Why do bloggers do it?
Sarah Pedersen, The Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen
7 February
Over the past few years, weblogging or ‘blogging’ has joined e-mail and home pages as a mass use of the internet. The original blogs were filter-type web pages where the blogger acted as an editor of the Web’s content for his or her readers, directing them to other blogs and websites and offering commentary and often the opportunity for readers’ discussion. While blogging was initially restricted to those who had the necessary programming skills, the introduction of cheap and easy-to-use software in 1999, such as the commonly used Blogger, has resulted in the explosion of the ‘blogosphere’ in recent years.
This paper, based on research undertaken into UK and US blogosphere over the past three years, investigates bloggers’ motivations for blogging. Such motivations might be intangible, such a desire to make one’s opinions heard or for validation of one’s experiences, but there is also a growing financial motivation amongst second-wave bloggers.
The paper will also introduce the phenomenon of blogging and discuss some of the other findings of the research project, including differences between UK and US bloggers and male and female bloggers.
