Hillbilly Bloggers
I really agree with Jonah Seiger when he said last night that the blogosphere is a little over-hyped right now.
My experience is in rural TN State Legislative races (Mainly State Senate). I have little experience in federal races and none at the presidential level. So, for better or worse, this is the lens through which I view the world.
I kept thinking to myself last night could a State Senate campaign in TN use a blog. I have setup websites before, but the only people that go to them are my candidate's diehard supporters or my opponent's people.
In these districts, a candidate is expected to meet with the influential people personally. They all tend to be older than forty, some a lot older.
Christine R. Carl’s study, Bloggers and Their Blogs: A Depiction of the Users and Usage of Weblogs on the World Wide Web, finds that the likelihood of a blogger being over the age of 40 is not too good. (Note: Carl’s study is dated, but I was unable to find more recent academic work that looks at blog use by age. Further Note: TNridgerunner is a little over the age of 40, so they do exist.)
Also, how many rural Tennesseans are present in the blogosphere?
My experience is in rural TN State Legislative races (Mainly State Senate). I have little experience in federal races and none at the presidential level. So, for better or worse, this is the lens through which I view the world.
I kept thinking to myself last night could a State Senate campaign in TN use a blog. I have setup websites before, but the only people that go to them are my candidate's diehard supporters or my opponent's people.
In these districts, a candidate is expected to meet with the influential people personally. They all tend to be older than forty, some a lot older.
Christine R. Carl’s study, Bloggers and Their Blogs: A Depiction of the Users and Usage of Weblogs on the World Wide Web, finds that the likelihood of a blogger being over the age of 40 is not too good. (Note: Carl’s study is dated, but I was unable to find more recent academic work that looks at blog use by age. Further Note: TNridgerunner is a little over the age of 40, so they do exist.)
Also, how many rural Tennesseans are present in the blogosphere?
4 Comments:
Oh, you make me feel old! But seriously, I would think that finding is outdated. I'm sure there are now plenty of bloggers out there over 40. (Besides, I often think of baby boomers as perenially youthful and feisty, no matter what their age.)
I think a lot of it is a function of the political culture. I don't have any experience in rural TN, but I do an other rural areas and politics is very personality driven. I would imagine that your experiences with the culture of a state senate race have placed a premium on face-to-face interaction with the candidate, and that is not unique.
I'm with you, though. I have a difficult time seeing how a blog could have much of an impact in a rural state or local race. Jonah talked about scale, and this is an example in the other direction. Using a blog in some races would be like taking a 747 to the grocery store. You might be better off reaching people another way.
I think its easy to overestimate the passion for and number of people using blogs when you live in Washington, D.C. It's an atypical sampling of the population because so many people move to the area because of an interest and/or a career in politics.
Rural Tennesee is in many ways probably more nationally representative of interest in political campaigns and blogs.
While the number of people familiar with blogs in rural parts of TN probably is pretty low, I think the more relevant questions are how many people are on-line in the state (both urban and rural) and how many people are visiting the website. I think one of the best purposes a blog can have on a campaign website is simply to provide new content and make the site more interactive, bringing voters back on a regular basis and getting them more involved. And besides, it could be seen as a pretty cool novelty to some who are unfamiliar with the concept...
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