Cyberpsychology Thesis on Irish Blogging
At the start of March I seemed pretty intent on beginning an ambitious post graduate research paper on trust formation online. Since then I have done extensive research into the topic and had to narrow down my research area, this is of course due to time/resource constraints (and the discovery of a very similar study published just recently).
Whilst researching trust online, I was quite drawn to all of the research on blogs and weblogs. The deeper I researched it on an international level (looking at American, Japanese and European literature) the more I realised how interesting it was that as a nation we have not embraced it. Especially considering the overwhelming statistics: In 2007 it was estimated that there were between 50 and 85 million blogs and at their current rate of growth, by 2010 there will be over 500 million blogs. Yet, it has been estimated that there are only about 3,000 or 4,000 Irish bloggers, in comparison to the 12 million bloggers in American or the 8 million bloggers in Japan. Even in the IT industry in Ireland, there is a severe lack of business blogging, despite the obvious benefits.
However, recent statistics published by Amárach claims that almost one in five Irish Internet users have started or contributed to a blog in the past year and if you look at the Alexa.com rankings, Blogger.com is the 10th most visited site by Irish Internet Users. Are there thousands more Irish bloggers out there? That are just unconnected to the blogosphere. Research has shown that some blogs are simply more connected to a blogosphere than others, with some not being connected at all. Or are Irish Internet Users bigger readers than writers? Research has shown that people are less likely to pay attention to a medium perceived as not being credible, and according to some reports trust in blogging in on the decrease (in Ireland) yet other reports show that the majority of Irish Internet users trust consumer opinions posted online.
There is a lot of conflicting data out there. So, naturally I’m fascinated.
I’ll be surveying Irish Internet Users (specifically bloggers and blog readers) to investigate their attitudes, perceptions and motivations, and comparing the results to existing international research. In order to interpret these results, I will also be applying existing social psychology, computer mediated communications and human computer interaction literature.
I’ll also be looking into issues of credibility, liability and the business implications (both positive and negative).
Any thoughts?
April 29th, 2008 at 3:20 pm
Will gladly be surveyed if it’s of any use to you. I’m one of the few people who genuinely likes being asked questions :-)
April 29th, 2008 at 3:25 pm
Thank you Rick. At the moment I’m in the process of creating the Questionnaire - I have a draft version, but it’s far from complete (I have lots more research to do) and will be posted online in September/October. I’ll be trying to get as many people as is possible to fill it out though, so any help is appreciated, getting it out there to people. But, not for ages yet.
The reason I’m discussing it on my blog right now, is an attempt to get people’s feedback on the idea, possibly even find out if there are questions I SHOULD be asking.
April 29th, 2008 at 5:15 pm
Ditto. Why do you make a distinction between blogs and weblogs above though?
April 29th, 2008 at 11:46 pm
Oh it’s just a distinction made in the literature, weblogs would be refering to the much older literature (pre 2002 etc.,) blogs is a more web 2.0 term.
April 30th, 2008 at 8:02 am
Hi Sinéad - Ya can add me to that list of willing guinea pigs. If there’s anything you think I can help with, drop me a line. It might be an idea to post a draft list of questions and get feedback on them that way.
April 30th, 2008 at 10:03 am
No problems with the questionnaire, its been years since I did survey design. One thing you might run across which is relevant to Irish blogging…
6 degrees of separation does not apply in Ireland.
It’s closer to 3.
And Irish bloggers have run across each other physically as well as virtually. It might be something to investigate to see if it really is true.
April 30th, 2008 at 3:01 pm
There is a lot of research going on in my research group about trust online, in particular surrounding trust ontologies and managing social networks. Here is a list of our recent publications
http://kdeg.cs.tcd.ie/publications
You should be able to find them online with a bit of googling. There are also references to conferences such as iTrust which may be useful. It will be interesting to see how current research compares to the opinion of Irish bloggers, sounds like a very useful and applied thesis :)
April 30th, 2008 at 4:16 pm
@ David - Thanks for the suggestion, I would be more than happy to e-mail a copy of the draft if anyone was interested. Just drop me an e-mail if you are, and that goes for anyone else. I’d be happy to take on board any suggestions.
@ Will - That’s actually a really fantastic idea and I’m so glad that you mentioned it to me. I think this would be a very valid question to ask bloggers.
@ Victoria - Thanks for your feedback and for the info/links, I’m sure these will be very helpful to me, especially during the literature review phase of my research.
May 8th, 2008 at 5:11 pm
This looks very interesting!
One thing that I’ve noticed with http://taint.org/technorati/ is that there are a group of blogging expats living in Ireland who are almost entirely unconnected to the “Irish blogger” scene. I’m sure there are others.
IMO, Ireland isn’t really that well-connected throughout — it’s just that there’s a large group who *are* well-interconnected with each other, and a smaller group less so.
May 8th, 2008 at 6:31 pm
That’s a very valid observation that I too have noticed, hence why part of my research will also involve attempting to make an accurate count of irish (and in ireland) bloggers. I haven’t quite figured out how to do this (I’m working on it) and it won’t be a component of the actual survey, though getting a more accurate number will be helpful in discussing irish blogging behaviour (which I think might possible differ from the norm - hence the non-connectedness).
May 9th, 2008 at 12:05 pm
feel free to drop me a line, I’ve been looking into that for a while on the Irish Blogs Top 100. Irishblogs.ie and http://planet.journals.ie/ are very good sources — many people who consider themselves to be “Irish bloggers”, whatever than means, have set up to include themselves in those aggregators. planet.journals.ie has an OPML listing here: http://planet.journals.ie/list/
May 9th, 2008 at 12:22 pm
Lovely new template Sinead.
Feel free to pick my brains, although I haven’t been at this with any sort of regularity for long!
May 9th, 2008 at 1:04 pm
@Justin - Thank you for the links. I really appreciate that. Do you by any chance know anyone at Irishblogs.ie? I did drop them an e-mail a few weeks ago without any reply, it was a request for numbers, of course.
@Catherine. Thank you :) I’m actually still in the process of changing things here and there (I’m doing that right now). But for the moment it’s looking ok. I will definitely pick your brain! Even if you haven’t been at it for long, you’re still valuable to me.
May 12th, 2008 at 9:54 am
hi Sinead — nope, don’t know anyone there unfortunately :(
May 13th, 2008 at 12:06 pm
As a person who is relatively new to the blogosphere, I’ll happily have my brains picked.
This seems like a great project and I wish you all the best with it.
May 13th, 2008 at 1:01 pm
Thanks very much Darren. Oh, nice blog by the way *subscribes*.