PR Studies

Growing inequality online

Bloggers and wiki editors delight in the low barriers to entry of social media. We're doing something anyone can do, or so we assume. Research points the other way: Jakob Nielsen has identified a growing divide between lurkers and contributors.

With blogs the ratio is something like 90:9:1 (90% lurkers; 9% occasional contributors; 1% active contributors). With Wikipedia the gulf is even more pronounced, with active contributors making only 0.2% of the unique users in the US.

Nielsen argues that 'participation inequality' will always be with us - though there are some things that system designers can do to encourage participation. There are some things educators can do about this too, and I applaud the pioneering blogging and social media courses run by Philip and Robert.

Comments

Growing inequality online

Bloggers and wiki editors delight in the low barriers to entry of social media. We're doing something anyone can do, or so we assume. Research points the other way: Jakob Nielsen has identified a growing divide between lurkers and contributors.

With blogs the ratio is something like 90:9:1 (90% lurkers; 9% occasional contributors; 1% active contributors). With Wikipedia the gulf is even more pronounced, with active contributors making only 0.2% of the unique users in the US.

Nielsen argues that 'participation inequality' will always be with us - though there are some things that system designers can do to encourage participation. There are some things educators can do about this too, and I applaud the pioneering blogging and social media courses run by Philip and Robert.