The Trend of Class, Race, and Ethnicity in Social Media Inequality
Jen Schradie, Berkeley Center for New Media D.E. (Ph.D., Sociology), recently published an article in Information, Communication & Society, titled "The Trend of Class, Race and Ethnicity in Social Media Inequality."
"Ultimately, the study shows that class inequality is perpetuating the digital divide in social media," Schradie said. "Race matters, but not the way we think it does."
Schradie looked at data from more than 40,000 Americans surveyed between 2002 and 2008 for the Pew Internet and American Life Project, which tracks Internet use and social media trends. Schradie's latest paper is a follow up to a 2011 study in which she found a "digital divide" among online content producers based on education and socio-economic status- on average, about 10 percent of blacks are likely to blog, compared to 6 percent of whites, according to surveys taken during that seven-year period. And that figure steadily rose, with 17 percent of blacks likely to blog in 2008, compared to 9 percent of whites. White people read more but black people create more.
You can read more about the study here.