Polonia and Blogging

Check out an excellent analysis of Poland, Polonia and blogging over at Blogcount.

The article entitled Profile of a Polish Blogger observes:

We hypothesized that the overall theory motivation “social utility” would be the most predominant motivation; this was supported. We also hypothesized that “self-expression” would be a more frequent motivation for writing blog posts than “social interaction” ; this was supported as well.

Pole profile

The Polish media paint the blog scene as a very intellectual, political forum. However, like the English-language blogs this appears not to be the case for the masses. Indeed, 92.2% were personal “journals” or read like “diaries.” Additionally, the English-language finding that most bloggers were teenage girls holds true in the Polish population as well.

For the most part, bloggers do not reach into the outside world to refer to society or politics. Instead, they stay close to what they know & experience in everyday life. These blogs were very tied to the offline persona & did not seem to serve as a vehicle for a unique “online personality.” Rather, the bloggers talked about friends on a first name basis (not explaining who each of the characters were). These blogs merely reinforced existing, offline identity and relationships & were not being used to cultivate a new identity online.

The Polish language structure offered us a unique opportunity to investigate gender differences. Females were more likely to be motivated by social interaction than males. Additionally, they were more likely to talk about feelings/thoughts, discuss a memory, provide a record of the day and feature graphics within the post. Males were more likely to discuss a hobby or interest than females All of these findings were statistically significant.