The Dialogic Potential of Social Media: Assessing the Ethical Reasoning of Companies’ Public Relations on Facebook and Twitter
... The dialogic approach indicates caring and human flourishing as it facilitates a negotiated exchange of ideas and opinions (Kent & Taylor, 1998) and "ethical give-andtake" between organizations and publics (Lee et al., 2014, p. 157). Many studies found that social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter offer various interactive tools that can enhance dialogues with stakeholders and humanize organizations by building relationships with organizations at a personal level (Lee et al., 2014;Men & Tsai, 2012;. Dong and Morehouse (2022) interviewed local government communicators and proposed a care-based relationship cultivation model that explicitly theorizes care as a moral significance for organization-public relationships (Browning & Yang, 2022). ...
... In particular, the competence aspect of care is associated with both behavioral and emotional engagement with publics in both countries. Demonstrating competence is a way to show companies' CSR commitment, which helps reassure publics and minimize uncertainties in a pandemic situation (Lee et al., 2014). Showing commitment and achievement by demonstrating organizations' competency might also raise public morale and confidence in dealing with COVID. ...
The COVID-19 pandemic catalyzes new opportunities for CSR development, and companies in both China and the US, the two largest economies severely impacted by the pandemic, are seeking innovative ways to engage with publics on social media through CSR communication. This study draws on the care ethics theory to examine different manifestations of care values in corporations’ CSR messages and their relationships with publics’ behavioral and emotional engagement on social media. A quantitative content analysis of Weibo and Twitter posts from Fortune 500 companies in China (n = 30) and the United States (n = 30), respectively, revealed that companies in both countries employ multifaceted care-based CSR messages, but in distinct ways and with varying types and levels of public engagement on social media. We interpreted the differences from institutional, cultural, and relational perspectives. The results of this research add to theorizing CSR communication from a feminist ethical viewpoint and with contextualized interpretations. Our findings also guide post-pandemic CSR communication development, particularly relevant to public relations practitioners in the Chinese and US markets.
... To answer RQ1, the mobile food truck owners in this study used Twitter to communicate about their trucks' locations and schedules, or the mobile food truck's presence. Some mobile food trucks re-tweet patrons' messages and photos, but little was done to encourage two-way communication through social media, which is consistent with other research (Lee, Gil de Zúñiga, Coleman, & Johnson, 2014;Linvill et al., 2012;Sauers & Richardson 2015;Waters, Burnett, Lamm, & Lucas, 2009). Very few conversation starters or questions posed to the followers elicited responses from viewers of the tweets, consistent with Maben, Hodges, & Goen, in press. ...
The purpose of this study is to discover the interactions between mobile food truck operators and their external/internal audiences via Twitter. Researchers examined the tweets (n=483) that emerged from patrons and owners of seven food trucks within a metropolitan food park within a onemonth period. A content analysis of Twitter feeds for multiple trucks provided a glimpse into one social media channel and that communication among mobile food truck operators and their external groups (loyal customers and potential customers). Results indicate tweets fell into three categories of basic Twitter-based communication, truck presence, and marketing and public relations. Tweets created social presence by linking the digital food truck to the physical truck. Messages were one-way in nature, and geared more toward marketing and less toward engaging customers and creating a community.
The current study aims at exploring and analyzing the content presented on the electronic platforms of the Egyptian universities, including the official website, social networking pages to identify the dialogic or one way approach adopted by these universities in managing their relationships with stakeholders. Cairo University represents governmental universities, Misr University for Science & Technology as a private one and Nile University as a non-profitable, non-governmental university. This analysis can clarify to what extent these universities depend uses the dialogic principles for managing relationships with their publics on its electronic platforms. Findings of qualitative content analysis indicate that all three universities give more attention to usefulness of information and ease of interface than conservation of users, generation of return visits and activating dialogic feedback. Generally speaking Nile University is better than the two other universities in applying the dialogic principles on its electronic platforms. Abstract The current study aims at exploring and analyzing the content presented on the electronic platforms of the Egyptian universities, including the official website, social networking pages to identify the dialogic or one way approach adopted by these universities in managing their relationships with stakeholders. Cairo University represents governmental universities, Misr University for Science & Technology as a private one and Nile University as a non-profitable, non-governmental university. This analysis can clarify to what extent these universities depend uses the dialogic principles for managing relationships with their publics on its electronic platforms. Findings of qualitative content analysis indicate that all three universities give more attention to usefulness of information and ease of interface than conservation of users, generation of return visits and activating dialogic feedback. Generally speaking Nile University is better than the two other universities in applying the dialogic principles on its electronic platforms.
At its core, fundraising is relationship building. Therefore, ethical fundraising requires cultivating genuine, care‐based relationships between various stakeholders by considering relational goals and communicative practices. We advance an ethics of care‐oriented approach toward fundraising based in nurturing authentic relationships with multiple organizational stakeholders, including donors, employees, beneficiaries, and volunteers. Drawing upon ethics of care and stewardship scholarship based in public relations, the purpose of this article is to propose relational care in communication through dialogue as an ethical springboard of nonprofit fundraising.
Purpose
For companies that intend to respond to the modern conscious consumers' needs, a great competitive advantage is played on the ability to incorporate sustainability messages in marketing communications. The aim of this paper is to address this important priority in the web context, building a semantic algorithm that allows content managers to evaluate the quality of sustainability web contents for search engines, considering the current semantic web development.
Design/methodology/approach
Following the Design Science (DS) methodological approach, the study develops the algorithm as an artefact capable of solving a practical problem and improving the operation of content managerial process.
Findings
The algorithm considers multiple factors of evaluation, grouped in three parameters: completeness, clarity and consistency. An applicability test of the algorithm was conducted on a sample of web pages of the Google blog on sustainability to highlight the correspondence between the established evaluation factors and those actually used by Google.
Practical implications
Studying content marketing for sustainability communication constitutes a new field of research that offers exciting opportunities. Writing sustainability contents in an effective way is a fundamental step to trigger stakeholder engagement mechanisms online. It could be a positive social engineering technique in the hands of marketers to make web users able to pursue sustainable development in their choices.
Originality/value
This is the first study that creates a theoretical connection between digital content marketing and sustainability communication focussing, especially, on the aspects of search engine optimization (SEO). The algorithm of “Sustainability-contents SEO” is the first operational software tool, with a regulatory nature, that is able to analyse the web contents, detecting the terms of the sustainability language and measuring the compliance to SEO requirements.
Dünya genelinde insanları etkileyen Covid-19 Salgını bireyin, toplumun doğru bir şekilde bilgilendirilmesi ve
yönlendirilmesi açısından iletişimin öneminin daha net bir şekilde anlaşıldığı dönem olarak devam etmektedir. Küresel
düzeyde kamusal bir sorun olan Covid-19 Salgını’na yönelik farkındalığın oluşturulması, tutumların değiştirilmesi, doğru
bilgi akışının sağlanması gibi insan sağlığını doğrudan etkileyen konularda diyalojik iletişime olanak tanıyan kurumsal web
sitelerine ihtiyacın arttığı görülmektedir. Bu çerçeveden hareketle çalışmada Covid-19 Salgın Dönemi’nde en yüksek genel
vaka istatistiğine sahip ilk 50 ülkenin Sağlık Bakanlıklarına ait Web sayfaları Kent ve Taylor’ın diyalojik iletişim kriterleri
çerçevesinde karşılaştırmalı olarak içerik analizine tabi tutulmuş; bu analizle örneklem olarak seçilen ülkelerin Sağlık
Bakanlıkları-web sitelerinin diyalojik iletişim düzeyleri belirlenerek diyalogun ne oranda ve nasıl gerçekleştiği ortaya
konulmaya çalışılmıştır. Araştırma sonucunda, Sağlık Bakanlıklarına ait web sitelerinin büyük bir bölümünde; anket, canlı
destek ve soru-cevap uygulamasına imkân tanıyan özelliklerin yer almadığı dolayısıyla web sitelerinin diyalojik döngü ve
yeniden ziyareti sağlama açısından yeterli düzeyde olmadıkları saptanmış, bu eksikliklerin giderilmesiyle diyalojik iletişim
için daha uygun bir ortamın oluşacağı sonucuna ulaşılmıştır.
This study conducted the first empirical testing of Baker and Martinson's (2001) TARES test of ethical consideration factors for public relations practitioners. The TARES test is composed of 5 interconnected parts: truthfulness of the message, authenticity of the persuader, respect for the persuadee, equity of the appeal, and social responsibility for the common good. Results of an online exploratory survey indicate that the TARES test is better suited for a 3-factor configuration based on Day's (2003) definition of moral knowledge and that ethical consideration levels differ based on age, education, gender, and political ideology.
In this study the author argues that public relations practitioners must not ignore the public interest even though the term has been the subject of vigorous debate within both academic and professional circles. The author maintains—not-withstanding the controversy—that the public interest is intrinsic to the very definition of what it is public relations people do. He suggests the solution to the definitional problem rests in first formulating an abstract (general) definition, then moving to the operational level.