they write about these topics, highly linked to bloggers more frequently reported writing about news, technology, science, and business, while bloggers in general reported writing about parenting and family issues and hobbies, crafts, and professional interests.

Do you blog about the following topics?
Percentage of bloggers indicating that they blog about the topics listed below

Typical bloggers spend a third of their blogs writing about their personal lives; highly linked to bloggers tend to share commentary and opinion.

On average, “diary and personal experience” makes up 36% of the content on blogs written by English-language bloggers. Popular bloggers spend only 18% of their blogs writing about their personal lives and 48% on commentary and opinion.

What percentage of your blog is made up of the following?

Over half—57%—of popular bloggers use their own names on their blogs; only 41% of general bloggers do. Anonymous bloggers are more likely to write about their personal lives, including travel and parenting, than bloggers who use their full names.

Speaking of personal lives, only 41% of English-language bloggers blog under their full names. Twenty-six percent blog using only their first or last names; the rest—33%—blog using a pseudonym. Among popular bloggers, 56.6% blog under their full names, 11.6% use only their first or last names, and 32% use a pseudonym.

Do you blog under your own name, or do you use a pseudonym or a made-up name?

Perhaps unsurprisingly, bloggers who use their full names write less about their personal lives than bloggers who use only their first or last names or blog anonymously. Diary and personal experience make up only 16% of the content on highly linked to blogs and 29% of the content on all blogs written by people who use their full names, as compared to 19% and 39%, respectively, of the content on blogs written by bloggers who write under a pseudonym.

What percentage of your blog is represented by diary and personal content?

When it comes to specific topics, English-language bloggers who use their full names and bloggers who blog anonymously both write about travel, food, family, and music, but bloggers who write anonymously are more likely to write about parenting.

What did you blog about in the past month?
English-language bloggers using their full names

What did you blog about in the past month?
English-language bloggers writing anonymously

Both general and popular bloggers write to express themselves creatively. Popular bloggers write to influence and motivate others, while bloggers in general write to document their personal experiences.

When asked why they blog, over half of bloggers—57.3% of highly linked to bloggers and 70.6% of English-language bloggers in general—reported that creative expression is a “major reason” to blog. Approximately half of popular bloggers also blog to influence the way other people think (53%) or motivate other people to action (48%).

English-language bloggers in general are less concerned with affecting the behavior of others, with barely over a quarter of bloggers reporting that they write to influence (26%) or motivate (27.3%) others. Instead, a majority of these bloggers—61.9%—report that documenting their personal experiences and sharing them with others is a “major reason” they blog.

Please tell us if each of the factors below is a major reason you personally blog.

“All blogs” and “all bloggers” refer to a random sample of English-language blogs drawn from a list of URLs provided by the web crawler Spinn3r, in which all blogs have an equal probability of being selected. “Highly linked to blogs” and “popular bloggers” refer to a second sample of bloggers based on inlinks, such that more popular bloggers are more likely to be selected. Return to post »

ABOUT THE SURVEY
These findings come from a survey of 439 English-language bloggers, age 18 or older, carried out between January 31 and March 24, 2011. The survey was conducted among a sample of 182 English-language bloggers, drawn from a random list of blog URLs generated by the web indexing service Spinn3r, and 285 “popular” bloggers, drawn from a link-based sample generated by Morningside Analytics. In the survey, we addressed respondents’ blogging habits and experience and their motivations for blogging.

DOWNLOAD REPORTS
Download this report (PDF)
Download survey questions and aggregated answers (PDF)

It should not be surprising then, that microblogging, with its capacity for rapid dissemination and retrieval of real-time information both social and political, has been particularly popular in countries with repressive regimes, such as China, which actively controls and monitors the flow of online information. China first made its plunge into the microblogging frenzy nine months after Twitter’s launch, with the creation of its mirror microblogging service Jiwai.de, followed by Fanfou.

However, it was not until the launch of Sina Weibo in 2009 that microblogging in China really took off. Unlike its predecessors, Sina was more trusted by the Chinese government and consequently managed to avoid some of the stickier censorship issues that thwarted the first microblogging platforms in China. Sina Weibo took 66 days to reach its first its first million users. Just over 100 days later, Sina Weibo had amassed 10 million followers. The microblogging revolution had come to China.

Since 2010, China’s two largest microblogging platforms, Sina Weibo and Tencent Weibo, have posted staggering levels of growth. Together, Sina Weibo’s 140 million users and Tencent’s 80 million users surpass the 200 million user bar recently set by Twitter in July 2011. This year in particular has been a big year for Chinese microblogging, one which may very aptly be dubbed China’s Year of the Microblog. Below are some of the major highlights from 2011:

Sina Weibo Takes Microblogging Community by Storm

While 2011 has been a big year for Chinese microblogging at large, it has been an especially big year for the current microblogging platform titan in China: Sina Weibo. When Sina Weibo hit 140 million users this past May, Twitter was edging up on its 200 million mark. However, what makes Sina’s 140 million bar particularly striking is that Sina Weibo’s userbase is almost exclusively Chinese, whereas Twitter has expanded to several countries around the world. Some may be quick to point out that China’s population of 1.3 billion is significantly larger than the US’s 313 million. However, this should be qualified by the fact that China’s level of Internet penetration lags far behind the US’s and that of many countries which make up much of Twitter’s international base.
If Sina Weibo’s home-turf success in China is anything to measure its global potential by, then Twitter may soon be in trouble. This past June, Sina announced plans to launch an English version of its popular Weibo service. While some have pointed out that users may be reluctant to sign up for Sina Weibo’s self-censored service, there are still many incentives for international users to sign up with an English Weibo. First, Weibo’s interface has largely been heralded as being better than Twitter’s, as it includes the ability to comment on other postings, directly include audio and pictures, start vote counts, and is generally more user-friendly­­­­­­­­­­. Second, due to the original Chinese language platform of Sina’s Weibo, Weibo will have the opportunity to poach current Twitter users, while the reverse will not be true: this is Twitter’s game to lose.
Beyond spreading its international ambitions, Sina has made some considerable power plays to secure its dominant role as the preeminent microblogging platform at home, not the least of which included debuting its two new domain names: weibo.com and weibo.cn. It may help to know that “weibo” translates literally into “microblog” or “microblogging.” Essentially, Sina bought the Chinese equivalent of “microblog(ging).com.” This should give Sina’s Weibo a significant online advantage over its next closest competitor, Tencent Weibo, along with other Chinese-language microblogging startups.

Chinese Queen of Microblogging Hits 10 Million Followers

Chinese actress Yao Chen, dubbed China’s microblogging queen, hit 10 million followers this past July on Sina Weibo, leading many news sources to claim that she had become one of the top 10 most followed microbloggers in the world, and the first non-Twitter user to join the top 10. Although Yao Chen may be close to edging out Lady Gaga’s 12 million-strong Twitter fan base, it is worth mentioning that Tencent’s weibo service has about 17 Chinese celebrities with more than 10 million followers each, including Olympian Liu Xiang, who may be the most followed microblogger in the world with over 18 million followers. This discrepancy in reporting may possibly be explained by the fact that Sina also owns its own news source and thus has more readily available access to disseminating newsworthy information than Tencent, which does not.

Chinese Microblogging Booms Even as Internet Growth Slows

2011 saw a massive surge in Chinese microblogging subscriptions, jumping 208.9% from 63.11 million at the end of 2010 to 195 million by the end of June 2011. Moreover, this growth occurred with the backdrop of China’s overall online growth slowing to a mere 6.1%. For perspective, this is down from 29.6% in 2007 and 9.4% in 2010. It is not as if China is running out of potential Internet users: its Internet penetration rate is still hovering at 36.2%, far behind the rates in the US, which top 70%. The conflict between these two trends may be partially explained by the large growth in the proportion of mobile users, which grew from 15.5% to 34.0% between the end of 2010 and the end of June 2011, an increase of 119.3% (mobile Internet users are not included in data on Internet penetration).

Microblogging Moves Faster than Censorship

What is perhaps most important about China’s microblog surge is its implications for the Chinese state’s control over media and the flow of information. On July 23, 2011, when two high speed trains collided in Wenzhou, China, killing 40 people and injuring over 210, the first wave of information about the crash came from China’s microbloggers. Microblogging from the scene of the crash frequently exposed details not covered by the state media. When local lawyers were ordered by officials not to take cases from crash victims, Weibo users reported on the mandate and officials were forced to apologize and reverse their position. After a flurry of microblogs aimed online suspicion towards the Chinese order to bury the first car of the train that was destroyed in the crash, the car was unearthed and brought back to Wenzhou for analysis.
If 2011 continues its trend as a boom year for Chinese microblogging, it will be one year that the Chinese state will want to watch. Microblogging has made information easier to access and distribute and far more difficult to control. It is too widespread to snuff out at this point (roughly 40% of China’s online population has a microblog), and the nature of reblogging allows damning information to go viral at a rate to fast to block. How far China’s microblogging revolution will go remains to be seen, but if the first 8 months of 2011 are any indicator, it shows no sign of stopping anytime soon.

Le Monde has published a map of the French political blogosphere (in French) biannually since 2007, when blogs came into focus during the election campaign. Conducted by the company Linkfluence, the study uses quantitative link analysis to determine how close the roughly 1000 blogs under observation are to each other.

The map shows clusters of political blogs from the extreme left to the extreme right. The biggest group are the leftist blogs, among which the website of the oppositional Parti Socialiste is a major point of reference. Leftist blogs make up nearly half of the blogs under observation, but are also the most spread out. Other political movements, such as the Greens and centrists, form denser clusters.

A particular focus is on the “fachosphère” (in French), the extremist blogosphere to the right of France’s conservative government under the Union for a Popular Movement (UMP) party. This part of the blogosphere has grown considerably since 2007, now making up 12.5 percent of the blogs under observation. Le Monde links this to an ideology of “technological Gramscism,” which is popular among the far right. This approach transfers the ideas of 1920’s Italian communist Antonio Gramsci, who argued that political victory is dependent on cultural hegemony, to the age of the Internet.

A detailed map of the far-right blogosphere (in French) shows different clusters within this group. One is centered around the right-wing party Front National. Two other clusters, ethno-pluralists and the “clash of civilizations” cluster, seem predominantly preoccupied with Islam and immigration, and can be linked to the European new right movement. Smaller clusters are formed by neoconservatives and Catholic traditionalists.

A comparison of the 2011 map to those from 2009 and 2007 also shows some broader trends. France’s political blogosphere is shrinking, a development that is particularly wearing on the conservative cluster linked to the governing UMP. Le Monde speculates that blogs established during the 2007 election campaign have been abandoned, and other authors might have left their blogs for Twitter.

From the Media Cloud project

The Media Cloud researchers identify three big meta-clusters: crafts, news and technology. The blogs are linked together by a comparison of the similarity of their 100 most common words, taken over a time span of five months early this year. Below the meta level, a range of clusters emerge, which are titled after the most common word. And the biggest cluster is, indeed, “love”.

The “love” cluster, part of the crafts umbrella, encompasses a range of general crafting and personal life blogs. Terms such as “family” and “children” feature here just as prominently as “cake” and “quilt”. Other clusters are more concise, such as “knit”. Still, some blogs may be wrongly grouped, such as that of the radio show “This American Life”, which is listed in the “recipe” cluster – perhaps because of a post on the original cola recipe.

In the news meta-cluster, everything turns around the president – at least when it comes to key words. “Obama” is the biggest cluster in this area. A closer look reveals that this cluster encompasses what has been in the focus of political reporting during the last half a year, while the study was conducted. “Economy” and “crisis” are listed there, and so are “japan”, “egypt”, or “libya”. However, the study’s map does not seem to reveal a partisan split. Do bloggers on different edges of thee political spectrum essentially talk about the same issuees?

Finally, a third meta-cluster encompasses what is hot in technology at the moment. And that seem to be Google, apps, and the iPhone. Interestingly, the study discerns the more software-focused “apps” cluster from the more gadget-y “iPhone” cluster. Are there two different conversations taking place?

There is much more to discover still in the full results of the clustering run. Some other clusters comprise comic blogs or those centered around family issues. But do you feel represented by this clustering? In the comments on the Media Cloud blog, readers have already started asking for their niche, such as health or parenting blogs. Are you already on the map?

For example, in an analysis on blogs in the religion cluster, researchers noted the idiosyncrasies of a hip-hop-loving Orthodox priest:

“He posts some rock music and trailers for Hollywood movies. He speaks a lot about faith and Christianity and says that the most important thing is to have faith in Christ, all other things a person can learn. He listens to rap music and comments on the arrest of the famous rapper who was arrested for 10 days because his lyrics which were considered offensive to police.”

Politics was also a huge topic of discussion among Russian bloggers. In particular, a section of the country’s blogosphere exhibited extreme nationalist sentiments. In an examination of a Russian nationalist’s blog:

“He describes in his blog the dangerous future found in Europe’s decline and new separatists wars that will destroy the modern world. He is very critical toward the current Russian government and in particular the development of the Russian innovation zone Skolkovo. He says that Medvedev is a neoliberal and no one in the West will really help Russia contrary to what Medvedev has argued. According to the blogger, Russia has to focus on uniting and protecting the Russian people all over the world.”

Some other interesting findings:

• LiveJournal remains one of the most used platforms.
• Compared to the map of the American online political landscape, the Russian blogosphere is not as isolated in terms of cross-spectrum debate. Researchers found that clusters of political blogs exhibit a degree of ideological openness (as opposed to containing themselves within communities of bloggers with similar political leanings).
• The highest concentration of male bloggers (over 90%) belongs to the Nationalist category. On certain nationalist blogs, researchers found criticisms of the West and posts hailing Stalin. Unsurprisingly, the word cloud generated from this category indicated that “Russia” was used most often among these bloggers.
• Russian bloggers link the most to YouTube.
• Many bloggers use YouTube to “serve as a watchdog” on the elite class and corruption in the government.

For more information, download the report, available in both English and Russian.

Several findings indicated that left and right blogs could be differentiated by virtue of political leaning alone. For example, conservative blogs usually provided fewer user blogs and solicited less reader participation. More than twice as many liberal blogs than conservative blogs used enhanced platforms to publish their content. The left wing of the blogosphere pushed harder for mobilization and organization for action.

So why do blogging practices and habits differ depending on the political leaning of the blogger? Benkler and Shaw mention several possibilities. One suggests that individuals tie their political beliefs to personal characteristics. Not only that, their research was also consistent with previous ideas that people form beliefs and opinions to mold their political and cultural values based on—and sometimes regardless of—objective facts and circumstances. Based on the four combinations of belief “structures,” blogs are the right are more likely to be individualistic and hierarchical, while left-leaning sites were more likely to be communitarian and egalitarian.

Another reason that they provide has to do with when the blogosphere became an Internet phenomenon. Around 2002 to 2004, the time when blogging platforms were just developing and gaining usage, the federal government was dominated by the political right, who built a large presence in public sphere. In the meantime, the left was left (no pun intended) in the cold by an administration hostile to it, and therefore used the blogosphere as an opportunity to engage with each other and even mobilize. What we can take away from this suggestion is that blogging practices in political blogs can be traced back to their ancestors a mere decade ago.

Regardless of slant, readers of blogs rarely went “deeper” than a few clicks on the sites they visited. The data showed that visitors preferred reading easily accessible information than digging around for it, absorbing what they could immediately identify on most blogs. According to this finding, perhaps both the left and the right should be brainstorming ways to draw attention to keep their fickle readers coming back for more.

Flexibility. In 2007, ReadWriteWeb listed a number of up-and-coming microblogging services that were attracting users. Perhaps the least common denominator among them all was their trans-platform function. Users of Tumblr, MySay, and more could update via browser, mobile phone, or other applications. Most platforms also provided APIs for independent developers to create their own applications.

Speed. Tech Crunch reported in 2009 that, despite predictions that microblogging would take over the blogosphere, Twitter’s growth had begun to plateau while WordPress continued to expand. However, after developing their retweeting feature for blogs and making sharing much faster, the company experienced another jump in number of users.

Political impact. Although technology writers and academics alike continue to argue about the exact amount of impact Twitter and microblogging platforms have on political struggles in countries such as Iran and China, the impact nevertheless exists. In January, popular Chinese microblog hosts Sina and Sohu blocked all searches for “Egypt.” As a country heavily censored by its government, China serves as an example of how microblogging can affect internal politics.

Human evolution. According to New York Times writer Clive Thompson, online social networking—including microblogging platforms—allows people to be “ambiently aware.” Others see it as a natural extension of human evolution on the Internet. Along this vein, social websites are just a natural manifestation of the natural human desire to socialize, allowing people to maintain both intimate contacts and “weak ties” as well.

What do you think keeps microblogging afloat? Leave a comment to let us know.

WHO: Demographics

• 11% of the bloggers surveyed claim it as their professional job.
• Most American bloggers live in California.
• Nearly 80% have college degrees.
• Only 1/3 are women.
• 96% have blogged for at least a year.
• The top 100 bloggers as ranked by Technorati blog approximately 500 times more than all other bloggers.
• Bloggers spend twice as much time on social media websites than the average American.

WHAT: Subjects on the Blogosphere

• The majority of bloggers, professional or hobbyist, state that they blog in order to share expertise and interests with others online.
• Over half have made online friends through their blogging activities.
• 55% claimed that blogging has improved their professional careers and has helped them become more well-known in their respective industries.
• Most bloggers still predominantly use their sites to post what Technorati calls “personal musings,” more so than any other topic.
• People are more likely to take recommendations about products from blogs than from Twitter.

HOW: Technology

• Over half of all bloggers use a third-party platform to host their blogs. Blogging Common recently launched a project to survey blogging platform choices.
• Facebook and Twitter are responsible for the majority of traffic directed to blogs, according to Tech Crunch.

What’s Next

“The State of the Blogosphere” shows how blogging has engaged more Internet users in general. And others are venturing into further niches of the blogosphere, such as participating in microblogging. The study also poses questions about the effects of English as the dominant language on the blogosphere.

Regardless, the blogosphere continues to grow. In response to the release of the 2010 report, blogger Brian Solis elaborated on why blogging will only continue to proliferate:

“[The blogosphere] is a place where context, thoughtfulness and continuity are rewarded with inbound links, ReTweets, bookmarks, comments and Likes. Blogs are the digital library of our intellect, experience, and vision. With blogs, we are investing in our digital legacy.”

In 2009, Bruce Etling, John Kelly, Robert Faris, and John Palfrey of the Berkman Center published “Mapping the Arabic Blogosphere,” revealing several key findings about Internet users in the region. In particular, Egypt is host to the largest number of Arabic bloggers due to a greater number of people with Internet access in the country—the country represents about a third of the entire Arabic blogosphere. Moreover, Egyptians are more likely to be active in online political discussions and engagements, especially among the Secular Reformist and the Muslim Brotherhood populations.

Among Secular Reformist bloggers in the country, most active online writers began as critics against Hosni Mubarak’s regime in the Kefaya movement. An example of a profile of an Egyptian blogger from the study exhibits the clear opposition against the recently toppled regime:

“This is the blog of an Egyptian computer programmer and a Coptic Christian. He writes a lot about the dangers Christians face not just in Egypt, but also around the entire Middle East. He condemns jihadist groups and urges dialogue and understanding.”

The Muslim Brotherhood continues to vocalize protests of arrests by the Egyptian government online. Although the group is illegal in Egypt, Brotherhood bloggers continue to use their name publicly rather than resorting to pseudonyms (about 78%).

One noteworthy observation—online groups in Egypt seemed more likely to gather around “political and religious ideas.” As aforementioned, although the Muslim Brotherhood is forbidden to congregate in the country, they continue to shed light on their ideas on the Internet through blogging. Along this trajectory, Etling, et al. may have unknowingly predicted the revolution for democracy with their prescience on the upheaving potential of the Egyptian blogosphere— “Opening up their thoughts to criticism within and outside their own community suggests a degree of confidence in the resilience of their ideas and amenability to debate. It is interesting to see these decidedly democratic practices taking root in civic organizations online.”

Other data reveal the demographics and the specific pockets of the Internet in which Egyptian bloggers congregate. Gender-wise, a surprisingly large number of female Arabic bloggers are found in Egypt, especially among the youth population. Unsurprisingly, female Egyptian bloggers are more likely to use anonymous identities when writing online than men.

The study also noted that YouTube is circumvented around the Arabic blogosphere more than any other website, including Egypt. The authors gave the example of “The Pasha’s Daughter Terrifying People on the Street” that has become linked all over Egyptian blogs and has received over 1.5 million views to date. The video, featuring a girl threatening a man on the street in Giza, became viral after people protested that the girl abused the position of her father, a high-ranking police officer in Egypt.

For more information, visit the OpenNet Initiative’s country profile on Egypt and read the Berkman Center’s ongoing coverage on Egypt.