Who Science Bloggers are Blogging For

Who do science bloggers write for?

In #MySciBlog survey of science bloggers (total of 610 complete/valid responses), I asked science bloggers the following multiple choice question:

What best describes your MAIN blog's Target audience? 

• Non-specialist general audience 
• Science-interested non-specialist general audience 
• Primarily scientists (including PhD students and post-docs)
• Primarily students
• Primarily policy-makers 
• Primarily my friends/family 
• Other [please specify]
• I don’t know/Undecided

Their answers look like this:

A majority of science bloggers who responded to my survey write for a 'science-interested, non-specialist general audience' (321 out of 610). 

A significant minority write for a non-specialist general audience on one extreme (117 out of 610 bloggers), and primarily for other scientists and graduate students on the other extreme (100 out of 610).

A good number of bloggers (41 out of 610) specified an audience not well-characterized by my multiple choice question options. Some of their 'other' open-ended responses, for fun, are included below: 

• Actually, we have a policy of 'aiming at different levels but not necessarily at the same time' so we sometimes have highly technical posts aimed at scientists and sometimes non-specialists
• Well educated non-scientists
• Science knowledgeable - including public, scientists, and media
• Science Communicators and Scientists
• Primarily scientists, including Ph.D. students, postdocs, undergrad and high school science students
• People involved in our grant
• People interested in science communication
• Me, it's more for organizing my thoughts than readership.
• It's mixed
• I do a mix of all except primarily family; mostly #1 in practice.
• Equal parts science-interested non-specialists, students, journalists, and scientists
• Editors at publications and institutions who might hire my writing/editing services
• Students interested in academia, academics, and metal music enthusiasts
• Different content is aimed at different audiences so at some point all of the above

Cite figure as: Jarreau, Paige B. (2015): #MySciBlog Science Bloggers' Target Audiences. figshare. http://dx.doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.1285634