{"id":213,"date":"2008-08-02T12:00:56","date_gmt":"2008-08-02T19:00:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.talesfromthe.net\/jon\/?p=213"},"modified":"2008-08-02T12:00:56","modified_gmt":"2008-08-02T19:00:56","slug":"is-netroots-non-diversity-a-myth-draft","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/2024.thenexus.today\/index.php\/2008\/08\/02\/is-netroots-non-diversity-a-myth-draft\/","title":{"rendered":"Is netroots non-diversity a myth?"},"content":{"rendered":"

DRAFT!\u00c2\u00a0 Work in progress <\/span><\/p>\n

Originally written August 2<\/span><\/p>\n

Most recently revised September 22
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Originally written as a response to Chris Bowers OpenLeft<\/em> post The Myth Of The Non-Diverse Netroots<\/a>; please see the quantitative debate there. \u00c2\u00a0 There are a lot of additional observations and references<\/span> in my<\/span> Gender, race, age, and power in online discussions, chapter n<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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The “mutual guest-blogging” project I’ve been leading on OpenLeft<\/em> has been taking place in the context of a surprising amount of coverage of diversity issues in the blogosphere in the mainstream media recently. Articles like Amy Alexander’s The Color Line Online: Minority Bloggers Fight Inequality<\/a> in The Nation<\/em> and Karen Jesella’s Blogging’s Glass Ceiling<\/a> in the New York Times<\/em> (nicely analyzed by PhysioProf in Teh Laydeez Are So Cute When They Try To Blog<\/a> on Feministe<\/em>) are the highest-profile treatments I’ve seen of this topic since Jose Antonio Vargas’ A Diversity of Opinion, if not of Opinionators<\/a> in the Washington Post<\/em> a year ago.<\/p>\n

It’s also come up in a broader context in stories like Jose’s Liberal Bloggers Brace for Victory<\/a> in the Washington Post<\/em>, and Kirsten Powers’ Net-roots Ninnies: Dem’s Left Dum Bam Slams<\/a> in the New York Post<\/em>.<\/p>\n

— me, in Gender, race, age, and power in online discussions, chapter n + 1<\/a><\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I had sent Chris Bowers of OpenLeft a link to an early version of <\/span>Gender, race, age, and power in online discussions, chapter n + 1<\/a><\/span> … in response to which, he posted The Myth of the Non-Diverse Netroots<\/a>.
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The specific data that was discussed in thread was illuminating.\u00c2\u00a0 Looking at gender, Chris noted that 60% of Democrats are women, along with 37% of newspaper stuff and under 30% of Democratic Congresspeople.\u00c2\u00a0 Daniel De Groot presented information from polls of Daily Kos readers (36% female\/60% male) and Netroots Nations attendees (48% female\/50% male).\u00c2\u00a0 I analyzed the nine “big blogs” of the progressive blogosphere that Chris had identified, and discovered that only 22% of the founders and 22% of the editors are women.<\/p>\n

Hmm.\u00c2\u00a0 That seems pretty conclusive to me: women are dramatically under-represented in power positions, relative to their numbers in the netroots as a whole; and women are underrepresented in the netroots relative to their numbers in the Democratic party and society.\u00c2\u00a0 Overall the representation is worse than today’s media, and on a par with Congress — neither of which are usually held out as paragons of diversity.\u00c2\u00a0 That doesn’t seem mythical at all.<\/p>\n

Diversity’s a complicated topic, and the same word often means different things to different people. Start with the word “diversity” itself, which can include<\/p>\n