B'aaah B'aaaaah B'aah B'aaaah.....

February 6, 2004 8:37 AM

I am Blogger, hear me roar!(3.1mb PDF) - A new study shows that "Online Political Citizens are not isolated cyber-geeks, as the media has portrayed them. On the contrary, OPCs are nearly seven times more likely than average citizens to serve as opinion leaders among their friends, relatives and colleagues. OPCs are disproportionately “Influentials,” the Americans who “tell their neighbors what to buy, which politicians to support, and where to vacation...” " They are “canaries in the mineshaft for looming political ideas” and tend to be more young, white, single, college educated, and affluent than average. I just feel so influential. Now where's the friggin paycheck...
posted by troutfishing (16 comments total)

A link to a 3.1 mb PDF file about how important and cool bloggers are?
Thanks for the advance warning ...
posted by thatwhichfalls at 8:48 AM on February 6, 2004

> and tend to be more young, white, single, college educated, and affluent than average.

Ah. The best of the best of the best of the best of the best. But why leave out "Protestant?"
posted by jfuller at 8:53 AM on February 6, 2004

jfuller - Was that in there too? If I'd noticed it, I would have put that in as well. I also wondered about the political affiliation breakdown, but I haven't had time to dig deeply into the report yet.

Frightening though, in a sense....It was exactly what I would have expected.
posted by troutfishing at 9:10 AM on February 6, 2004

Also, the OPCs accurately foretold of the Dean landslide victory.
posted by callmejay at 9:23 AM on February 6, 2004

...and they "guide" the "popular media" about what news to cover, as in the Plaime affair.
posted by Fupped Duck at 9:24 AM on February 6, 2004

I knew one could be young, or even be younger, but more young?!
posted by crunchland at 9:29 AM on February 6, 2004

Am I too old to blog?
Or just not affluent enough?
posted by wendell at 9:45 AM on February 6, 2004

this is interesting, thanks for the link.

esp. since this report is from my husband's alma mater (GSPM). good to see they're up to something good.
posted by evening at 9:47 AM on February 6, 2004

young, white, single, college educated, and affluent than average

2 out of 5. Does that mean I only have half the power?
posted by owillis at 9:49 AM on February 6, 2004

I just feel so influential.

I just feel so white.
posted by soyjoy at 9:55 AM on February 6, 2004

tell their neighbors what to buy, which politicians to support, and where to vacation

In other words the bloggers are miners TV ?
posted by elpapacito at 9:57 AM on February 6, 2004

Online Political Citizens

That's a fabulous non-description.
posted by 4easypayments at 11:08 AM on February 6, 2004

I am still amused that people give blogging astronomically more import than it truly has.

Bloggers are still a tiny sliver of an already tiny minority. Bloggers are a miniscule community that is just so hyper-connected (i.e. linked) to each member that it appears there is a large population.

The "blogger-powered" Dean campaign has literally come off the rails without so much as a single win.

Blogging is an interesting hobby for some people. That's about that.

Any thought that PERHAPS the reason they are more influential in their groups is because they are white, male, well educated, affluent, etc etc etc???

No, it must be because they blog. Riiiiiight.
posted by Ynoxas at 11:34 AM on February 6, 2004

Actually, even though I don't buy the hyperbole - blogs do nowadays have an outsized influence on the news and newswriting habits of the media. I've seen stories bubble up from blogs of all sorts, especially here at MeFi. We are by no means storming the gates, but the guards at the palace gates are listening.

To stretch a metaphor just a tad.

Howard Dean is a flameout, but there would be no "Howard Dean" without the web. It may not have got him votes but it got him Time, Newsweek, CNN, etc.
posted by owillis at 12:16 PM on February 6, 2004

The "blogger-powered" Dean campaign has literally come off the rails without so much as a single win.

You don't think the "Howard Dean is an angry, angry man who isn't presidential!" memo that went out amongst all the major networks had anything to do with that? I don't think anybody is arguing that people online are more influential than the big networks, but that doesn't mean they're inconsequential.

And by the way, you don't have to be a "blogger" to be an Online Political Citizen, do you? Aside from my Metafilter participation, I don't have any real tie to blogging (I don't run a site, post on any others, or even read any of them more than occasionally). I do, however, use the internet to find interesting news--often political--that the major networks fail to cover, either at all or with any impartiality.
posted by The God Complex at 1:42 PM on February 6, 2004

The most telling aspect of the study is in it's recognition that news stories, themes, memes, and so on tend to pop up on the net far in advance of when they hit the mass media.

A lot of Internet material is dross, sure, but big mass media is institutionally arthritic - slow to recognize or process new information - and so now media giants have started to troll the Net for emergent stories.

This is the reason for the flurry of cases where mainstream media journalists plagiarize from Metafilter and other blogs.
posted by troutfishing at 8:00 PM on February 6, 2004