Political Blogs = Political Action

This is the second time we have studied the correlation between ‘influencers’ blogging and their likelihood of taking action based on what they read in France, Germany, UK and the USA. I have listed the main findings but two things scream out at me: 1) Influencers are much more likely to read blogs and 2) They are much more likely to take action because of what they read in blogs. In the spirit of sharing knowledge I append the summary PowerPoint slides, but ask that if you use them to attribute the findings to Edelman. It’s the polite thing to do don’t you think?

Online Advocacy Report

Key Points in this study are:

• TV remains King
  • Predominant way people in all four countries access news information on social, economic and political affairs
  • In both the UK and Germany nine in ten (90%) people watch TV, eight in ten (79%) use it in the US and three quarters (74%) of respondents in France. Not surprisingly, print newspapers/magazines are the second and third most popular way of accessing news information

• PCs are catching up
  • The country which uses PCs the most to access news information is the US (51%), followed by the UK (48%), Germany (26%) and then France (24%). Across all four countries, PDA’s and mobile phones are rarely used as a way if accessing news information

• A generational split on access
  • Although it is not always a strong trend, generally it can be said that across all four countries, the three most established ways of accessing news information (TV, print and radio) are favoured more by the older generations, but for those using PCs; the younger the respondent, the more likely they are to use it for accessing news information

• Blog access up in all countries
  • In all four countries the frequency of those who read blogs in an average week has increased from 2006, most notably in France (0.62 to 0.89 times per week) and Germany (0.40 to 0.57). The UK and the US has seen a less dramatic rise, from 0.68 to 0.70 and 0.9 to 1.0 respectively

• The more politically active you are, the more likely you read blogs
  • Influencers are considerably more frequent bloggers in all countries. In Germany (44%) they were more than twice as likely to read blogs than the total German respondents (18%)
  • Franco-American likenesses exist, at least online

• Franco-American likenesses exist, at least online
  • The US (31%) and France (31%) have the highest number of respondents reading blogs, followed by the UK (25%) and Germany (18%). In all four countries surveyed, the younger the respondent the more frequently they read blogs. This trend is particularly evident in the UK, with France, compared to 2006, now having a more even spread across the age ranges

• Sex matters, except in the UK
  • Male respondents in the US, Germany and France claim to be more frequent readers of blogs than women, as in 2006. In the UK however, women marginally claim to be the more frequent bloggers (0.72 and 0.67 respectively)

• Influencers are more driven to action in the real world from blogs
  • Influencers in all four countries are considerably more likely to have taken action than the total respondents who read blogs. Of those who read blogs, over a third (34%) in the UK claim to have taken action because of something they have read, which is more than in any of the three countries. Influencers in the UK are also well ahead, with over six in ten (64%) claiming action

[tags] Political Blogs [/tags]