April 27, 2010
Who blogs around the world? Global Voices Online survey results
When news breaks around the world—or when you just want to know what life is like in Benin or Belarus—a good resource for word from another country is Global Voices Online. This site aggregates and curates blogs from around the world. Who’s writing there? This week GVO released new demographics about the bloggers who contribute to the site. Out of an estimated 200 active site contributors, about 116 responded.
The largest proportion of contributors (42%) blog from countries in the Americas—but only 16% of these are from the US. Here are the numbers for the rest of the world…
- Western Europe: 17%
- East Asia: 11%
- Middle East & North Africa: 8%
- South Asia: 6%
- Sub-Saharan Africa: 6%
- Eastern & Central Europe: 6%
- Oceania: 3%
- Central Asia & Caucasus: 1%
Don’t assume that fewer contributing bloggers from a given region means GVO doesn’t have much information or news coming from there. For example, journalist Chris Rickleton currently contributes to GVO from Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan in Central Asia—where a recent violent anti-government uprising overthrew President Kurmanbek Bakiyev, opening questions about the future of Manas airbase, a crucial part of the supply line for US troops in Afghanistan. Rickleton provides an English-language overview of what Kyrgyz bloggers are saying, in addition to his own reporting and commentary. In effect, he’s a one-man aggregator feeding a larger aggregator.
According to the survey, most GVO bloggers are 25-44 years old, and there’s a pretty even gender split. They’re also highly educated: 85% hold a university degree of some kind, and more than 40% have a post-graduate or doctoral degree. On average, GVO contributors speak three languages. However, even though these contributors may represent an fairly elite class in many nations, most of them do a good job of expressing what’s happening throughout their societies.
If your community has significant immigrant or deployed military populations, or other strong connections abroad—or even if you’re just generally interested in the world beyond the US, or want more context on breaking international news—GVO is a valuable resource for any journalist.
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Tags: demographics, resources, bloggers, statistics, international, foreign correspondents
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