Blog Survey: Summary of Findings

"Findings from an online survey conducted between January 14th and January 21st, 2004... 486 respondents answered questions about their blogging practices and their expectations of privacy and accountability for the entries they publish online:

- 36% of respondents have gotten in trouble because of things they have written on their blogs
- 12% of respondents know other bloggers who have gotten in legal or professional problems because of things they wrote on their blogs
- when blogging about people they know personally: 66% of respondents almost never asked permission to do so; whereas, only 9% said they never blogged about people they knew personally.
- several participants explained that, if they have good things to say about their friends and family friends they will, for the most part, reveal their names; if, however, they post negative comments about a person, they will often conceal this person’s name
- the frequency with which a blogger writes highly personal things is positively and significantly correlated to how often they get in trouble because of their postings; (r = 0.3, p < 0.01); generally speaking, people have gotten in trouble both with friends and family as well as employers.

Bloggers still do not feel like they know their audience. For the most part, they have no control over who reads their postings. The study also shows that bloggers usually have some idea of their “core” audience (readers who post comments on the site) without really knowing who the rest of their readers are – in many cases, this latter group makes up the majority of their readers.

When confronted with questions of defamation and legal liability, respondents in this survey paint a conflicting picture. In general, they believe that they are liable for what they publish online. However, bloggers in this study were not concerned about the persistent nature of what they publish – which tends to be a major aspect of liability – nor did they believe someone would sue them for things they had written on their blogs... These results reveal a certain naiveté in how most bloggers think about persistence and how it operates in networked environments such as the net, where information is constantly cached. As blogs become more pervasive and their audiences grow, the ever-persistent nature of entries and the direct link to defamation and liability are likely to become even more of a burning issue.

Even though blogs have been hailed as the ultimate venue for personal expression; a world that is all about the self, it turns out that blogs are not necessarily that egocentric. In this survey, various respondents expressed the pressure that comes with having an audience. Even in its current elusive form, a blog’s audience can become such a powerful element of the writing action that it can affect what the blogger chooses to write about.

Are you surprised when someone you meet in person says they have read your blog?
1. extremely 20.78%
2. .. 24.49%
3. .. 13.37%
4. .. 7.61%
5. not at all 6.79%
6. it has never happened to me 26.95%"

Respondents from Singapore: 2. I wonder who the other one was.