UCI debuts study on pervasive blog craze

Since blogging hit the scene years ago, the media and others have scrambled to decode the phenomenon of blogging and bloggers (a true definition of a blog is still elusive).

But surprisingly, despite the popularity of blogs, no one had done research on the very people who support this Internet media craze — the blog readers — until now.

A new UCI study just released delved inside the habits of blog readers and debunked a few myths about the blog world.

“There is this common rhetoric that there is just too much information out there, especially on the Internet, and we simply can’t grapple with all of it, it’s just too overwhelming,” Eric Baumer, doctoral candidate at UCI’s Donald Bren School of Information and Computer Sciences, said. “In this study, our participants didn’t experience that sense of being overwhelmed.”

Baumer, who conducting the study with undergraduate student Mark Sueyoshi and informatics professor Bill Tomlinson, acknowledged the study was small and exploratory — it had 15 participants, 13 of whom were college students — but this “first of its kind” study pointed to implications that may deserve more evaluation.

“The main difference that blog readers seem to feel between blogs and more traditional media is the immediacy of the interaction,” Baumer said. “Whether it be through comments or via e-mail, blogs provide readers with means of interacting that provide relatively rapid, often personalized, feedback from the blogger.”

The study, which was presented at a conference in Italy this week, found that blog readers, while diverse in their habits, had some similar characteristics. They often view blogs as personal or “one-to-one” interaction, and they don’t feel overwhelmed by the amount of blogs and information.

The study also found, however, that reading blogs also becomes habitual for most of the participants, much like checking e-mail. One respondent even compared checking blogs to a smoking addiction.

Geoff West, a Costa Mesa resident who writes a blog called “The Bubbling Cauldron,” checks about 10 blogs a day. He likes the interaction and information his blog, and others, provides.

“It becomes almost gang-like, in a positive sense,” West said.

West’s taste for local blogs isn’t unusual, Baumer said.

“Those who are interested in connecting with the blogger as a person are much more likely to engage in, or frame reading the blog as, a conversation,” Baumer said.

But Baumer cautioned that all blog readers don’t want a conversation. Some use blogs as a source of information and those readers are less inclined to participate in the discussion.

Martin Millard runs a site called “CM Press” that discusses local issues in Costa Mesa, but Millard doesn’t consider it a blog, despite the fact it is hosted by blogspot.com. Millard bases that opinion on the fact his writings, he says, are informational.

“I mainly look at it as an advocacy newsletter presenting my views and opinions,” Millard said.

Participants in UCI’s study, and the study itself, grappled with the question of “what is a blog?”

“A blog is something that’s still going on, that still has a conversation going on,” said one participant in the study.

But other participants said conversation wasn’t necessary, that RSS (Really Simple Syndication) links or updated written content such as journals constituted blogs. Others said written narratives that express opinions are blogs. Some even said newspapers and magazines could be considered blogs.

For Baumer, these notions presented the idea that blogs are somewhat open-ended. The study states “there is little or no uniformity of definition among readers.”

“I think the idea that blog reading can be for entertainment or leisure purposes is very important,” he said. “There is growing awareness in the field of [human computer interaction] research that people do more than use their computers for work. They play, they socialize, they meet potential dates, they keep up with their friends and family, they practice their religion. These uses do not occur to the exclusion of more utilitarian purposes, but rather in addition to them.”

DANIEL TEDFORD may be reached at (714) 966-4632 or at [email protected].