How climate change organizations utilize websites for public relations

This study is designed to examine climate change organizations (CCO)’s online public relations. It analyzes CCOs’ communicative efforts to build and maintain relationships with key stakeholders including media, donors, volunteers, and communities by using their websites and social networks. To accomplish this, a content analysis of 60 CCO websites was conducted. The result indicates that CCOs utilize websites primarily for media relations and fund raising purposes. The function of building and maintaining relationships with communities, current donors/volunteers was not actively utilized on CCOs’ websites. The interactivity of communication with stakeholders was somewhat limited in CCO's online communication activities.     

How European PR practitioners handle digital and social media

The European Communication Monitor (ECM) 2010 showed that digital communication and social media have grown in importance in the media mix of European organizations. Both new media types are positively correlated to the perceived impact of public relations (PR) in the organization. Specifically social networks and online videos are considered the most important social media tools. Also European practitioners expect that the content of communication will become more important as and when the use of social media further increases. The consequence that everyone within the organization is able to spread information is perceived as the most problematic aspect of social media. A potential problem is that only about one third of the European organizations have implemented social media policies with communication consultancies leading the way. Communication consultants consider social media significantly more important than practitioners working in organizations.     

Government websites and social media's influence on government-public relationships

Recent years have witnessed the increasing use of online media, such as websites, blogs, and social networking sites, by the government for various public relations purposes. These government communication channels are often regarded to promote democratic values and public trust in government by helping the government provide the public with information and respond to citizen inquires. Further, such channels help the public provide the government with feedback. This study questions whether individuals’ experience with government websites and social media do, in fact, influence their perception of the government-public relationship (represented by public trust in government). The results, which are based on a nationwide survey of more than 2000 American citizens, showed support for a positive relationship between this online experience and public trust in government. In particular, experiences with informational online services and social media were associated with greater trust in government at the local and state levels, while those with transactional online services conveyed greater trust in the federal government. However, successful experience with the channels was more important than the experience itself, and an unsuccessful experience could even backfire in terms of trust in government.     

The impact of newsroom changes and the rise of social media on the practice of media relations

Recent changes in American media have resulted in direct impacts on the work of PR professionals, from newsroom reductions in traditional media outlets to the rise of social media. This study examines changes in the media relations dynamic with qualitative, in-depth interviews from 12 PR professionals in a medium, eastern U.S. city. Findings include PR professionals doing less traditional media relations, mostly attributable to downsized newsrooms, and frustration with the resulting dearth of institutional knowledge, influx of young, inexperienced reporters, and shallow stories. While participants see opportunities to inject unfiltered messages in media, overall they value reporter relationships and using social media in communication with them and in their job. Although new media are seen as one more task on an already very full PR plate, participants acknowledge their importance and growing relevance. Overall, PR professionals see their and the industry's future including both traditional and new media.     

Nationalist competition on the internet: Uyghur diaspora versus the Chinese state media

This article explores the evolving relationship between nationalism and identity formation as it is now facilitated on the internet. Particularly, it examines the implications of nationalist competition between the Uyghur diaspora online community and Chinese state media. Since the onset of the Information Age, each party has sought to influence international perception of the Uyghur people and their traditional homeland Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) by promoting English language representations of Uyghurs and Xinjiang on the internet. Further, this study looks at the question of how each party's engagement in this online nationalist competition affects either positively or negatively its own agenda. The question is investigated through comparative textual analysis of Uyghur diaspora and Chinese state media websites and an interview with a Uyghur diaspora website administrator.     

Public relations and customer service: Employer perspectives of social media proficiency

Social media has enhanced integration between marketing and public relations. As such, public relations professionals have had to adapt and grow their knowledge and skillsets to stay relevant and current throughout the evolution of the digital landscape (Gesualdi, 2019). One of the growing areas of focus for public relations professionals has been customer service skills online. This specialization, often referred to as social care or social customer service, has been promoted and discussed heavily in industry circles and publications, but not in academic research. This study focuses on the survey results from 396 employers exploring the social media skills they most prefer university graduates to possess when entering the workforce. The results indicate that public relations and customer service are the social media skills most sought after by employers of university graduates ahead of proficiency in areas such as social media content production, strategy development and analytics. The potential implications of these findings to the public relations profession are examined and future research is also discussed.     

Closing the gap: gender parity in political engagement on social media

Historically, major gender differences exist in both political engagement and online content creation. Expanding on these literatures, this study considers the extent to which men and women engage in politics specifically in social media. Novel survey data are employed to test for any gendered differences in encountering and responding to political content via social media. Despite measuring a robust set of political behaviors within social media, few gender differences emerge. Where differences do emerge, they are most likely among the most visible political behaviors, suggesting that women may strategically engage in less visible or less-likely-to-offend political behaviors, as compared to men. This poses important questions regarding political participation, representation, and gender.     

Presenting professorship on social media: from content and strategy to evaluation

Technology has helped to reform class dynamics and teacher-student relationships. Although the phenomenon of online presentation has drawn considerable scholarly attention, academics seem to have an incomplete understanding about their own presentations online, especially in using social media. Without a thorough examination of how academics present themselves on social media, our understanding of the online learning environment is limited. To fill this void, this study aims to explore the following: (1) the content that college professors provide and the strategy they employ to present it on social media; and (2) how the public evaluates professors based on the content and strategy presented on social media. This study utilizes two methods. First, it conducts a content analysis of 2,783 pieces of microblog posts from 142 full-time communication professors' microblog accounts. Second, it conducts an online experiment based on a between-subject factorial design of 2 (gender: male vs. female) X 3 (topic: personal vs. professional vs. half-personal-half-professional) X 2 (fans number: few vs. many) X 2 (title: junior lecturer vs. senior full professor). The results indicate that “what the microblogger says” has little effect on the respondents' evaluations; instead, the question of “who they are” carries much more weight. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.     

Frankenstein journalism

Confronted with circumstances altered by the Internet, professional working practices have the option to change or to stay the same. This paper looks at how newsworkers in the new form of digital newsrooms have adapted the old location- or topic-based ‘beat’ system; now that they are called upon to curate or aggregate news stories which arrive fully formed from legacy news websites or emerge from social media. Stories like these are often valued for their virality – that is, how far and fast they have already spread – and their power to attract clicks from readers. Today, a growing number of news websites aggregate or curate such stories as part of their own news offerings. Yet curating these stories bring challenges to journalists’ identities and work practices, which demands a response. Based on an ethnographic study of eight digital newsrooms, we report how newsworkers use journalistic rituals to legitimise these second-hand stories flowing into the newsroom. We observed the use of rituals of objectivity, multiple sourcing and comparison with other news outlets as mechanisms that newsworkers used to validate and justify their use of second-hand content.     

Social media use and democratic engagement: a comparative study of Hong Kong,Taiwan, and China

Recent studies in political communication have found a generally positive role of social media in democratic engagement. However, most research on youth’s social media use in relation to their political engagement has been conducted in the context of American and European democracies. This study fills a gap in the literature by examining the effects of the uses and structural features of social media on democratic engagement in three different Asian political systems: Taiwan (young liberal democracy); Hong Kong (partial democracy); and China (one-party state). The findings showed that sharing political information and connections with public actors consistently predicted offline participation (i.e., civic and political participation) and online participation (i.e., online political expression and online activism) in the three political systems. Although social media use for news, network size, and network structure did not consistently predict political outcomes, they played significant roles in influencing different engagement in the three political systems. The comparative approach used in this study helped to demonstrate the role of social media in the democratic engagement of youth in three places with similar cultures but different political contexts.     

Online news media in the Web 2.0 era: from boundary dissolution to journalistic transformation

This paper examines how online news media have changed as the Internet has moved from Web 1.0 to Web 2.0. Based on medium theory and boundary theory, online news media are conceptualized as being regulated by the “participatory open media code”. The code analysis attempts to examine the newly emerged form and structure of online news. In the new interactive media environment, it is found that online news media have changed significantly in the following areas: (1) the inclusion of user-generated content; (2) user participatory interactivity; (3)YouTubization; (4) instant reporting; (5) sharing and community networking; and (6) customization through new communication technologies. The trend of growing reader participation in social dialogue is apparent around the globe. The transformed online media have provided good platforms for citizen participation in news. Yet, there are still constraints against quality participation.     

Newsroom convergence models of China's Beijing Youth Daily and Denmark's Nordjyske

In the digital era, most media organizations are exploring their own models to introduce news convergence and to make it work and profitable. This paper makes a comparative analysis between two local/regional newspapers, China's Beijing Youth Daily (BYD) and Denmark's Nordjyske, on their newsroom convergence models. The author finds that BYD focuses on the newspaper-based model with a strategy of integrating the content of BYD and its subsidiary newspapers, and it promotes interactivity between newspapers and the web (internet and mobile phone). It maintains the traditional separate and cascade newsrooms with newspapers mainly supplying content to websites. By contrast, Nordjyske has applied a multimedia-based model implementing resource sharing, content sharing and cross-promotion via multiple platforms including TV, radio, print, and website. It uses matrix-organization in its newsrooms with reporters organized around news beats. At present, BYD is blocked by policy barriers that prohibit newspapers from running broadcasting services in China. When the market is further deregulated, there is possibility that BYD will follow Nordjyske's practice.     

Peer,social media,and alcohol marketing influences on college student drinking

Objective: To investigate how alcohol marketing and peers may promote college students' alcohol use through social media. Participants: College students (N = 682) aged 18 to 22 years from a large Southern university completed paper surveys in April 2014. Methods: Structural equation modeling was used to investigate relationships among variables as well as moderation by gender and race. Results: Drinking behavior was directly related to perceived norms and attitudes toward alcohol that develop, in part, from direct and indirect interactions with their online and offline peers, as well as engagement with alcohol-related content on social media. Gender and ethnicity moderated some effects. Conclusions: College student drinking is influenced by friends' alcohol-related content posted on social networking sites and by greater engagement with traditional and online alcohol marketing. College campus alcohol misuse interventions should include components to counter peer influences and alcohol marketing on social media.     

Online strategic communication: A cross-cultural analysis of U.S. and Chinese corporate websites

This study applied a cultural divergence approach to examine online marketing interactivity and corporate public image on corporate websites. It analyzed different online strategic communication of corporate websites from two different nations—the United States and China. Results indicated that U.S. corporations were more likely to highlight online marketing interactivity and social responsibility, which integrated marketing and public relations as their online communication strategy. Chinese corporations provided more online spaces for the consumer–consumer interactions and emphasized corporation-oriented information.     

How public relations agencies in Greece respond to digital trends

The present study investigates the extent to which PR agencies in Greece incorporate new media platforms in their clients' campaigns. Moreover, PR consultants’ views about the benefits associated with social media usage in PR are also assessed. Based on a sample of 81 PR agencies, results indicate that integration of digital media in the clients’ communication campaigns is widespread. Popular online tactics used by Greek PR agencies are related to social media platforms (e.g., Facebook), websites and viral campaigns. Moreover, executives of the Greek PR firms have acknowledged the new roles of digital media in practicing public relations for their clients, conducting research and managing effectively corporate reputation.     

Making the news: environmental NGOs and their media visibility in China

This study was conducted to examine the factors that affect the media visibility of environmental non-governmental organizations (ENGO) in China. Specifically, we examine the ways in which environmental advocacy and media use behaviors are related to the level of attention an ENGO receives from news media. Using data derived from a content analysis of 2158 media reports by 171 ENGOs across China and other sources, the results showed that ENGOs that have an official website and use Weibo garner more media attention than those who do not have a website or use Weibo. Most importantly, the results indicate differences between environmental activism and environmental consumerism in facilitating the media visibility of different types of ENGOs. Compared to government-organized ENGOs, grassroots ENGOs benefit more from participating in environmental consumerist advocacy and having an official website. The findings demonstrate the importance of using various strategies to increase organizational visibility in news media and highlighting the differences between using websites, Weibo, and WeChat in facilitating the media visibility of ENGOs in China.     

Adoption of social media for public relations by nonprofit organizations

This survey of nonprofit public relations practitioners (N = 409) applied the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT). Findings indicate that women consider social media to be beneficial, whereas men exhibit more confidence in actively utilizing social media. Organizations with specified public relations departments were more likely to adopt social media. Positive correlations between UTAUT factors and credibility indicated a greater likelihood to adopt social media.     

MASTERING THE ART OF SOCIAL MEDIA

Online communication has become a central part in the communication repertoires of political actors in Western mass democracies. In Switzerland, where broadband, internet use, and media literacy are amongst the highest in the world, all major political parties run their own website and are active on social media. This article seeks to show how Swiss political parties deal with social media, how they implement it and how they use social media. The study builds on empirical data from a structural analysis of party websites, the official Facebook sites, and Twitter feeds. These social media sites were analysed for their resonance, update frequency, and thematic clusters focusing on information, mobilization, and participation. A weekly assessment of the user numbers illustrates the development of user resonance throughout the 2011 election year. While political parties claim to appreciate the dialogue and mobilization potentials of social media, they mainly use social media as an additional channel to spread information and electoral propaganda. The overall resonance is still on a very low level. The data seem to sustain the normalization hypothesis, as larger parties with more resources and voters are better able to generate effective communication and to mobilize online than small and marginal parties.     

Linking government social media usage to public perceptions of government performance: an empirical study from China

Based on an online survey of 1042 Beijing residents, this study links the usage of government social media tools, including WeChat, microblogs, and apps, to public perceptions of the government’s performance. The results indicated that young people are more likely to use government microblogs. In contrast, an inverted U-shaped relationship was found between age and the utilization of government WeChat and apps. The findings also showed that people with high education, high economic status, and a local hukou were more likely to use all three government social media tools. In controlling for the demographic variables, the results showed that the most important predictor of the use of a government social media tool was the use of any other government social media tool. The general use of social media significantly influenced the use of government social media tools, whereas the direction of this influence depended on the homogeneity or heterogeneity of these behaviors. Moreover, the results revealed a linkage between government social media use and public perceptions of government performance. Functional use, especially information acquisition and participation, was a significant predictor of perceived government transparency, responsiveness, and citizen satisfaction, while the public service function significantly increased perceived government responsiveness.     

The discursive construction of gay teenagers in times of mediatization: youth's reflections on intimate storytelling,queer shame and realness in popular social media places

New media applications such as social networking sites are understood as important evolutions for queer youth. These media and communication technologies allow teenagers to transgress their everyday life places and connect with other queer teens. Moreover, social media websites could also be used for real political activism such as publicly sharing coming out videos on YouTube. Despite these increased opportunities for self-reflexive storytelling on digital media platforms, their everyday use and popularity also bring particular complexities in the everyday lives of young people. Talking to 51 youngsters between 13 and 19 years old in focus groups, this paper inquires how young audiences discursively constructed meanings on intimate storytelling practices such as interpreting intimate stories, reflecting on their own and other peers' intimate storytelling practices. Specifically focusing on how they relate to intimate storytelling practices of gay peers, this paper identified particular challenges for queer youth who transgress the heteronormative when being active on popular social media. The increasing mediatization of intimate youth cultures brings challenges for queer teenagers, which relate to authenticity, (self-) surveillance and fear of imagined audiences.