{"id":2742,"date":"2016-05-12T22:14:06","date_gmt":"2016-05-12T20:14:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lesestunden.de\/?p=2742"},"modified":"2020-05-30T21:08:13","modified_gmt":"2020-05-30T19:08:13","slug":"woher-kommen-buchblogger-eine-neue-kleine-analyse-mit-visualisierung-und-statistiken","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lesestunden.de\/en\/2016\/05\/where-do-book-bloggers-come-from-a-new-little-analysis-with-visualization-and-statistics\/","title":{"rendered":"Where do book bloggers come from: A new little analysis with visualization and statistics"},"content":{"rendered":"\r\n

The blogosphere of book bloggers is a very interesting and easily analyzable environment for closer examination. It\u2019s a manageable community, yet large, complex, and heterogeneous enough to offer new insights that aren\u2019t immediately apparent at first glance. Following my analysis<\/a> a year ago, from which the Toplist<\/a> emerged, I\u2019ve continuously developed my small collection of scripts used to create this list. The focus of my first analysis was on the structure of the network between blogs. But what about the people behind these blogs? Where do they come from? How are they distributed across Germany? How many male bloggers are there really? Where do they live, and how can they be found? These are the fascinating questions I want to explore in this post.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Just as I visualized the network of bloggers in my first post, I now want to begin with a graphical representation of the distribution of bloggers across Germany.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

\"Where<\/a><\/figure>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Where do book bloggers come from?<\/h3>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

To find out where book bloggers come from, I naturally used the most obvious and only source: the legal notice (Impressum). With the help of a small script, I made it much easier to collect the addresses (cheers to regular expressions, which I once again abused<\/a> elegantly for processing HTML) and was able to extract the important data quite quickly. 73%<\/strong> of all bloggers provided at least their postal code, which is the key information for my evaluation. 32%<\/strong> provided neither street and house number nor postal code and city. Some blogs have no legal notice or reveal only the first name and, in rare cases, no contact information at all. Notably, this is often the case with blogs hosted on Blogspot and run by obviously younger bloggers.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

There is one book blogger for every 67,384<\/strong> inhabitants of Germany. So, every book blogger has to take care of 67,384 fellow citizens \u2013 quite a workload. For the population numbers of Germany and its federal states, I used data from December 31, 2014, provided by Statista<\/a>. The distribution of book bloggers across the federal states looks like this:<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

\"Bloggers<\/a><\/figure>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Nominally, North Rhine-Westphalia<\/strong> with 216 bloggers<\/strong> is the federal state with the most bloggers. Since North Rhine-Westphalia is also the most populous state, this is hardly surprising. Bavaria<\/strong> ranks second with 109<\/strong> bloggers.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

\"Bloggers<\/a><\/figure>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

It\u2019s interesting to compare the number of bloggers relative to the population size. Considering only bloggers who provided a postal code, the average value for Germany is 106,410<\/strong> inhabitants per blogger. Based on this measure, Saxony<\/strong> is the state with the highest density of book bloggers, with one blogger per 57,116<\/strong> inhabitants. However, looking at the map, you can see that there are generally fewer book bloggers in the eastern states. Saarland<\/strong> performs the weakest, with 164,840<\/strong> inhabitants per blogger. What surprised me was Bavaria<\/strong>, which sits right around the national average. I would have expected far more bloggers there \u2013 only 13.4%<\/strong> of book bloggers come from Bavaria.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

\"Bloggers<\/a><\/figure>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

The city with the most book bloggers is Berlin<\/strong>, with 40<\/strong> bloggers. That doesn\u2019t surprise me \u2013 Berlin is simply the metropolis, so it\u2019s no wonder there are many book bloggers there. Hamburg<\/strong> ranks second with 29<\/strong> bloggers. However, the cities themselves account for only 3% (Berlin)<\/strong> and 2% (Hamburg)<\/strong> of all bloggers. The book bloggers are therefore well distributed across the metropolitan areas surrounding the larger cities, as the map clearly shows.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

The result is neither surprising nor unexpected: the distribution of book bloggers across Germany follows the population distribution. Berlin, Hamburg, Munich, Frankfurt, Stuttgart, and, of course, the area around Cologne, D\u00fcsseldorf, Dortmund, and Essen stand out clearly. This correlates strongly with population numbers, as even a quick glance<\/a> at a list of German cities by population shows. Even when comparing population numbers of the federal states with the number of bloggers, you find almost identical proportions. A pity, really \u2014 it would have been fun to discover an unexpected hotspot somewhere. Maybe some small village where it always rains or something like that ;)<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Men vs. Women: Are book blogs really a women\u2019s thing?<\/h3>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

While I couldn\u2019t always determine the blogger\u2019s address, that wasn\u2019t an issue when it came to gender, which could always be determined without doubt. At the latest, the Instagram photos of the latest nail polish gave away the blogger. Many have long suspected it, but now we have a clear figure for all blogs on the Toplist: 92% of book bloggers are women<\/strong>, and only 8% are men<\/strong>. It\u2019s worth noting, though, that the 8% also include male bloggers who share a blog with a woman.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

\"Gender\"<\/a><\/figure>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Finding bloggers nearby<\/h3>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Originally, I implemented a search function that made it possible to find bloggers near a given address. This is interesting for anyone planning an event \u2014 for example, a book meetup or a reading \u2014 who wants to specifically reach out to bloggers in the area. Or for bloggers who\u2019d like to make personal connections.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

It works quite well, but I decided not to offer this search publicly. From a data protection standpoint, it\u2019s a bit too risky for my taste. The question is how such use of data could be legally justified. There\u2019s \u00a7 28 of the German Federal Data Protection Act (BDSG)<\/em>, which considers the processing of publicly available data permissible as long as it doesn\u2019t conflict with legitimate interests. However, the BDSG also stipulates purpose limitation, and the address data from the legal notice serves a different purpose than enabling such a search. So I\u2019m not sure whether this would be legal. My gut feeling says no, so I\u2019d rather not offer it publicly.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

One possibility would be to obtain permission from all bloggers. But that would mean contacting over 1,000 bloggers, and there\u2019s the question of whether using the email address from the legal notice for that purpose is even allowed. There\u2019s also the issue of data accuracy, since many bloggers move without me noticing. So in short: unfortunately, there\u2019s no public \u201cfind bloggers nearby\u201d feature \u2014 even though it works perfectly fine on my local machine.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Reliability of the data<\/h3>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Currently, the Toplist includes 1,193<\/strong> blogs. That\u2019s quite a lot, but of course not every book blog out there. Still, I\u2019m convinced that this sample is representative. Blogs that are maintained with passion are almost certainly on the list, because I\u2019ve come across them sooner or later \u2014 or they\u2019re so well connected in the blogger world that they eventually found the Toplist and registered themselves. Another reason I consider these values plausible is the difference between my current numbers and those from my first analysis over a year ago. Back then, I analyzed only 585 blogs and came to essentially the same conclusions as now with over 1,000.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Nevertheless, the numbers should be viewed with caution \u2014 especially the analysis comparing bloggers to the population of federal states, because a small number of bloggers is set against very large population figures. If ten bloggers in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern choose not to disclose their addresses, the entire result shifts noticeably. Still, the trend is clearly visible, and I suspect that doubling the number of blogs would yield the same outcome. In places with higher populations, the probability of finding a book blogger rises roughly in proportion to population size.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

On a side note…<\/h3>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

I can now fully understand Karla\u2019s call for greater professionalism. There are many blogs that remind me of the old Beepworld pages \u2014 with questionable color choices, distorted images, and layouts that are, frankly, off-putting. On the other end of the spectrum are bloggers with their own domains and stylish themes \u2014 definitely the minority. It\u2019s clear that book bloggers have very different goals. The spectrum ranges from small personal sites used to exchange thoughts with friends and classmates to literary blogs aiming to foster thoughtful discussion about book culture. Encouraging bloggers to strive for a more professional appearance (without necessarily addressing commercialization) would be a great step forward and would benefit the scene as a whole.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Given this heterogeneity, it\u2019s actually difficult to talk about \u201cbook bloggers\u201d as a single group \u2014 much like it\u2019s impossible to categorize members of Anonymous, even if you could identify the individuals behind them, because the \u201cgroup\u201d is in constant flux and changes within weeks. In any case, I can understand certain prejudices against book bloggers, and I recommend anyone who holds such biases to browse through the lower third of the Toplist.<\/p>\r\n\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The blogosphere of book bloggers is a very interesting and easily analyzable environment for closer examination. It\u2019s a manageable community, yet large, complex, and heterogeneous enough to offer new insights that aren\u2019t immediately apparent at first glance. Following my analysis a year ago, from which the Toplist emerged, I\u2019ve continuously developed my small collection of … <\/p>\n

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