Demographic differences

The age of the respondents ranged from 18 to 73 years, with the British respondents being slightly younger than the American. Forty per cent of the British respondents were under 30, in comparison with 26 per cent of the American respondents, and 4 per cent of the British respondents were over 56, with the American figure being 18 per cent. Thus, for this random sample, the American bloggers were, on average, older than the British bloggers. However, there was no perceptible difference in the amount of time each group had been blogging. The differences between the two countries were, however, found in terms of educational attainment, with the American respondents having, on average, a higher educational attainment. Forty-seven per cent of the American respondents were educated to bachelor degree level, compared with 32 per cent of the British respondents, and 35 per cent of the American respondents held a postgraduate degree, in comparison with 18 per cent of the British respondents. Twenty-eight per cent of the British respondents reported that their highest level of educational attainment was as a school leaver compared with only 10 per cent of the American respondents. To a certain extent, this must be linked to the fact that the British respondents were younger than the American respondents, although it should be noted that 11 British respondents were currently undertaking education compared with 13 American respondents.

Previous studies into the blogosphere have characterised bloggers as usually educated to graduate level or beyond. Some of these studies even focused on university bloggers through their selection of survey participants, which may, of course, have impacted on the findings. For example, Schiano (2004) interviewed bloggers in and around Stanford University, Guadagno et al. (2008) studied students from a large southeastern university in the United States and Menchen-Trevino interviewed 14 college student bloggers. Their findings have been supported by larger- scale surveys such as Technorati’s recent (2009) report on the State of the Blogosphere – based on a survey of 2,828 bloggers, half of whom were from the United States – which found that 75 per cent of the respondents had college degrees and 40 per cent had graduate degrees. Therefore, it may be suggested that the second wave of blogging outside the United States is attracting a different type of person to the blogosphere. Is blogging in the United Kingdom more associated with youth culture?

Perceptions of blogging

The first difference to be discerned was in the perception of blogging by the respondents: whether it was seen as a form of creative writing or was more related to information technology (IT). The respondents were asked to indicate whether any of the following skills used in their current employment were necessary for their blogging: IT skills, journalism or creative writing. They were allowed to select as many of these three skills as they wanted, or to suggest others.

As can be seen in Figure 9.1, the British respondents were far more likely than the American respondents to see the IT skills used in their current employment as relevant to their blogging, with 46 out of a possible 54 respondents (85 per cent) clicking the IT skills button, compared with 26 out of a possible 51 (50 per cent) of American respondents seeing the IT skills used in their current employment as relevant to their blogging or even using such skills in their current jobs. The American respondents were more likely to see their creative writing skills as useful for their blogging. In particular, the American male respondents felt that they brought creative writing skills from their employment to blogging, as demonstrated in Figure 9.2, in which the respondents are categorised by both country and sex.

Further evidence of this IT/creative divide can be found in the ‘other skills’ category that respondents could select in answer to this question. Six British respondents gave further details of particular IT skills they used in blogging and in their job, such as webpage designing or the use of specific software programs, in comparison with only two American respondents, both women. Four American respondents mentioned that they used marketing and promotion skills from their work in their blogging, but no British respondent mentioned such skills. When asked about other forms of computer-mediated communication they used, the British respondents were far more likely to admit their experiences with tools such as listservs, chatrooms or bulletin boards than the American respondents, who were even less experienced with e-mail than the British bloggers (see Figure 9.3).

These results suggest that the American respondents, and the American male respondents in particular, saw blogging as a much more creative process than the British, who saw it as more of an IT-based phenomenon. This conclusion was further strengthened when the respondents were asked what they would be doing if they weren’t blogging (see Figure 9.4).

The British respondents were more likely to mention surfing the Internet, watching television or working as alternatives to blogging, whereas the American respondents were more likely to mention reading, creative writing and, in particular, writing in their journal, something no British respondent mentioned. In addition, more American than British respondents found that blogging widened the audience for both their creative work (36 American, 26 British) and their intellectual work (25 American, 14 British).

Comments from the American respondents also emphasised the importance of blogging as a form of creative writing. As one female respondent explained:

A young male respondent from the United States said: ‘If you write, you will find it easy to blog. Mostly, because that’s all blogging is. Writing.’ In comparison, a British blogger, who actually focused her blog on literary criticism, made an explicit link between her blog and IT:

It should be noted, however, that although the American male respondents were happy to see their blogging as a form of creative writing, they were less likely to see blogging as a form of diary-keeping. In response to the question asking whether blogging was a form of diary-keeping, journalism, publishing or other, only 12 American men selected diary- keeping in comparison with 23 American women, 21 British men and 21 British women.

The connection that the British respondents made between blogging and IT is supported by the findings of a study by Efimova (2003) on what she calls the ‘stickiness factor’ of blogging, by which she means the likelihood of a blogger continuing to blog after the initial start-up period. She argues that blogging fits well with jobs that require studying or using technology in general or using blogs, in particular, for learning, collaboration or knowledge sharing. It is interesting that the British respondents agree with Efimova and the connection she makes between IT and blogging. The British bloggers’ focus on IT is also interesting in the light of the fact that the majority of the respondents from both countries can be said to be in the second wave of blogging, which occurred after the introduction of the easy-to-use/build-your-own-blog software such as Blogger in 1999, and therefore they have little need for advanced computing skills for their blogging. Analysing how long all the respondents had been blogging shows that 62 – over half – had been blogging for less than two years and that these beginners were evenly spread throughout the two countries. Only one-third of the respondents, again spread evenly between the two countries, had been blogging for over three years. Therefore, the vast majority of the respondents would never have needed advanced programming skills in order to blog.

Satisfactions from blogging

The respondents were asked to select any number of choices from a list of statements about the satisfaction they gained from blogging, and Figure 9.5 shows their responses (divided into the two nationalities).

As can be seen, the most popular statements were blogging as a way of ‘exercising talents’ and blogging as a way of ‘clarifying thinking’. Ignoring the two British respondents who claimed to find no satisfaction at all in blogging (then why do it?), the least popular statements were ‘redressing the biases of the media’ (32 respondents) and blogging as a ‘democratic movement’ (28 respondents). It is noticeable that, overall, the American respondents were more willing to admit finding a variety of satisfactions in their blogging, with the American selecting 502 choices compared with the British (420 choices). As can be seen from Figure 9.5, the British respondents equalled the American respondents only in their enthusiasm for blogging as a way of ‘clarifying thinking’ and were more enthusiastic than the Americans only in finding satisfaction with blogging as a ‘democratic movement’. The satisfactions that the American respondents were particularly enthusiastic about included ‘exercising talents’, ‘displaying talents’ and ‘sharing expertise’. With regard to gender and country, again the American male respondents stood out in comparison with the other respondents, as is shown in Figure 9.6, in which the respondents are categorised by sex and country.

The American male respondents selected more choices of satisfactions from blogging than any other group (172 in comparison with the next highest group, the American women, who made 124 choices) and also found far more satisfaction in ‘sharing expertise’ and ‘sharing knowledge’ than any other group.

What does this mean? Why might the American male bloggers be so satisfied with the blogging experience? Part of the methodology of this project was to rank the 120 respondents’ blogs in terms of popularity using data gathered from the blog-monitoring sites Technorati and The Truth Laid Bear and information concerning the number of links made to a blog’s front page from Surfwax. The Truth Laid Bear (http://truthlaidbear.com) and Technorati (http://www.technorati.com) are websites that use links from other blogs as the measure of the relative worth of a blog. Surfwax is a metasearch engine whose Site Snaps function offers a quick abstract of any web page, including the number of links made to that page. Since popularity, as demonstrated by the number of links made to a blog, is used as the main criterion for success in the blogosphere, the surveyed blogs were ranked using the data collected and then the top and bottom 20 blogs in the listing were analysed to discern any common characteristics.

The top 20 blogs in terms of popularity were written by 12 American respondents (10 men and 2 women) and 8 British respondents (4 men and 4 women). The bottom 20 blogs were written by 8 American respondents (1 man and 7 women) and 12 British respondents (6 men and 6 women). If we accept that popularity equals success in the blogosphere, then what is suggested by this quick exercise is that the American male respondents were, on average, more successful in the blogosphere than the other three groups.

The Surfwax data were also used to rank the bloggers in terms of the number of links, number of images and number of words used in their blogs. In terms of the number of links, again the American men dominated, with six blogs in the top ten compared with two British men, one British woman and one American woman. These included a birding enthusiast, an evangelical Christian, an expert in global current affairs, an expert on German culture and an expert on American football. The two British men included another Christian, this time a minister, and a blogger with a long blogroll relating to mental illness. Both the female bloggers (one British and one American) were promoting their businesses through the Internet, one as a children’s book illustrator and the other as a sex therapist. If a high number of links in the blog is used as an indicator of success in the blogosphere, then again we have more successful American male bloggers, but it is also obvious that bloggers who focused on one particular subject, which may or may not be related to their career or a source of income, were the most active in terms of links. Out of the ten most successful bloggers, five were writing about some aspect of their career. This agrees with the findings of Herring et al. (2004) that journal blogs, focused on the blogger’s personal life, tend to have fewer links than filter blogs.

In terms of the number of images used on the blogs, the top ten bloggers included seven American men, two British women and one American woman. Four of these ten bloggers were also in the list of blogs with a high number of links (mentioned previously): the birding expert, the international affairs expert (who wrote for a variety of magazines and journals on the subject), the evangelical Christian and another blogger whose blog focused on funny and strange things to be found on the Internet. One British female blogger used her blog as part of her online shop that sold objects for the home and therefore illustrations and photos in the blog were very necessary. It appears that the American bloggers were happier, or more technically able, to use photos on their blogs than the British bloggers. In comparison, Herring’s team found relatively low levels of image use in their study of the American bloggers, but this can probably be explained by the developments in access to and ease of use of digital cameras in the few years between the two studies (Herring et al., 2004: 9).

The ten blogs with the largest number of words in recent postings belonged to six American men, two British men, one American woman and one British woman. Again, most of these blogs were filter blogs with a theme or focus. Of the two female bloggers, one discussed right-wing politics, whereas the other reviewed crime novels. One of the two British men wrote about military affairs, having been a soldier, whereas the other was a policeman writing anonymously about policing in the United Kingdom. Of the six American men, two were religious bloggers, one wrote about international affairs, one was the expert on American football, one was a soldier writing about military affairs and one was a German expatriate blogging about international culture.

As can be ascertained from these descriptions, many of the bloggers who were in the top ten ranking for the largest number of words were also in the top ten ranking for the highest number of either images or links. The two bloggers who were in the top ten ranking in all three categories were the young American evangelical Christian and the American male who wrote about international politics, with an emphasis on technology. The bloggers in the top ten ranking for at least two out of the three categories were the birding enthusiast (American male), the German expatriate living in the United States and writing about cultural issues (American male), a group blog on American sports and betting (American male) and a minister writing from a Christian viewpoint (American male). Thus, all the dominant bloggers in the survey, according to the Surfwax data, were men based in the United States.

Is it any wonder then that the American male respondents were most likely to find a high number of satisfactions from their blogging or that such satisfactions were related to demonstrations of their knowledge, wisdom or expertise? As one American male respondent described:

The finding that all the dominant bloggers in the 2007 study were American men corresponds to the general tenor of research findings about gender in blogging and the dominance of male bloggers in the American blogosphere, as already discussed in Chapter 8. It is therefore suggested by the findings of this survey that such a dominance of male bloggers in the United States, as identified by many commentators in the last few years, also translates into a dominance of the international, Anglophone blogosphere.

Blogroll differences

As explained in Chapter 8, the blogrolls of the respondents of the 2007 survey were analysed with respect to gender and geographical location of the blogs they linked to. In the survey, the respondents were asked what they had in common with the contacts on their blogroll. A variety of options was offered and the respondents were allowed to choose as many as they wished. Figure 9.7 shows the responses to this question.

As can be seen, the most popular choice here was ‘interests’ (92 respondents). Just under half, 59 respondents, also chose ‘sense of humour’. The least popular choice was ‘economic or domestic circumstances’, with only eight respondents. ‘Part of the world’ was also an unpopular choice with only 19 respondents. The respondents did not perceive themselves as only linking to other bloggers who lived in the same part of the world as they did. With these results in mind, an analysis of the blogrolls of all respondents was undertaken in order to ascertain how willing the bloggers really were to link to blogs from outside their own country. All links on the blogroll were followed and the geographical location of the linked blogger was ascertained, if possible. This was usually easily discovered by reading the blogger’s profile or reading through blog entries. The results are shown in Figure 9.8.

Of the 47 American blogs that carried a blogroll, 31 (66 per cent) had less than 20 per cent of their blogroll links to blogs from outside the United States. In fact, 15 of these blogs had no links at all to blogs from outside the United States. The male blogger with the most links to blogs outside the United States was the German expatriate living in the United States who wrote a blog on international affairs and culture, primarily in German. He was the only respondent in the survey whose blog linked to non-English-language blogs. The female blogger with the most links to blogs located outside the United States wrote a blog focused on the work of Jane Austen and so linked to several British blogs on the subject. Only three American bloggers had more than 50 per cent of links in their blogrolls to blogs outside the United States.

In comparison, of the British blogs, only 14 out of the 43 that featured blogrolls had less than 20 per cent of their blogroll linked to blogs from outside the United Kingdom. Of these, seven had no links to any blogs located outside the United Kingdom, whereas 14 bloggers had more than 50 per cent of their links to blogs outside the United Kingdom. Of course, it is not that surprising that the British bloggers link more to blogs outside the United Kingdom because there are more blogs outside the United Kingdom. Riley estimated in July 2005 that there were 2.5 million British bloggers compared with up to 30 million American bloggers, although there are difficulties in enumerating specifically British blogs because of what Riley calls ‘the Anglosphere problem’, i.e. the existence of a common body of service providers and readership across the English-speaking Internet (Riley, 2005), and while the figures have certainly changed since that time, the proportions are probably still quite similar.

However, the limited amount of linking that the average American blogger does to blogs from outside the United States should be noted. Is this a product of, or even part of the creation of a particular national identity on the part of these American bloggers? Do these bloggers, who have their own particular world view, seek out other blogs to read which are relevant to that view and, if so, why do the British not confine themselves to the British blogosphere in similar numbers? It is significant that, whenever an American blogger did link to blogs located outside the United States, these blogs were frequently written by either an expatriate or a member of the US forces serving there. For example, one American female blogger explained:

Although bloggers might prefer to link to other bloggers in their own country, there was less evidence that they preferred to link to bloggers within their own state or town. Sixty-four per cent of all bloggers had less than 10 per cent of their blogroll devoted to links to other blogs in their local area. Only 8 per cent had more than 50 per cent of the links in their blogroll devoted to local blogs. However, all four of the bloggers whose links were 100 per cent local were from the USA and only two British bloggers had more than 50 per cent of their blogroll devoted to local links.

One of the ways in which nations set themselves apart from other nations is through the special nature of their internal communications. The media has always been a key element in the historical process of building national cultures and therefore it cannot be surprising that new media such as blogs can contribute to the self-perception of a nation, even if such a contribution is mainly to reflect back a self-image.

Interestingly, while British bloggers were more willing to link to blogs from outside the United Kingdom in their blogrolls, they were also more likely to be members of geographically defined blogrings. Blogrings connect a circle of blogs with a common theme or purpose. Twenty-five British respondents (11 men and 14 women) admitted to using blogrings, in comparison with 15 American respondents, only five of whom were male. The more popular blogrings were either those that linked bloggers of the same sex, such as ‘Blogs by Women’ or ‘Crazy/Hip Blog Mamas’, or those that linked bloggers in the same geographical location. Twenty-four bloggers linked to blogrings related to location, such as ‘Blogging Brits’, ‘Scots Bloggers’ or ‘Expat Bloggers’. The relative popularity of blogrings among the British bloggers – and the high number of blogrings related to the United Kingdom or the regions of the country – is noteworthy in comparison with the lower interest from the American bloggers, in particular American male bloggers, and may point to a desire among the British bloggers to mark themselves out as different, or a need to group together, in the face of the much more numerous American bloggers.

Thus, investigating the geographical location of links in the blogrolls showed that the American bloggers were far more likely to link to other American bloggers, whereas the British bloggers were more willing to recommend overseas blogs to their readers, including a high number of American blogs. Part of the reason for this, of course, is that there are so many more American bloggers in the Anglophone blogosphere. However, it may also be evidence of a need to reflect back to the blogger a particular image of their national identity. British bloggers’ comparative willingness to link to American bloggers may also indicate a wider knowledge of the United States and US politics and culture on their part in comparison with the American bloggers’ knowledge of the equivalent overseas.

The findings of this section of the project therefore suggest that bloggers outside the United States may have different approaches to blogging and find different satisfactions in their blogging compared with the American bloggers. The American bloggers in this study were, on average, older than the British bloggers and differences between the two countries were also found in terms of educational attainment, suggesting that the picture of bloggers as, on average, educated to graduate level gained from earlier US-based studies needs to be questioned by more research into the blogosphere outside the United States.

In terms of the promotion of their blog, the British respondents were more likely to use blogrings. While the American respondents tended to dismiss blogrings as of less use than blog directories, the British bloggers were happy to use them, in particular those that identified the blogger as part of the United Kingdom or its regions. Given the very different sizes of the American and British blogosphere, this may well be in order for the British bloggers to identify each other and to maintain a sense of British identity against the overwhelming American group. The British bloggers were also more ready to make links to overseas blogs in their blogrolls, whereas the American bloggers, as a group, were less ready. More American bloggers also had blogrolls that contained only local links. Obviously, a great part of the explanation for this is the size of the American blogosphere compared with the rest of the world. It will be interesting to see if this US-centric approach changes in the future as the blogosphere continues to expand.

The American bloggers were more likely than the British bloggers to see blogging as a useful activity, attracting readers for their intellectual or creative work. Overall, the project suggests that further research needs to be undertaken into the blogosphere outside the United States. Because blogging started in the United States, the majority of research into blogging so far has focused on the United States and it is suggested that this focus has resulted in all bloggers being defined through the US experience. The findings of this project suggest that bloggers outside the United States may have different approaches to blogging and find different satisfactions.

Note

Sections of this chapter first appeared in Pedersen, S. (2008). Now read this: Male and female bloggers’ recommendations for further reading. Particip@tions: Journal of Audience and Reception Research, 5(2) and Pedersen, S. (2007). Speaking the same language? Differences and similarities between US and UK Bloggers. The International Journal of the Book, 5(1).