Blogging Diversity

Newsweek raised the question Blogging Beyond the Men's Club
Since anyone can write a Weblog, why is the blogosphere dominated by white males?

Keith Jenkins, an African-American blogger who is also an editor at The Washington Post Magazine [a sister publication of NEWSWEEK] said "It has taken 'mainstream media' a very long time to get to [the] point of inclusion," Jenkins wrote. "My fear is that the overwhelmingly white and male American blogosphere ... will return us to a day where the dialogue about issues was a predominantly white-only one."

After the comment was posted, a couple of the women at the conference—bloggers MacKinnon and Halley Suitt—looked around and saw that there weren't many other women in attendance.

So why, when millions of blogs are written by all sorts of people, does the top rung look so homogeneous? It appears that some clubbiness is involved. Suitt puts it more bluntly: "It's white people linking to other white people!" (A link from a popular blog is this medium's equivalent to a Super Bowl ad.) Suitt attributes her own high status in the blogging world to her conscious decision to "promote myself among those on the A list."

La Shawn said While I have noticed that the top bloggers tend to link to each other, and most of them happen to be white males, I know for a fact the "old boys' club" of bloggers isn't impenetrable. I've managed to break through several times, but that usually comes with e-mailing links, which is something I used to avoid. The drawback of such an admission is that if/when I'm linked by a high-profile blogger, the assumption is that I've e-mailed them. Not the case every time.

Halley Suitt said Okay, can I mention a blog that's got diversity coming out it's ears!? A blog that's got a female voice AND a male voice. A blog that's got an Asian voice, a Canadian voice, an American voice, all wrapped up into one. A blog about love and technology and a wedding and music and Toronto and Boston and The Phillipines.


I don't think the top bloggers have much time to read a lot blogs, and I suspect mine isn't on their agenda most days. Consequently, I made the same decision as Halley Suitt. I decided that I wanted to promote myself among those on the A-list. I have high aspirations for my career as a writer and blogger, and getting the attention of high-profile bloggers is a necessary step.

Roger Ailes said Shouldn't this article be about the perpetuation of white male dominance at Harvard academic conferences, rather than while male dominance of the blogosphere? .... Here's a radical suggestion for MacKinnon if she wants more diversity at her next blogfest: Invite more women and people of color. Until then, stop pretending that your problem and Harvard's is someone else's.

Glenn Reynolds writes LaShawn Barber has thoughts on the power of email. Don't be a pest (there's one guy who emails me every time he updates his blog, which as a consequence I've never visited) but don't be too shy, either. I try to get around, but there are a lot of blogs. I'm more likely to discover your blog if you send me a link to a post that I'll be interested in.

LaShawn Barber (a black female) writes At the risk of sounding like a liberal, I do wish more blacks and women were invited to these blogger conferences and called for TV spots and radio interviews. I won’t complain too much, though. I’ll just continue blogging about what interests me and hope you find something on the blog that interests you. I remain hopeful that “affirmative action” will keep its ugly hands out of the pot. We will rise or fall on pure blogging. And some high-profile linkage.

Sissy Willis writes What does a woman want? Like a man, it depends upon the individual. With a nod to Helen Reddy, I am blogger, hear me roar In numbers too big to ignore.

CQ wrote Anyone who wants to be successful at blogging can achieve it, as long as they're willing to write well and often and market themselves effectively. Even established authors don't automatically transfer their success to the blogosphere. Michelle Malkin and Hugh Hewitt have because they understand the blog market

EdDriscoll said Since the early 1990s, newspapers have tried to promote diversity purely as a function of skin color and gender. But getting noticed in the Blogosphere isn't a function of diversity--it's a function of talent, perseverance, and marketing skills. And as Morrissey notes above, all of those skills are very much color--and gender--blind.

SensibleMom said It’s interesting that people are commenting on the fact that the blogosphere is made up of white males because, to me, the blogosphere is colorblind. That is, unless someone posts their picture, no one knows whether they’re white, black, asian, etc. It is only as some of these bloggers have gained fame or a presence, and, therefore, have been interviewed that we know what their race is. Until then, though, the bulk of their readers had no idea what their race was. They just found their investigative powers and writing compelling.

I don't know about others, but I read blogs from men and women, conservatives and liberals, white, black, yellow, and brown, and from many countries. And when I see something I feel should be commented on, I do so, with a link to the originating blog entry, and if they have a TrackBack I track their entry back to mine.