Download Chapter 7 Technological Development and Online Public

Chapter 7
Technological Development and
Online Public Relations
Key Terms
Applications of Online Media Relations
Dialogic Communication
Discursive Resistance
Technology and PR
• Online environment as focus.
• New tools for listening and communicating to
publics.
• Potential for two-way communication.
Key Terms: Basics
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Internet
World Wide Web
Web site
E-mail
Instant messaging
Blogs
Wikis
Really simple syndication (RSS)
Listserv
Key Terms: Commerical
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Flickr
Twitter (micro blogs)
Facebook
YouTube
Online Technology and PR
• Two categories.
– Sender-oriented: deliver content
– Receiver-oriented: listening
Sender-oriented
• Focus on creating information for others
(pushing your content).
– Web sites
– Wikis
– RSS
Receiver-oriented
• Ideal for listening to others (follow content
others have created).
– blogs
– listservs
– chat rooms
– discussion groups
– social media
Unique Aspects of Online Tools
• Interactivity
• Linked potential
Interactivity
• Asynchronous interaction
• Real-time interaction
Active Nature of the Internet
• People actively search for information.
• Links facilitate searches.
• Links permit jumping from one
document/location to another.
• Easy to find related information.
Example of Linked Potential
• Early 2009 had an extensive peanut butter
recall.
• News stories would provide links to groups
involved including:
– Food and Drug Administration
– American Peanut Council (a trade group)
– Manufacturers of jarred peanut butter
– Peanut Corporation of America (company
responsible for the recall)
Applications of Online PR
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Online media relations.
Buzz marketing.
Potential for dialogic communication.
Potential for power acquisition.
Online Media Relations
• Driving forces:
– Journalists visit web site to collect information
– People use search engines to find information
– Bloggers are form of online journalism
Social Media News Release
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Online version of traditional news release.
Maximize search engine hits with text.
Provide links to additional information in text.
Make it easy to link the news release to other
sites.
• Offer RSS for news releases.
Online Newsroom
• Archive of news releases and other
information journalists might want.
• Make it searchable.
• Make it easy to navigate.
• Fits with how journalists now gather
information.
Bloggers
• Some bloggers are influential.
• Organizations now pitch bloggers with stories.
• Many sources of advice for “how to” and
“how not to” pitch bloggers.
• Oddly, paying for blog coverage is an option.
Buzz Marketing
• Online venue for word-of-mouth (WOM).
• Now easier to spread WOM with online tools.
• WOM is powerful.
– Positive helps
– Negative hurts
Basic Dynamics of Buzz
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Also called viral marketing.
Allow your publics to spread the messages.
Publics share it with one another.
Like a virus it spreads from person to person.
PR person lacks control over if it will spread
and how it will spread.
Buzz Can Be Bad
• Negative messages can appear online and
spread:
– Post on discussion boards
– Attack web sites
– Blogger comments
– Unflattering video on YouTube
Misapplications of Online PR
• Intimidate people into closing critical (attack)
web sites.
• Offer to edit Wikipedia entries for money.
• Must allow free flow of information, a
cornerstone of PR.
Potential for Dialogic Communication
• Dialogue, people interact with an eye toward
reaching a mutually satisfying resolution (Kent
& Taylor, 1998; 2002).
To Maximize Interactive Potential
Online communication should:
• utilize dialogic principles
• provide useful information to visitors
• encourage return visits
• provide an intuitive interface
• keep visitors on the site by not providing links
to other web sites (Kent & Taylor, 1998)
Five Tenets of Dialogism
• Mutuality: collaboration between the parties
involved.
• Propinquity or engagement: an immediacy and
willingness to communicate.
• Empathy: supportiveness and recognition of the
other.
• Risk: vulnerability created by shared information.
• Commitment: willing to keep engaged in the
process (Kent & Taylor, 2002).
Potential for Power
• Internet provides potential for powerless
constituencies to build their power.
• Other constituencies, including corporations,
begin to listen when the once marginalized
and powerless constituencies have power
(Coombs, 1998; Coombs & Holladay, 2007;
Heath, 1998)
Internet Contagion Theory
• Organizational leaders prioritize constituents.
• Only have time and resources to deal with
high priority constituents.
• Power is critical to prioritization along with
legitimacy and urgency.
• Powerless become marginalized (ignored).
• Internet can be used to build power and raise
priority of constituents.
How Internet Creates Power
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Internet is low cost communication tool.
Offers multiple channels for reaching others.
These connections are a power resource.
Online communication can be used to:
– Disseminate information
– Recruit supporters
– Mobilize supporters for action
Internet as Site of Resistance
• Multiple unfiltered news sources offer new
perspectives and information.
• Marginalized have a place to speak and
potentially be heard by others.
Discursive Resistance
• Discursive resistance “is a process through
which text, oral, nonverbal communication,
and other forms of meaning-making are
employed to imagine alternatives to dominant
power structures” (Wood & Smith, 2001, p.
169).
Discursive Resistance and PR
• Traditional channels marginalize some voices,
even when they engage in PR.
• Online PR can be discursive resistance for the
marginalized.
• Such discursive space must be preserved.
Constituency Churn
• Constituency churn is when members of a
constituency actively oppose an organization
and seek to attract others to support their
cause.
• Churn occurs when there is a gap in what
constituencies expect from an organization
and how an organization behaves.
Constituency Churn
• Typically viewed as threat.
• Can help organizations adapt and improve.
Reflection Points
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What dangers do bloggers present?
Does it matter that bloggers are untrained?
What should be in a blogger code of ethics?
Is PR simply recreating media relations,
including claims of corruption, online?
• What is flogging and how does it hurt those
who use it?
Reflection Points
• What does it mean that dialogic
communication is more potential than reality
online?
• Does the online failure of dialogic
communication mean it will never really be
widespread in PR?
• How does the Co-Operative Bank use dialogic
communication?
Reflection Points
• Why are some efforts of the marginalized to
build power viewed as threats?
• How does the digital divide impact online PR?
• Is the online environment better for listening
to others or presenting one’s own message?