July 10, 2010 4:07pm by David Farrar

The New Zealand blogosphere

Andrew Cushen’s thesis studying the NZ Political blogosphere has been published and is online. Many (160) bloggers and (789) readers took part.

It is a weighty 252 pages, and has taken a while to get through. I’ve extracted some of the stats I find more interesting:

24% of bloggers are aged under 25 and 87% are aged under 50
79% of (political) bloggers are male and 21% female
23% of bloggers earn more than $100,000 a year and 24% earn less than $20,000 a year. Only 9% earn between $20,000 and $40,000
Most of the low income bloggers are students (16/25)
69% of bloggers have a degree, half being a post-graduate degree
32% of bloggers are self employed, 26% work in the public sector, 29% work in the private sector, and 12% work for NGOs
69% of bloggers have been a party member or volunteer
34% of bloggers are in Wellington, 29% in Auckland, 11% in Canterbury, 6% Otago and 9% are overseas
5% of political bloggers blog only on politics. 38% blog between 75% and 100% politics.26% blog between 50% and 75%, 24% blog between 25% and 50%.
19% of bloggers explicitly support National, 16% Labour, 12% ACT, 12% Green, 4% Maori Party, 5% Progressive, 17% other parties and 50% do not support a party. Half the others are Libertarianz.
46% of bloggers blog under their own names
7% of bloggers have been blogging for 5+ years, 30% for under 1 year
17% of bloggers update more than once a day, 12% daily, 40% several times a week, 11% weekly and 21% greater than weekly
There is a clear correlation between posting frequency and readership levels
15% of bloggers spend over 10 hours a week blogging, 38% of bloggers spend under two hours a week
16% of bloggers make money from advertising on their blogs
18% of bloggers have 5,000+ unique readers
96% allow comments
6% of bloggers feel they have a leading influence upon political discussion, 18% a major influence, 30% average influence and 43% minor influence

And similar data on blog readers:

78% of readers are male
14% of readers earn under $20K and 21% over $100K. Most earn under $60,000
71% of readers have a degree, and again half are post-graduate
22% of readers are self employed, 40% work in the private sector and 31% in the state sector
43% of readers have been a party member or volunteer
36% of readers in Wellington, 28% Auckland, 10% Canterbury, 5% Otago and 7% overseas
86% of readers read blogs as they offer alternate viewpoints on news and issues, 60% cite the fact they like the opinion of the author
60% of readers read blogs more than once a day and 25% daily
28% of readers spend over 5 hours a week reading blogs
69% of readers have left a comment on a blog
In terms of inaccuracy of media types, 14% of readers said blog were inaccurate compared to 45% who said TV news was inaccurate
52% of blog readers say blogs are very entertaining, compared to under 5% for all other media types. This is a fascinating stat – people enjoy the blogs far far more.

If you have the time, the full report is worth a read.