1、中文3350字，1900英文单词，10000英文字符Blogging PR: An exploratory analysis of public relations weblogs Keywords: Weblog Public relations Interactivity Usability Abstract： Although there are ever more weblogs on the Internet, this is an area that has been little researched in public relations, and where th
2、ey have been analyzed it has been as a tool for communication rather than a primary information source in the public relations body of knowledge. This paper provides an exploratory study of the structure and content of 67 blogs on public relations to determine what issues they deal with and whether
3、they are a tool for the theoretical development of the eld. In addition to their content we have looked at the structure, usability and interactivity of the blogs. 1. Introduction Blogs are seen by some authors as major tools for online communication, whereas by others they are little more than expe
4、rts opinions on a given issue (Herrera & Celaya, 2006). They are such a recent medium (beginning in 1996) that the concept remains controversial and arguable (Barton, 2005). In any event their persuasive and informative function is of great relevance as they can obtain opinion leadership with a
5、huge inuence over public opinion. In this sense Sweetser and Metzgar (2007) have demonstrated that in crisis situations, people who read personal blogs have a lower perception of crisis for an organization. The rise of blogs seems to be unbridled and it is a phenomenon that is occurring in all knowl
6、edge elds (Jenkins, 2006). There are currently over 60 million blogs in existence and 75,000 new ones each day (Cohen & Krishnamurthy, 2006). More than 14 million people worldwide keep a personal diary on the Internet and a further 100 million (one third of the active Web universe) read blogs ha
7、bitually (Gordillo, 2007). Every six months the blogosphere population doubles, and it is today sixty times greater than three years ago. No communication medium has ever burgeoned so rapidly. Weblog writers produce 700,000 to 1.3million articles every dayalmost one a second (Gordillo, 2007). Since
8、their arrival blogs have been changing, as have their social perception, objectives and cultural, economic, political and media impact (Yang, 2007). Weblogs have diversied and are developing in such diverse spheres as education, business, politics, journalism and public relations. According to
9、 Hallett (2005), the communicative use of weblogs in public relations has twofold foundations. On the one hand they enable professionals to analyze the market and ascertain the opinions of their audiences to gauge public opinion on a business, product or brand. On the other, they are a major techniq
10、ue for participating and giving opinions both personal and organizational, be it by posting comments on other blogs or creating ones own. This study, however, does not focus on analyzing corporate blogs, which are used as a public relations tool, but looks at blogs concerning public relations in whi
11、ch public relations or one of its activities is the main theme. Our aim is to analyze what public relations blogs are about, or what issues are dealt with in blog posts, in addition to any structural elements of this new communicative tool that may affect its efcacy to transmit information: objectiv
12、es, structure and degree of usability, interactivity, and level of connectivity. 2. Method Databases of public relations blogs are few and far between. One of the most comprehensive, and regularly updated, is the Online Public Relations (http:/www.online-)1 directory, created by James H. Norton. We
13、have chosen this database which encompasses a public relations blogs directory split into four categories: Public Relations General (67 blogs), Directories and Aggregators (7),Miscellaneous (3), and High-Tech PR (8). In order to avoid any bias resulting from the categorization criteria, for the purp
14、oses of this study we took 67 blogs from the Public Relations General category. The data collection was carried out between October 2006 and January 2007. Therefore, the sample selected for analysis consists of 67 blogs on public relations from around the world. For the data collection we drew up an
15、 analysis template that measures 50 items which were later categorized to create the main analysis variables. These variables were: (a) Author: The blogs were classied as personal, organizational written by an employee, and purely organizational and, therefore, impersonal. (b) Content: Analysis was
16、carried out of both the issues arising in the blog posts and the images or other resources. The content of blogs is tied up with its pursued objectives, which were also examined. (c) Interactivity: This measures the degree of user participation, according to the interactive resources available on th
17、e blog. These include: the option for external users to post comments or contact the blog author by e-mail, podcasting, audio and video downloads, sales of products and services, user surveys, and the possibility of subscribing. (d) Usability: This is a necessary requisite to develop efcient i
18、nteractivity (Hallahan, 2001). This variable analyzes how easy it is to use the weblog for those who access it by means of: search engines on other blogs, internal search engines, list of previous les, list of most recent blog posts, and calendar. (e) Connectivity: This measures the extent to which
19、the blog is linked to other websites, be it through other linked blogs or websites of interest. The analysis focuses on the descriptive statistical data on all of the items under study, in addition to the contingency tables and variable correlation. Given the characteristics of the study variables l
20、argely nominal and ordinal the Gamma index was used as the most suitable correlation index for the analysis. 3. Results A look at the date when the blogs analyzed were created reveals that the lions share was set up very recently. Only 31.3% go back earlier than 2004. By contrast, 61.2% of the sampl
21、e blogs were created between 2004 and the present. It was not possible to ascertain the creation date for ve blogs (7.5%). One of the dening paradigms of blogs is that they are written in real time. With this new medium we shall no longer speak of frequency but of real time, of ongoing contributions
22、. The upside of this is that they are more dynamic and enriched with a range of conversational styles, but they are lacking in contemplation (Orihuela, 2006). Despite these characteristics, over half of the blogs analyzed (53.7%) receive new blog posts around every ve days. Only 11.9% are updated or
23、 include new input on a daily basis. 3.1. Authorship In their study into corporate blogs Lee, Hwang, and Lee (2006) split them into ve categories: the employee blog, written by any worker in the company； the group blog, which is a workers blog kept not by one person alone but by a set of experts； th
24、e executive blog, written by management； the promotional blog, which is an impersonal corporate blog seeking to spark discussion on products and events； and lastly, the newsletter blog, which is also impersonal and aims to represent the company stance through its information. We have used this blog authorship classication for our own study but brought it down to only three analysis categories: personal blogs, by public relations professionals； company blogs written by an employee, 2 either non-management or management； and public relations company blogs.
