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Study: Bloggers Younger, More Educated and Ethnically Diverse

Bloggers are younger and better educated but earn less than the general U.S. adult (18+) population - and they are more likely to be single, male, and actively engaged in new media, according to a study by BIGresearch.

Of those who blog occasionally or regularly (26% of the [online] population):

• 53.7% are male.
• Nearly half (44.7%) are married.
• One in 10 (10.4%) are students.
• 28.4% hold a professional or  managerial position.

Bloggers have a lower average income than most adults ($55,819 vs. $56,811) and are better educated (14.3 years of education vs. 14.2).

They also tend to be younger, with an average age of 37.6, compared with 44.8 for the US adult population:

Media Use

Use of new media and technology is more prominent among bloggers:

Yet bloggers also rely on traditional media, with magazines ranking as the highest trigger for an online search, cited by 51.6%, followed by reading articles and watching broadcast TV:

Ethnicity

Ethnic minorities are highly represented among bloggers:

• 12.2% of bloggers are African American/Black (compared with 11.4% of the general population)
• 20% are Hispanic (vs. 14.8%).
• 3.7% are Asian (vs. 2.0%).

White/Caucasians are 76.1% of all adults, but among those who blog regularly or occasionally, just 69.7% are white.

Political Affiliation

Of all registered voters, 24.6% say they regularly or occasionally blog. Of these:

• 37.6% are Libertarians.
• 26.9% are Democrats.
• 25.7% are Independents.
• 22.9% are Republicans.

“Bloggers are a diverse group and not who you would expect,” said Gary Drenik, President of BIGresearch. “This diversity provides political bloggers with a forum to discuss issues or maybe be influenced by others, while candidates have an opportunity to reach interested voters.”

About the survey: The Simultaneous Media Survey (SIMM 11), from which this data is culled, polled 15,727 participants. It is conducted bi-annually. A summary of the blogger-related findings are available via BIGresearch.