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Blogging has impacted North American and European youth culture tremendously in the past 5 years”, but where it’s really making a new impact is among the millions of young people in Asia -especially in Tokyo Seoul Singapore, and China’s most vibrant cities of Shanghai, Beijing, and Guangzhou. In this story, Part 2 of online patterns across China (see also last month’s “China Youth Culture Online Shopping Habits: Fresh Data on Patterns Traits in Youth Culture Across Beijing, Guangzhou, Shanghai Reflect Demographic Differences Opportunities Among World’s Largest Consumer Marketplace.“), we take a look at who reads blogs and who therefore are a part of the growing blogging culture among 15-25-year-olds in China.

Overall, when asked, “Do you read blogs?” 70.2% of 15-25-year-olds say Yes, they do read blogs among a representative sampling of thousands of young people across Shanghai, Beijing, and Guangzhou. In a country that does its best to try and limit access to certain aspects of the internet, clearly blogs are making an impact as one of the key places that young people gather information or communicate online. By gender, 69.7 % of females read blogs compared with 70.9% of males, which is slightly different than in North America whereby females tend to read blogs (and write their own) in higher percentages than males. As blogging culture continues to grow across China, as we anticipate, we expect that the ratio of bloggers and readers of blogs among young women to increase slightly, however overall, by gender, the percentages are similarly high.
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What’s most interesting about blogs in China is that by age groups”, there are direct correlations in that the younger the demographic, the higher the percentages that read blogs, which also matches the growing “generation gap” in technology even among youth culture. 76.9% of 15-17-year-olds read blogs followed by 72.5% of 18-20-year-olds and 64.9% of 21-25-year-olds. What this indicates is the growing importance of blogging culture among a younger demographic in terms a news source, communication vehicle, and method of expression. In addition, many people don’t stop reading blogs once they get older, if anything, they start blogging themselves.

While this may seem common in North America, it can be difficult to comprehend in terms of the enormous change this means for a country that has had strict censorship controls on their “media, not to mention who’s entitled to “report.” The thing about blogs is that it provides the opportunity to create an everyday reporter out of a normal individual simply because he or she chooses to write about what they do. In some ways, with so many young people reading blogs, it also increases the awareness of specific news, usually about bands and new music, fashion, shopping, anime, and other topics, plus it also allows for the sharing of ideas across a new communication platform that is very popular, moreso than even the Chinese government may be aware of.

If looking at those who read blogs by city, interestingly, Beijing which is often touted as having the greatest indie music scene which also helps perpetuate blogs has the lowest percentages of blog readers at 64.8%, followed by Guangzhou at 71%, and then Shanghai at 75.7%. Shanghai is often thought of as the fashion capital of China, which also perpetuates blogs or those creating blogs by reporting on fashion.

Overall youth culture in China are into blogs which indicates new market opportunities for brands targeting specific demographics through blogging culture and/or the opportunity for those to create blogs as it pertains to China in the future.

For additional charts and graphs please contact info@labelnetworks.com; (323) 630-4000 about the Premium Global Youth Culture Subscription 2008.