网络互联网新媒体危机公关分析外文翻译文献.docx

网络互联网新媒体危机公关分析外文翻译文献.docx

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网络互联网新媒体危机公关分析外文翻译文献

网络互联网新媒体危机公关分析外文翻译文献

（文档含中英文对照即英文原文和中文翻译）

原文：

BloggingPR:

Anexploratoryanalysisofpublicrelationsweblogs

Keywords:

Weblog

Publicrelations

Interactivity

Usability

Abstract：

AlthoughthereareevermoreweblogsontheInternet,thisisanareathathasbeenlittleresearchedinpublicrelations,andwheretheyhavebeenanalyzedithasbeenasatoolforcommunicationratherthanaprimaryinformationsourceinthepublicrelationsbodyofknowledge.Thispaperprovidesanexploratorystudyofthestructureandcontentof67blogsonpublicrelationstodeterminewhatissuestheydealwithandwhethertheyareatoolforthetheoreticaldevelopmentofthefield.Inadditiontotheircontentwehavelookedatthestructure,usabilityandinteractivityoftheblogs.

1.Introduction

Blogsareseenbysomeauthorsasmajortoolsforonlinecommunication,whereasbyotherstheyarelittlemorethanexperts’opinionsonagivenissue（Herrera&Celaya,2006）.Theyaresucharecentmedium（beginningin1996）thattheconceptremainscontroversialandarguable（Barton,2005）.Inanyeventtheirpersuasiveandinformativefunctionisofgreatrelevanceastheycanobtainopinionleadershipwithahugeinfluenceoverpublicopinion.InthissenseSweetserandMetzgar（2007）havedemonstratedthatincrisissituations,peoplewhoreadpersonalblogshavealowerperceptionofcrisisforanorganization.

Theriseofblogsseemstobeunbridledanditisaphenomenonthatisoccurringinallknowledgefields（Jenkins,2006）.Therearecurrentlyover60millionblogsinexistenceand75,000newoneseachday（Cohen&Krishnamurthy,2006）.Morethan14millionpeopleworldwidekeepapersonaldiaryontheInternetandafurther100million（onethirdoftheactiveWebuniverse）readblogshabitually（Gordillo,2007）.Everysixmonthstheblogospherepopulationdoubles,anditistodaysixtytimesgreaterthanthreeyearsago.Nocommunicationmediumhaseverburgeonedsorapidly.Weblogwritersproduce700,000to1.3millionarticleseveryday—almostoneasecond（Gordillo,2007）.Sincetheirarrivalblogshavebeenchanging,ashavetheirsocialperception,objectivesandcultural,economic,politicalandmediaimpact（Yang,2007）.Weblogshavediversifiedandaredevelopinginsuchdiversespheresaseducation,business,politics,journalismandpublicrelations.

AccordingtoHallett（2005）,thecommunicativeuseofweblogsinpublicrelationshastwofoldfoundations.Ontheonehandtheyenableprofessionalstoanalyzethemarketandascertaintheopinionsoftheiraudiencestogaugepublicopiniononabusiness,productorbrand.Ontheother,theyareamajortechniqueforparticipatingandgivingopinionsbothpersonalandorganizational,beitbypostingcommentsonotherblogsorcreatingone’sown.

Thisstudy,however,doesnotfocusonanalyzingcorporateblogs,whichareusedasapublicrelationstool,butlooksatblogsconcerningpublicrelationsinwhichpublicrelationsoroneofitsactivitiesisthemaintheme.Ouraimistoanalyzewhatpublicrelationsblogsareabout,orwhatissuesaredealtwithinblogposts,inadditiontoanystructuralelementsofthisnewcommunicativetoolthatmayaffectitsefficacytotransmitinformation:

objectives,structureanddegreeofusability,interactivity,andlevelofconnectivity.

2.Method

Databasesofpublicrelationsblogsarefewandfarbetween.Oneofthemostcomprehensive,andregularlyupdated,istheOnlinePublicRelationsdirectory,createdbyJamesH.Norton.Wehavechosenthisdatabasewhichencompassesapublicrelationsblogsdirectorysplitintofourcategories:

PublicRelationsGeneral（67blogs）,DirectoriesandAggregators（7）,Miscellaneous（3）,andHigh-TechPR（8）.Inordertoavoidanybiasresultingfromthecategorizationcriteria,forthepurposesofthisstudywetook67blogsfromthePublicRelationsGeneralcategory.ThedatacollectionwascarriedoutbetweenOctober2006andJanuary2007.Therefore,thesampleselectedforanalysisconsistsof67blogsonpublicrelationsfromaroundtheworld.

Forthedatacollectionwedrewupananalysistemplatethatmeasures50itemswhichwerelatercategorizedtocreatethemainanalysisvariables.Thesevariableswere:

（a）Author:

Theblogswereclassifiedaspersonal,organizationalwrittenbyanemployee,andpurelyorganizationaland,therefore,impersonal.

（b）Content:

Analysiswascarriedoutofboththeissuesarisingintheblogpostsandtheimagesorotherresources.Thecontentofblogsistiedupwithitspursuedobjectives,whichwerealsoexamined.

（c）Interactivity:

Thismeasuresthedegreeofuserparticipation,accordingtotheinteractiveresourcesavailableontheblog.Theseinclude:

theoptionforexternaluserstopostcommentsorcontacttheblogauthorbye-mail,podcasting,audioandvideodownloads,salesofproductsandservices,usersurveys,andthepossibilityofsubscribing.

（d）Usability:

Thisisanecessaryrequisitetodevelopefficientinteractivity（Hallahan,2001）.Thisvariableanalyzeshoweasyitistousetheweblogforthosewhoaccessitbymeansof:

searchenginesonotherblogs,internalsearchengines,listofpreviousfiles,listofmostrecentblogposts,andcalendar.

（e）Connectivity:

Thismeasurestheextenttowhichtheblogislinkedtootherwebsites,beitthroughotherlinkedblogsorwebsitesofinterest.

Theanalysisfocusesonthedescriptivestatisticaldataonalloftheitemsunderstudy,inadditiontothecontingencytablesandvariablecorrelation.Giventhecharacteristicsofthestudyvariables–largelynominalandordinal–theGammaindexwasusedasthemostsuitablecorrelationindexfortheanalysis.

3.Results

Alookatthedatewhentheblogsanalyzedwerecreatedrevealsthatthelion’ssharewassetupveryrecently.Only31.3%gobackearlierthan2004.Bycontrast,61.2%ofthesampleblogswerecreatedbetween2004andthepresent.Itwasnotpossibletoascertainthecreationdateforfiveblogs（7.5%）.

Oneofthedefiningparadigmsofblogsisthattheyarewritteninrealtime.Withthisnewmediumweshallnolongerspeakoffrequencybutofrealtime,ofongoingcontributions.Theupsideofthisisthattheyaremoredynamicandenrichedwitharangeofconversationalstyles,buttheyarelackingincontemplation（Orihuela,2006）.Despitethesecharacteristics,overhalfoftheblogsanalyzed（53.7%）receivenewblogpostsaroundeveryfivedays.Only11.9%areupdatedorincludenewinputonadailybasis.

3.1.Authorship

IntheirstudyintocorporateblogsLee,Hwang,andLee（2006）splitthemintofivecategories:

theemployeeblog,writtenbyanyworkerinthecompany;thegroupblog,whichisaworkers’blogkeptnotbyonepersonalonebutbyasetofexperts;theexecutiveblog,writtenbymanagement;thepromotionalblog,whichisanimpersonalcorporateblogseekingtosparkdiscussiononproductsandevents;andlastly,thenewsletterblog,whichisalsoimpersonalandaimstorepresentthecompanystancethroughitsinformation.Wehaveusedthisblogauthorshipclassificationforourownstudybutbroughtitdowntoonlythreeanalysiscategories:

personalblogs,bypublicrelationsprofessionals;companyblogswrittenbyanemployee,2eithernon-managementormanagement;andpublicrelationscompanyblogs.

Thelargestshare（77.6%）oftheblogsanalyzedinthisstudyispersonal,writtenprimarilybypublicrelationsprofessionals.Corporateblogswrittenbyemployeesormanagementconstituteamuchsmallerproportion（16.4%）.Impersonalcorporateblogswerebyfarthesmallestgroup（4.5%）.Thisdatacorroboratesthefactthatoneofthemaincharacteristicsofblogsisthattheyarepersonal,andusersseekthis‘humanvoice’intheircommunication（Jenkins,2006）.Impersonalcorporateblogsarenotaswidelyacceptedbythebloggercommunity（Leeetal.,2006:

p.320）becausetheyareseenasmarketingtoolsorassimplefiltersfromthepublicrelationsdepartment.

Table1

Objectivesofanalyzedblogs

Blog’sobjectives

N

%

Givepersonalopinions

54

80.6

Commentoncurrentaffairs

62

92.6

Informaboutpersonallife

26

38.8

Informaboutproducts/services

34

50.7

Informaboutanorganization

28

41.8

Theorydevelopment

19

28.3

Withregardtothetypeofpersonalblogs,theseresultsmatchthosefoundinotherresearch.Herring,Scheidt,Bonus,andWright（2004）,inastudyconductedin2003onasampleof199blogs,alsoobservedthatmostblogs（70%）werepersonal.Indeed,accordingtothisstudy,personalinformationisoneofthedefiningcharacteristicsofblogs.

However,whatismoststrikingintheseresultsisthelowpercentageofcorporateblogswrittenbyemployees,giventhepowerfulcommunicativetoolthattheyconstitutefororganizations.Somecompanieshavecaughtontotheirpotentialandencouragetheirstafftokeepblogs.Thesecontainpersonal,subjectivecommunicationthatisnotdirectlysentoutbythecompanybutbyathirdpartywhogivestheirownopinionsandtheinformationisthereforeperceivedasimpartialandunbiased.However,thevalueofthistypeofcommunicationliesnotonlyinitsimpartialitybutalsointhepersonalinformationprovided,whichgivesahumanfacetothecompanyandbuildsupapositivecommunityvisionarounditanditsproducts（Leeetal.,2006）.

3.2.Content

Table1showsthemainobjectivesoftheblogsanalyzed.Ascanbeseen,mostseektocommentupontopicalaffairsinpublicrelationsprofession,aswellastovoicepersonalopinionsontheseissues.Giventhattheblogsanalyzedarelargelypersonal,interestintheauthor’scontributionsisunderstandable.Conversely,thelowpercentageofweblogsthataimtodebateissuessurroundingpublic