The Impact Of Vegan Soapbox
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A few days ago I took a poll to determine the impact of this website. I was motivated by a recent conversation over vegan sausages where the person asked if I thought Vegan Soapbox was effective. I said I thought it was effective since I had received many emails telling me something along the lines of, “Thank you for encouraging me to go vegan.” But I admitted that I wasn’t exactly sure how effective the website was. (In fact, as a result of my online animal advocacy, I’ve receive more nasty hateful emails than pleasant ones.)
So I laid out a survey to try to get some measure of the efficacy of this website. One simple question, “How has reading Vegan Soapbox changed you?”
The answers included increases or decreases in animal product consumption, vegan cookbook purchases, donations, and advocacy. The answers were randomly arranged in the poll so that no answer would emerge as the winner simply for being the first choice on the list. Some measures were taken to ensure people only responded to the poll once. But respondents were allowed to select multiple answers to the question.
How has reading Vegan Soapbox changed you?
No respondents said that they “eat more meat, cheese, eggs.” None said they “stopped volunteering for animals,” nor did any say they “stopped donating to animal organizations.” Three claimed they “eat less meat” while six said they “eat fewer animal products.” Another six “donate more money to animal organizations.” Eight respondents said that they “eat a vegan diet” and eight also “bought more vegan cookbooks.” Ten said they “have not changed.” The answer that received the most votes (15) was: I do more animal advocacy.
One fill-in-the-blank answer was offered in the poll. Some responses include:
- “I’ve become more aware of my choices”
- “Nice to read articles supporting my vegan life style”
- “I have become more informed, which subsequently helps me in AR conversations.”
- “i went raw vegan!”
- “None of these apply, been vegan for over 8 years but good info is here.”
- “It has help the knowledge I can share”
- and more. (Some “other” answers were cut off mid-sentence by the polling program.)
Thank you to everyone who participated in the poll.
Clearly, there is some selection bias wherein some people were more motivated to complete the poll than others. The exact nature of this selection bias is difficult to determine. But from other sources we know that the vast majority of readers come from North America, mostly the US. We also know that regular readers of Vegan Soapbox account for only about 15% of the website traffic. Other visitors come once or twice for a recipe or news story but they do not read regularly every day or every week. Given the nature of the website and the comments, it’s reasonable to assume many regular readers are already vegan or vegetarian. Lastly, most visitors come to the website on Mondays, therefore since the poll was up Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday, it’s likely that most regular readers who will respond to the poll have already responded.
Discounting the selection bias, which may or may not significantly influence the poll results, it appears that this website has a positive effect. What’s more, it appears to have zero negative effects. That is astonishing.
Honestly, I did not expect these results at all. My expectation was that there would be some respondents who claimed to eat more meat as a result of reading Vegan Soapbox but I expected the majority answer to be “I eat a vegan diet.”
My conclusions:
- Online vegan education through blogging is worthwhile because it tends to encourage people to do things that benefit animals such as eating fewer animal products or doing more animal advocacy.
- Because online vegan education has few barriers to entry and is generally low-cost, it makes sense to include vegan blogs as part of a larger animal advocacy campaign.
- Here at Vegan Soapbox we use methods such as “shock” videos or “welfarist” appeals. The results of this poll indicate that none are counterproductive.
Way to go! I’m a long time reader and fan!
Very encouraging! But I guess the poll was more geared to non-regular readers who may not have been vegan before starting to read Vegan Soapbox? It would have been cool to know who identified as vegan already, although that may have been captured in the “I have not changed” response.
.-= So I’m Thinking Of Going Vegan´s last blog ..12 questions vegans might want to ask themselves =-.
That poll is garbage on so many levels! Anyone who thinks this poll has ANY scientific merit shows how easily some people will allow themselves to be suckered by their own set of beliefs.
- Someone who has earned a Masters of Science in Applied Sociology (Mainly focused research methodology and data analysis)
Of course nobody selected the “negative consequences” you hand-picked for this “research”, selections which are obviously not based on any proven measure for determining the impact of a vegan dedicated site on the general public. Also, what did you expect from the regular visitors if this site, the ‘VEGAN Soapbox’? The vast majority of daily visitors to this site are more than likely vegan and animal activist oriented. People that would not eat meat or stop supporting animals in the first place. This shows a serious lack in understanding the principles of proper research methods.