Blogging and race

Here are two interesting articles on race online (here and here). The long and short of it is that minorities (especially African-Americans) are not present on the national blogging stage and also report often feeling alone in a white dominated community.

As Henry Jenkins concedes, I suspect that this phenomenon has more to do with class than race, but as he points out, in America, the two are hard to separate. So the two questions that need to be asked in terms of these articles are: How can the minority presence in the blogosphere be increased? How can a politician reach out to minority groups online?

For the first question, there may be no strategy that works from the outside. As Jenkins states, "There are some hopeful signs that racially based gaps in access are closing: for example, Hispanic Americans are the fastest-growing population online. As minority groups have developed more economic clout, cyberspace has started to seem less racially segregated." In essence, the blogosphere will even out as economic clout evens out. I also believe that as technology trickles down the economic spectrum and access becomes more universally accessible to people of any means, children of all economic classes will be involved with the internet, and therefore a higher representation of minorities will become present. Besides making technology more available, I have no idea how to bridge the racial divide of the blogosphere. Any suggestions?

For politicians wanting to reach out to minority voters via their internet campaign, these articles present a serious problem. If minorities are underrepresented on the internet, then your internet message targeted at these voters will be much less effective. How does a politician combat this? Advertisements on websites frequented by minorities could be one answer. There are plenty of ways to narrowcast population groups, and internet sites can certainly be targeted as well. A campaign weblog with comment access can also be created around minority issues.

These are two ideas I have, but they are insufficient. I will try to think of some more. Can anyone else?