Profiling the Filipino Blogger: A Study on Bloggers and Blogging Behavior in the Philippine Setting

Abstract

Blogging is one of the usual activities people do online. People from different places, of various age groups, and of different genders post entries on their blogs ranging from the trivial to the deeply personal. The popularity of and trends associated with blogging worldwide as observed were the primary reasons for conducting the study. This study aimed to find out patterns and trends of blogging in the Philippines. In particular, it sought to determine the demographics, blogging preferences, and personality characteristics of Filipino bloggers. Three hundred and thirteen active Filipino bloggers aged 16 years old and above who currently live in the Philippines were recruited through personal invitations, open invitations in various fora and social networking sites, and referrals. They answered the questionnaire developed and pretested by the researcher and 15 blogs underwent content analysis. Short interviews were also conducted to further supplement the data. Results showed that bloggers were usually females, single and aged 23 years on the average. They lived in an urban area, full-time employees, and have reached college. Surfing the internet was usually how they discovered blogging and they started blogging during their teens. Their primary reason for doing so was to share their personal thoughts. Personality-wise, bloggers tend to be neither introverts nor extroverts but a combination of both and use blogs as a means of interaction. When it comes to being open in their blogs and emotional maturity, bloggers are ambivalent. Though bloggers were active in airing their thoughts on their blogs, they practiced self-censorship and knew which entries can be shared to all of their readers and which entries should be made known to selected people or kept to themselves. Bloggers were also discovered to be satisfied with their social relationships. The benefits and effects of blogging were also identified.