Ethics 2.0: Social media implications for professional communicators

This paper examines ethical implications in the use of social media by professional communicators. Using its research into the experiences of New Zealand practitioners, it identifies major ethical challenges for the profession. It also illustrates how social media intensify ethical issues that public relations has struggled with in the off-line world. At the same time, it shows how social media open opportunities for increasing practitioner influence on organisational ethics in ways long desired by traditional practitioners and recently advocated by public relations academics. It concludes that, despite enabling a lack of transparency and easier deception, social media can help public relations both improve ethical communication with stakeholders, and gain a greater ethical leadership role

New Media, New Influencers and Implications for Public Relations

Marketers and public relations professionals today are confronted with an astounding array of new communications channels. Internet-based social media tools like blogs, podcasts, online video and social networks are giving voice to the opinions of millions of consumers. While mainstream media continues to play a vital role in the dissemination of information, even these traditional channels are increasingly being influenced by online conversations. The "new influencers" are beginning to tear at the fabric of marketing as it has existed for 100 years, giving rise to a new style of marketing that is characterized by conversation and community. Marketers are responding to these forces with a mixture of excitement, fear and fascination. They're alarmed at the prospect of ceding control of their messages to a community of unknowns. Yet at the same time they're excited about the prospect of leveraging theese same tools to speak directly to their constituents without the involvement of media intermediaries.The Society for New Communications Research set out to conduct an examination of how influence patterns are changing and how communications professionals are addressing those changes by adopting social media. The goals were to discover how organizations:Define new influencers;Communicate and create relationships with them;Use social media to create influence; andMeasure the effects of these efforts.Another goal of the study was to use these discoveries to offer a set of recommendations to professional communicators

ePortfolios: Mediating the minefield of inherent risks and tensions

The ePortfolio Project at the Queensland University of Technology (QUT) exemplifies an innovative and flexible harnessing of current portfolio thinking and design that has achieved substantial buy-in across the institution with over 23000 active portfolios. Robust infrastructure support, curriculum integration and training have facilitated widespread take-up, while QUT’s early adoption of ePortfolio technology has enabled the concomitant development of a strong policy and systems approach to deal explicitly with legal and design responsibilities. In the light of that experience, this paper will highlight the risks and tensions inherent in ePortfolio policy, design and implementation. In many ways, both the strengths and weaknesses of ePortfolios lie in their ability to be accessed by a wider, less secure audience – either internally (e.g. other students and staff) or externally (e.g. potential employees and referees). How do we balance the obvious requirement to safeguard students from the potential for institutionally-facilitated cyber-harm and privacy breaches, with this generation’s instinctive personal and professional desires for reflections, private details, information and intellectual property to be available freely and with minimal restriction? How can we promote collaboration and freeform expression in the blog and wiki world but also manage the institutional risk that unauthorised use of student information and work so palpably carries with it? For ePortfolios to flourish and to develop and for students to remain engaged in current reflective processes, holistic guidelines and sensible boundaries are required to help safeguard personal details and journaling without overly restricting students’ emotional, collaborative and creative engagement with the ePortfolio experience. This paper will discuss such issues and suggest possible ways forward

Challenges in using contemporary Digital Tools in media relations practice in Nigeria

This research conceptually investigates the importance, prospects and challenges of using contemporary digital technology in media relations functions of public relations practitioners as outlined by earlier scholars.  Media relations is significant to the public relations practitioner because public relations as a function looks at maintaining a relationship that is mutually beneficial to both the organisation and the public, media relation, on the other hand, lays emphasis on a mutual relationship between an organisation and the media in order to serve the interests of both the organisation and the public. The world is moving digitally where there is a convergence of technologies used in communication. This paper attempts to review the tools and how relevance these new media technologies are, as well as the challenges public relations practitioners, encounter in their adoption of these technologies in their media relations functions. The research points out that some new media technologies like the internet (websites, email, social media, blogs), video news releases, webcasting, videoconferencing etc. are in some way interconnected with the diverse media of communication due to technological innovations and media convergence, and have today transformed media relations practice universally notwithstanding the myriads of issues such as high cost of new technologies, cyber security, corruption, low level of internet penetration, poor funding, lack of training opportunities, epileptic power supply and other challenges not captured in this study all  posing as challenges to the effective application media relations practice by PR practitioners in Nigeria.  It is believed that the government and all stakeholders will pull resources together so that media relations practice in Nigeria will improve significantly and hopefully in the not too distant future be at par with what is obtainable in developed countries. Key words: Media Relations, Public Relations, Media, Nigeria, Digital, New Medi

ROI of Online Press Releases

Press releases used to be one of the basic tools of the public relations profession, used by PR practitioners to communicate news directly to journalists. With the advent of new online communication channels, the goals, target audiences, and overall scope of press releases have evolved, transforming press releases themselves into a new communication tool used by public relations and marketing professionals alike.The purpose of this research study was to identify and analyze current patterns in the uses of online press releases. Specifically, the objectives of this study were to identify:Goals of online press releases;Target audiences of online press releases;Criteria for evaluating the success of online press releases; as well asTactics, opportunities and challenges of using online press releases.Ultimately, the goal of the study is to examine the changing roles of public relations and marketing in the context of how the press release is being used as a tool used not only by PR professionals but also by marketing professionals and small business owners for a wide variety of purposes and objectives. Based on the study's results, the SNCR Fellows have compiled a list of recommendations about the use and evaluation of online press releases and some observations about this evolving communications profession

Don’t throw rocks from the side-lines: A sociomaterial exploration of organizational blogs as boundary objects

Purpose Social media such as blogs are being widely used in organizations in order to undertake internal communication and share knowledge, rendering them important boundary objects. A root metaphor of the boundary object domain is the notion of relatively static and inert objects spanning similarly static boundaries. A strong sociomaterial perspective allows the immisciblity of object and boundary to be challenged, since a key tenet of this perspective is the ongoing and mutually-constituted performance of the material and social. Design/methodology/approach The aim of our research is to draw upon sociomateriality to explore the operation of social media platforms as intra-organizational boundary objects. Given the novel perspective of this study and its social constructivist ontology, we adopt an exploratory, interpretivist research design. This is operationalized as a case study of the use of an organizational blog by a major UK government department over an extended period. A novel aspect of the study is our use of data released under a Freedom of Information request. Findings We present three exemplar instances of how the blog and organizational boundaries were performed in the situated practice of the case study organization. We draw on literature on boundary objects, blogs and sociomateriality in order to provide a theoretical explication of the mutually-constituted performance of the blog and organizational boundaries. We also invoke the notion of ‘extended chains of intra-action’ to theorise changes in the wider organization. Originality/value Adoption of a sociomaterial lens provides a highly novel perspective of boundary objects and organizational boundaries. The study highlights the indeterminate and dynamic nature of boundary objects and boundaries, with both being in an intra-active state of becoming, challenging conventional conceptions. The study demonstrates that specific material-discursive practices arising from the situated practice of the blog at the respective boundaries were performative, reconfiguring the blog and boundaries and being generative of further changes in the organization

The relationship between food bloggers and public relations professionals

Blogs, a relatively new medium in the Internet sphere, offer public relations professionals another outlet to communicate with influential opinion leaders. Food is a popular blogging topic and an outlet public relations professionals with food clients use. Public relations professionals use blogs as a form of strategic research, a medium to share content, and a method to communicate with readers. The working relationship between bloggers and public relations professionals can help both entities succeed. This qualitative interview study examines the method, outcome and value of the relationship between food bloggers and public relations professionals. The study found that food bloggers want personalized emails that show the public relations professional has read their blog and understands the mission and purpose of the site. Food bloggers want entertaining and amusing partnerships that will benefit readers. The bloggers will reach out to public relations professionals from well-known brands or to professionals with whom they have developed prior relationships

The corporate blog as an emerging genre of computer-mediated communication: features, constraints, discourse situation

Digital technology is increasingly impacting how we keep informed, how we communicate professionally and privately, and how we initiate and maintain relationships with others. The function and meaning of new forms of computer-mediated communication (CMC) is not always clear to users on the onset and must be negotiated by communities, institutions and individuals alike. Are chatrooms and virtual environments suitable for business communication? Is email increasingly a channel for work-related, formal communication and thus "for old people", as especially young Internet users flock to Social Networking Sites (SNSs)? Cornelius Puschmann examines the linguistic and rhetorical properties of the weblog, another relatively young genre of CMC, to determine its function in private and professional (business) communication. He approaches the question of what functions blogs realize for authors and readers and argues that corporate blogs, which, like blogs by private individuals, are a highly diverse in terms of their form, function and intended audience, essentially mimic key characteristics of private blogs in order to appear open, non-persuasive and personal, all essential qualities for companies that wish to make a positive impression on their constituents.Digital technology is increasingly impacting how we keep informed, how we communicate professionally and privately, and how we initiate and maintain relationships with others. The function and meaning of new forms of computer-mediated communication (CMC) is not always clear to users on the onset and must be negotiated by communities, institutions and individuals alike. Are chatrooms and virtual environments suitable for business communication? Is email increasingly a channel for work-related, formal communication and thus "for old people", as especially young Internet users flock to Social Networking Sites (SNSs)? Cornelius Puschmann examines the linguistic and rhetorical properties of the weblog, another relatively young genre of CMC, to determine its function in private and professional (business) communication. He approaches the question of what functions blogs realize for authors and readers and argues that corporate blogs, which, like blogs by private individuals, are a highly diverse in terms of their form, function and intended audience, essentially mimic key characteristics of private blogs in order to appear open, non-persuasive and personal, all essential qualities for companies that wish to make a positive impression on their constituents

Influencing Public Policy in the Digital Age: The Law of Online Lobbying and Election-Related Activities

Examines what is permissible for 501(c)(3)s, 501(c)(4)s, and 527s in using social media, blogs, e-mail lists, Web sites, social networking sites, and other communication technologies under laws that govern advocacy and political activity by nonprofits