The "Data Slant": Why Lack of Media Generated by Minority Users Online Is an Offline Problem

Introduction As society continues its transition into the digital age, it should be no surprise that online activities increasingly influence the offline world. These online activities, specifically user-generated media such as blogs, vlogs, and podcasts, are rapidly becoming an integral aspect of political as well as commercial discourse. David Bohrman, CNN's Washington bureau chief, told MiamiHerald.com on 1 November 2006, "[M]ost of the political dialogue in this country is happening online, so if you don't incorporate that into your coverage, you're missing a major element. Moreover, commercial advertising expenditures "on user-generated online media is forecast to grow at a compound annual rate of 106.1 percent from 2005 to 2010, reaching $757 million in 2010" (PQ Media 2006). This is due in part to services such as Nielsen BuzzMetrics, which analyze user-generated media for the specific purpose of leveraging that information to the benefit of their clients. However, the usefulness of the information derived from user-generated media is contentious. I argue that what could be exceptionally valuable data is fundamentally biased and skewed, an outcome owing to the disproportionately low amount of minority user-generated media on the Web. Therefore, as reliance upon this inaccurate information proliferates, commercial entities and politicians neglect a significant portion of potential consumers and constituents because of the inevitable effects of online activities upon the offline world. In order to correct what I term the "data slant," politicians and commercial entities must actively seek information from minorities offline to supplement data derived from user-generated media online, or markedly increase investment in measures designed to bridge the digital divide--the primary source of the data slant problem. Ultimately, without political and commercial intervention, failure to remedy the data slant will likely lead to long-term economic, political, and social consequences. This paper is organized into four sections. The first section provides an overview of the most common forms of user-generated media, the demographics of its producers, and notable instances of its growing influence beyond the Web. Second, I briefly describe the digital divide--the primary source of the data slant problem--and highlight the significance of Internet access. Accordingly, the third section considers the likely economic and political consequences of failure to address the data slant. The fourth section discusses potential uses for user-generated media (UGM) within the Latino community and its resultant internal and external effects. The final section offers recommendations concerning offline data supplementation and outlines past proposals to overcome the digital divide. User-Generated Media: What Is It? Who Does It? And Why Should You Care? Blogs, Vlogs, and Podcasts UGM encompasses the content developed and circulated by users on the Web. The most prominent forms of this type of online expression include blogs, vlogs, and podcasts. Presently, the most pervasive form of UGM is the blog. A Web log, as it was originally named, "describe[d] the simple web pages people made to post links to interesting sites that they had found while surfing the Web" (Kuhns and Crew 2005, 5). Web logs gained momentum in the mid-1990s and became known as "blogs" in 1998, due to a Web log post by Peter Merholz, president and founding partner of the San Francisco-based consulting firm Adaptive Path (Kuhns and Crew 2005, 5). Within three years of the term's creation, blog "became the most consulted term in the Merriam Webster dictionary" (7th Society and Information Technologies Encounter). With the help of publishing platforms such as Blogger.com and LiveJournal, the popularity of blogging--the "process of posting a text journal entry (to your own ... blog page) or contributing a comment or response as a visitor (to another person's . …