As far as I'm concerned, the joke is on the anyone who thinks the blogosphere is overwhelmingly dominated by white men. What the true proportions are they can't know, and I certainly don't, but there are plenty of nonwhite, nonmale bloggers out there. These folks just don't read them!
It works like this: as a reader of blogs, you read that which you come across, probably because you start with something you're familiar with, and in all likelihood you stay there. These folks are talking about the blogosphere like it's a conversation about politics. It's not. There are people out there writing about anything you (or more relevantly they) can think of, and if more of the political bloggers are male, then more of the personal bloggers are female.
The problem here is that some observers have defined blogging as a conversation about the dominant politics -- and now they're wondering why only the dominant political demographic is participating. Small wonder females and minorities would be less interested in such a conversation, given their current levels of representation in that politics and the historical abdridgment of their rights by it. Apparently they've chosen to write about different things instead. Maybe instead of worrying that they're not writing about politics, we should find out what it is they are writing, and read it.
I definitely agree with you. I will say this. I'm curious about the patterns of interaction on-line. I think in some areas it tracks off-line patterns. Like people tend to hang out with like people. This is obvious, but I'm curious as to how this actually plays out. Does our means of communicating convey a lot about our race/gender, etc. I think it does, more than we think.
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