Irish bloggers have been given air time over the past couple of days as direct consequence of the Irish blogging awards – no one denies anyone the right to promote their hobby (and in some cases more than that). However, on a News Talk programme over the weekend, the ludicrous claim has been made by one blogger that Irish blogs will have a tangible effect on the Irish general elections in May 2007. As well as this, in various media forms we are told the importance of blogging as a medium to the masses. These are statements misted by the exuberance of a good night out rather than clarity of the real situation.
The most popular blogs in Ireland are receiving a couple of thousand visits a day, this figure includes visits from other country’s that are more than likely not eligible to vote in an Irish election. Of these daily hits it is certain that many of these are repeat visits (from the blogging clique), further narrowing the number of people you are actually possibly influencing.
The small figure that visit Irish political blogs are made even more diminutive by the latest JNRS ratings that show paper sales in Ireland are still growing and three of the biggest national daily papers, the Irish Independent, the Irish Times and the Irish Daily Star have combined daily sales of 1,272,000. There are several other dailies that increase the figure by several hundred thousand. You can assume that many of these papers themselves are read multiple times as they are dog eared from the manhandling in the coffee shops of the country. Yours truly probably reads snatches of three or four papers a day.
The only way a couple of thousand visits could influence an Irish election is if all the visits were from the same constituency which of course they are not, they are national visits.
Irish bloggers should wake up from their hangovers, yes blogging is important. It is important for the niche group that do blog, it is probably one of the largest communes in Ireland. The latest figure suggests that there are three to four thousand bloggers in Ireland, we are growing fast, soon we will multiply, our blogets feeding off the nearest breast to hand.
Blogging is a benign accessory to real media. Even the bloggers themselves must now realise this as two of the prominent Irish bloggers, Richard Waghorn and Sarah Carey are now columnists on the Irish Daily Mail and Sunday Times respectively. It is now possible their columns might influence people whether it is politically, morally, etc, etc.
And yes, their blogs will be an accessory to their work but that is all. A clasp on the strap of a Jimmy Choo!
