Study shows that newspaper blogs need to step up interaction with audience
Posted by Carolyn Lo on April 4, 2008 at 11:08 AM
Ball State University and the University of Nevada, Reno have conducted a study on newspaper blogs that found that newspapers did not create much interaction between bloggers and audience during the week before the fall 2006 elections.
The results of their five day study:
- Some blogs contained frequent posts as high as 57, but the average was 8.2, and almost 25% had no posts.
- Though the average number of comments was 33.5, or an average of 6.7 per day, this was skewed by the few bloggers who received as many as 100 posts daily.
- About 58% of people responding to blogs contributed more than one comment.
- 80% of bloggers posted no responses to readers' comments.
Nielsen/NetRatings reports that "unique visitors to the largest Internet newspaper blog sites rose from 1.2 million in December 2005 to 3.8 million in December 2006." The blog's rise in popularity explains why more newspapers are experimenting with blogs, which causes an increasing haziness between professional journalism and blogging.
However, "newspapers will have to change the way they approach blogging if they are going to be a force in increasing public dialogue on political issues," according to Ball State University. "To be as effective as some of the more popular citizen-produced blogs, however, newspaper versions must attract an audience and generate a conversation," said Ball State journalism professor Mary Spillman.
She believes that politics may not be the best topic for newspaper blogs: "While experts have pointed to blogs' potential to transform democracy, it is possible that blogs generate more citizen participation when the subject matter is sports, parenting or other lifestyle topics than politics."
Source: Ball State University
The results of their five day study:
- Some blogs contained frequent posts as high as 57, but the average was 8.2, and almost 25% had no posts.
- Though the average number of comments was 33.5, or an average of 6.7 per day, this was skewed by the few bloggers who received as many as 100 posts daily.
- About 58% of people responding to blogs contributed more than one comment.
- 80% of bloggers posted no responses to readers' comments.
Nielsen/NetRatings reports that "unique visitors to the largest Internet newspaper blog sites rose from 1.2 million in December 2005 to 3.8 million in December 2006." The blog's rise in popularity explains why more newspapers are experimenting with blogs, which causes an increasing haziness between professional journalism and blogging.
However, "newspapers will have to change the way they approach blogging if they are going to be a force in increasing public dialogue on political issues," according to Ball State University. "To be as effective as some of the more popular citizen-produced blogs, however, newspaper versions must attract an audience and generate a conversation," said Ball State journalism professor Mary Spillman.
She believes that politics may not be the best topic for newspaper blogs: "While experts have pointed to blogs' potential to transform democracy, it is possible that blogs generate more citizen participation when the subject matter is sports, parenting or other lifestyle topics than politics."
Source: Ball State University
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It doesn't help when the blogs aren't attached to something people can find, such as the RSJ Web site. Blogging by nature is severely fragmented and people find them often by sheer luck or through intensive searches on Technorati.
The problem with political blogs is that they are matter of fact and there's not much room for debate. If something happens at a town hall meeting you didn't attend, what is there to comment about? Especially since reporters generally neglect to preview topics and commenting then is still worthless because there's a feeling that your comment makes no difference (and they often don't in the current print-journalism model).
Life style blogs receive so much more contribution because life styles are open to change and debate and behaviorial advice. People are helping each other, they are socially engaged. Most news blogs are simply an extension of news or news opinion.
Duh.