Activist practitioner perspectives of website public relations: Why aren’t activist websites fulfilling the dialogic promise?

Kent and Taylor proposed five dialogic principles for mediated public relations in 1998 and numerous studies of activist groups, corporations, and educational institutions have shown that most websites fail to meet their dialogic potential. This study explores some of the reasons why activist organizations do not integrate dialogic features into their websites. Thirteen activist public relations practitioners were interviewed to determine their perceptions of websites as tools for information dissemination and resource mobilization. Three consistent themes emerged from the interviews: (1) website communication is perceived to be most effective when tied to issue-specific events and issue currency, (2) websites cater to existing and highly involved publics, and (3) websites are viewed as passive communication tools that must be supplemented with traditional public relations practices.     

A systematic analysis of research applying ‘principles of dialogic communication’ to organizational websites,blogs, and social media: Implications for theory and practice

The purpose of this study was to analyze peer-reviewed research that applied principles of dialogic communication to organizational websites, blogs, and social media. We identified 79 relevant studies and found that 83% reported the results of a content analysis. Only 25% of studies presented a theoretical implication; 75% discussed practical implications. Future research must distinguish between analyzing structural features of web-based organizational communication and studying dialogue. Differences in power and access to resources between organizations and publics should be incorporated into studies seeking to advance a dialogic theory of public relations.     

How activist organizations are using the Internet to build relationships

This study examines the mediated communication of activist organizations to understand how these groups use their Web sites to build relationships with publics. A study of one hundred environmental organization Web sites identified common features and examined the incorporation of dialogic communication into this new medium. The data suggest that while most activist organizations meet the technical and design aspects required for dialogic relationship building on the Web, they are not yet fully engaging their publics in two-way communication. Moreover, it appears that the activist organizations are better prepared to address the needs of member publics rather than media needs.     

The relationship between Web site design and organizational responsiveness to stakeholders

The Internet and World Wide Web are emerging as important public relations tools for both profit and non-profit organizations. Little evidence exists, however, about the extent to which new technologies help organizations build relationships with publics. This article examines the relationship between Web site design and organizational responsiveness to stakeholder information needs. Two organizational types with differing levels of resource dependency (general environmental activist and watchdog groups) are examined. Our analysis assesses each organizational type’s general dialogic capacity as well as the responsiveness of the organizations to requests for information.     

Building communities: The postmodern CSR practitioner as a dialectical activist-agent in India

This study examined the conceptualization of the postmodern public relations practitioner as an organizational activist who contributes to democratic processes in the context of community relations and corporate social responsibility (CSR) in India. Elite, in-depth conversations with 19 senior executives at 16 companies in India well known for their CSR initiatives revealed that practitioners appeared to be both organizational activists and agents. As organizational activists, they acknowledged the existence of diverse voices in local communities, interjected these voices into management discourse, situated decision-making in local contexts, identified tensors in the relationship between the corporation and its publics, and negotiated new meanings through dissensus. Paradoxically, as organizational agents, they used these participatory, open processes of dialogic communication to shape public opinion in favour of the organization, feeding modern organizations’ proclivity for consensus. While the findings of the study support the postmodern conceptualization of the public relations practitioner as an organizational activist in the context of CSR and community relations, the agent aspect of the activist-agent dialectic problematizes and complicates this conceptualization thus enhancing understandings of the postmodern practitioner who enacts CSR within a modernist framework and navigates the intricacies of the activist-agent dialectic in their daily performance of building community relations and enabling democratic processes.     

Activist online resource mobilization: Relationship building features that fulfill resource dependencies

This study examined activist group websites (N = 300) to determine how activists are engaging in resource mobilization online and provides a benchmark for current mobilization practices by activists. Website features asking visitors to donate, join the organization, and links to other activist groups were most common on the sites. The study positions resource mobilization in terms of online relationships and organizational linkages, argues that resource dependencies drive mobilization efforts and that resource-based relationships with publics may be established in the mobilization process.     

Developing a multi-level organization-public dialogic communication framework to assess social media-mediated disaster communication and engagement outcomes

Dialogic communication has long been viewed as vital for effective organization-public relations. Yet, it is under-theorized whether and how organizations’ disaster communication messages may embody dialogic communication principles, and how various dialogic features are associated with different public engagement outcomes on social media. Extending the Organization-Public Dialogic Communication (OPDC) framework to the context of social media-mediated disaster communication, we propose a multi-level framework to assess the dialogic capacity of Facebook messages sent by disaster management organizations during a natural disaster. Three levels of dialogic communication characteristics (i.e., message structure-level, topic-level, and linguistic level) are examined using content analysis and Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC). Results identified media richness, correcting, and confirming topics as three consistent predictors of public engagement of all types. Meanwhile, there exhibit greater variations regarding how other topical features and linguistic characteristics are related to public’s cognitive, emotional, and behavioral engagement during a disaster.     

Engaging publics in the mobile era: A study of Chinese charitable foundations’ use of WeChat

WeChat, the most widely used social mobile application nowadays in China, marks the advent of a mobile communication age that has reshaped Chinese people’s lifestyles. Understanding Chinese nonprofits’ communication performance on WeChat is a nascent field of study that calls for public relations scholars’ attention and investigation. By observing the most transparent Chinese charitable foundations, this study conducted a quantitative content analysis to examine their use of WeChat for dialogic communication with publics. Particularly, this study examined the dialogic features employed on the official WeChat accounts of these foundations as well as the public engagement functions fulfilled by their WeChat posts. The findings indicate that the dialogic potential of WeChat has not been fully utilized by the Chinese foundations. The official accounts have been relatively successful in fulfilling the provision of useful information toward interested publics, but most of them still have not created a dialogic loop with their audience. The WeChat posts primarily act as information sources but also perform the salient function of calling upon actions. In addition, certain communication strategies were identified in the posts to attract audience attention and to promote organizational activities, such as the incorporation of multimedia content and popular online events.     

The dialogic potential of weblogs in relationship building

A gap exists between the relationship-building potential of traditional Web sites, the objectives of public relations practitioners, and the actual design of organizational Web sites. This study extends the investigation of online relationship building through a content analysis of 50 environmental weblogs. A comparison of weblogs to traditional Web sites suggests that weblogs incorporate dialogic communication principles to a greater degree than traditional Web sites, potentially making them better suited for online relationship building.     

Experimenting with dialogue on Twitter: An examination of the influence of the dialogic principles on engagement,interaction, and attitude

Much of the public relations research on online relationship building has examined social media content for the use of the dialogic principles outlined by Kent and Taylor (1998). These studies, using content analysis as the primary methodology, have found that the dialogic capabilities of social media are under-utilized. However, there is limited research on the effectiveness of these methods. Therefore, the goal of this study is to examine the influence of social media content utilizing these principles on engagement, interactivity, and attitude. Results of this study indicate that usefulness of information can have a significant influence on engagement and attitude.     

What do Stakeholders Like on Facebook? Examining Public Reactions to Nonprofit Organizations’ Informational,Promotional, and Community-Building Messages

Although public relations scholarship has often discussed the possibilities of dialogue and engagement using social media, research has not truly explored this dynamic. Instead, research on social media platforms has focused on measuring the content and structure of organizational profiles. This study seeks to enhance the field's discussion about social media engagement by determining what organizational content individual stakeholders prefer on Facebook in terms of liking, commenting, and sharing. A content analysis of 1,000 updates from organizations on the Nonprofit Times 100 list indicates that, based on what they comment on and like, individuals prefer dialogic, as well as certain forms of mobilizational, messages; however, they are more likely to share one-way informational messages with their own networks. These findings are interpreted using practical and theoretical implications for the practice of public relations.     

Exploring dialogic strategies in social media for fostering citizens’ interactions with Latin American local governments

Although the benefits of social media for enhancing citizens’ interactions with their local governments are well known in a more global context, few studies have focused on Latin America, or on the MERCOSUR countries in particular. This paper examines the use of dialogic strategies in the social media activities of local governments in MERCOSUR countries in order to generate citizens’ online engagement. Analysis of this question enhances our understanding of the use of social media by local governments in less developed countries and highlights the need for empirical evidence on the use of dialogic communication theory regarding stakeholder engagement with social media. The findings obtained reflect the positive influence of dialogic strategies on citizens’ online engagement, particularly those based on dialogic loop, useful information and generation of return visits, aimed at fostering participation via social media.     

Social gains from the public relations voice of activist investors: The case of Herbalife and Pershing Square Capital Management

This article investigates the purpose, practice and outcome of the financial public relations (PR) of activist investors, which is framed as the exercise of the activist voice.The object of investigation is the organizational discourse of the activist hedge fund Pershing Square Capital Management during an investment position it took in the health products firm, Herbalife, from 2012 onwards. Pershing Square spent $50 million dollars (USD) on investigations and campaigning and this public relations output was interpreted using a combination of organizational discourse analysis and narrative analysis.Pershing Square delivered a social gain, when the regulator intervened to levy a fine to redress the losses of Herbalife distributors and ordered the company to change its business practices. With this change in governance, Pershing Square achieved the type of social gain normally associated with social activism or corporate social responsibility.The case suggests that the economically-derived exit-voice-loyalty continuum is a useful theoretical frame for considering social gains arising from the public relations of activist investors. Moreover, the findings suggest potential for future work considering public relations as a process that enables, enhances and enacts the vocalization of economic, social and political interests.     

Moving forward the dialogic theory of public relations: Concepts,methods and applications of organization-public dialogue

Advanced information and communication technologies and social media (Web 2.0) have significantly shaped every aspect of contemporary society since Kent and Taylor’s (1998) proposal of dialogic principles, which later evolved into dialogic theory of public relations. It is now time to move the theory forward. The special section aims to advance the dialogic theory of public relations by reviewing the scholarship in organization-public dialogue to pinpoint critical issues for its development and introducing studies that take the dialogue approach to examine a range of public relations practices in China. In this introduction, we first identify critical issues to be addressed for the development of the dialogic theory of public relations and then introduce the articles included in the section. We conclude by proposing research directions for the theoretical and practical development of the dialogic approach to public relations.     

How to be heard on microblogs? Nonprofit organizations' follower networks and post features for information diffusion in China

This study tackles the gap in public relations research on what drives users of microblogs in China to follow nonprofit organization (NPO) accounts and share (retweet) their posts, from a multidimensional perspective of the NPO, the microblog audience, and the post features. Using a content analysis of Sina Weibo data of 95 NPO accounts, results suggested that an NPO's status on Weibo is a significant predictor of its follower number. Follower numbers and activeness directly affected the NPO's number of retweets. Informative posts and posts that fulfill multiple gratifications were found to be more sharable than other post types. In addition, a post's originality, media richness, inclusion of opinion leaders, and endorsement by influential users all contributed to its level of circulation. This knowledge is essential for NPOs to spread information and build online communities that facilitate dialogic engagement and quality organization–public relationships with their stakeholders on social media in China's context.     

Examining the effects of internal social media usage on employee engagement

This study explores whether and how internal social media influences employee engagement, a top priority for those working in public relations. Specifically, it proposes and tests a conceptual model that links employee use of internal social media, perceived organizational transparency, and organizational identification, to employee engagement. Through an online survey of 1150 employees from various organizations in the United States that had adopted internal social media, results show that employees’ use of internal social media contributes to an enhanced level of perceived transparency of the organization and organizational identification, which in turn, leads to employee engagement. Theoretical and practical implications of the findings are discussed.     

Implicit frames of CSR: The interplay between the news media,organizational PR,and the public

This study focuses on the implicit framing of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) in the interplay between the news media, organizational public relations (PR), and the public. The aim of the study is to investigate the multidirectional causal relationships between these three domains in terms of the use of implicit frames. An automated content analysis of Dutch newspaper articles and organizational press releases is employed. In addition, Google Trends data is examined in order to determine implicit frames of CSR among the public. Monthly level Vector Autoregression (VAR) analyses show different effects across frames. Overall, in line with our expectations, results show positive effects of the news media on the public and of organizational PR on the news media. Moreover, contrary to expectations, we found a negative effect of the public on the news media and mixed results with regard to the effect of the public on organizational PR. Investigating the multidirectional relationships between the news media, organizational PR, and the public provides insights into how they – as a domain – affect and get affected by each other in their communications.     

The communicative power of nonprofit actions and values: A pilot study of dialogic stewardship

The following study seeks to expand and advance stewardship theory in public relations by incorporating tenets of dialogic and contingency theories to propose dialogic stewardship. Given fundraising trends and a theoretical shift in public relations to reconsider relational outcomes beyond organizational performance, the study re-centers stewardship on donor preferences and highlights the need to co-create stewardship strategies with donors to nonprofit organizations. After defining dialogic stewardship and how it helps to address “negative spaces” in donor-nonprofit relationships, the study puts forth a measurement model incorporating donor perspectives by using quantitative scale development processes. Analysis suggests dialogic stewardship consists of five dimensions: Reporting on Responsibility, Strategic Recognition, Organizational Values, Financial Management, and Engagement. The conclusion explains how these dimensions build public relations theory by deliberately bringing stewardship and dialogue together.