Poor people in the US, and more so outside the US, are less likely to have a computer or internet access at all, so the blog population skews slightly richer than the US population at large, and significantly richer than the population of other countries where there are “big” bloggers.

The more important factors, at least in the US, is the need to write well and post frequently. Poor people in the US often go to atrocious schools, and don’t learn to write in a way which anyone else would voluntarily read. (They’re also frequently less confident in their writing abilities, and thus are less likely to start to blog.)

But much more important than that is the ability to spend time reading a lot of other articles, and spend a significant time thinking about and writing about what one reads. Having the sort of on-job leisure time, particularly with an internet connection and incurious supervisors, which make frequent posting possible, is a preserve of the office-professional class, which includes academia. That class is significantly wealthier than the American population as a whole, and skews whiter.

John “Juan” Cole is obviously a quintessential white male. He even has his picture on his blog.

The above was a bit weird. John “Juan” Cole is obviously a quintessential white male. He even has his picture on his blog.

But that might be changing. The Large Mammal category of bloggers are quickly rising in popularity and are much more diverse.

Hi joejoejoe, yes it was a slam—but I don’t mind your enjoying it!

“Instead of studying why blog “power” is predominately white and male (power defined as what exactly?) why not focus on institutions that DON’T turn out white and male and see what makes them tick?”

Because we’d find they were powerless? :)—actually, it’s interesting to look at the reasons why there are so few women in Congress then at why most top bloggers are male, because prima facie, different factors are at work (in fact I think Seth’s right, the same ones are), so, absent the barriers to women’s greater presence in Congress, why is the blogelite so very male and white?

“Power is an ill defined concept in blogs.”

I thought about that after I posted, and went on thinking about it. Atrios, Kos, etc. seem to be the top bloggers, but does that make them a power elite? I only know what I’ve read about this on US blogs… but if I accept that then I’d say these men are gatekeepers, they do have power. You might want to call that power “influence”, but I think that would go against your point about Jeanne @ Body and Soul, who does, I think, have influence but does not (I’d say) have the power A & K etc. have to promote or demote other bloggers (I am not suggesting they do that unfairly, still, I would call it power).

But thank you for your reply—I thought you’d take offence!

Where are all these white male bloggers everyone is referring to? Kos? I thought Kos was Latino? Anyway, I’m having trouble finding these reported white male bloggers via google. Do they really get much traffic?

[Small joke… I’m with Joejoejoe: the diversity is there, if you’re willing to look for it.]

The one with a guest who wrote “Chewbacca’s Purse: Androgyny and Sexual Dissonance in Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope” was great.

It’s because most shows aren’t geared towards actual discussion, but are more about helping the guests convey their talking points.

Thus, Talk of the Nation might invite someone from Club For Growth and someone from AARP, and lets each lay out their predictable established cases without actually discussing anything or informing the listener.

Odyssey, on the other hand, tends to invite people who aren’t actively involved in pushing something or lobbying Congress, and chooses topics which don’t help do that. The discussions are at a higher level which also helps cut down on guests trying to move their political ball or sell something.

Then, there’s all the people who really do not feel any urge to keep a weblog or journal online.

Yet, whenever these demographic/sociological questions about “the blogosphere” are raised on the “big” US weblogs, the implied assumptions are always: – the “blogosphere” we’re interested in is exclusively anglophone – within it, we really only pay attention to US bloggers – within that group, we really only pay attention to US bloggers who blog about politics – within that category, we really only pay attention to those who write about politics in the way the political debate is framed at institutional or mainstream level in the US – within that category, we really only pay attention to those bloggers who participate in debate by citing the media or other bloggers and engage in back-and-forth so that circles of discussion on common grounds are created, blogrolls replenished, awards given, media mentions, and so on.

Is it any surprise it all boils down to white, male, American, wealthy, educated?

That’s the same people you have “at the top” in any other area, politics, work, media, etc.

(This, regardless of the actual quality of content and interest of the different discussions in that blogosphere.)

Whenever something is already implicitely defined in such narrow terms, it’s a bit blind to wonder why it’s not more inclusive. It doesn’t have to be inclusive, of course. (If “inclusive” is even the right word). But then, you shouldn’t use excessively generic terms like “blogosphere” either, at least not without qualifying it as English-speaking, predominantly US-based, political, popular, mainstream, etc.. Because that is most definitely not taken for granted.

The reason for this is, if you discuss the white male middle class domination of everything you quickly get shouted down as a loony anti-capitalist or “old-fashioned” class warrior. However, if you pick on something sufficiently marginal and a la mode as weblogs a certain amount of breast-beating can be tolerated.

Some of the comments are all the proof you should need.

The MSM is saturated with leftist views. That’s why its numbers are dropping in all of the polls measuring public trust.