Who Blogs? And How Careful Are They?

Mostly men (63 percent) who are Caucasian (79 percent), between the ages of 21 and 40 (75 percent), have a college or advanced degree (85 percent), and have been blogging for a year or more (67 percent). That’s according to survey results reported recently by Fernanda Vigas, a doctoral student in the Sociable Media Group at the MIT Media Lab.

In January, Vigas ran an online survey focused on the tension between the chatty, uninhibited nature of most blogs and the social and legal accountability many bloggers are facing as they evolve into full-fledged Web publishers. She collected responses from 486 bloggers. Vigas found that most bloggers seem to be wary of slandering, libeling, or even offending someone through their blogs. About 80 percent of respondents said they are either somewhat, very, or extremely liable for what they write in their blogs, and 36 percent said they had experienced that liability first-hand at least once by getting into trouble with friends, family, or the law over something they’d written in their blogs.

The most common category respondents identified for their blogs: “Personal ramblings.”