Strengths and Weakness of Blogs in Public Relations

Michael Kent in his research paper “Critical analysis of blogging in public relations”(2008) argued that as PR researchers and PR persons, we should pay attention to how blogs can be used more effectively. He mentioned several advantages and disadvantages of PR blogs and concluded that PR blogs’ utility as public relations tool is currently limited and “Public relations professionals should not get trampled by the blogging stampede until scholars, researchers, and especially professionals actually understand them better”.

I truly agree with the strengths and weakness of PR blogs Kent mentioned in his research. Blogs can be a good tool for research, issue monitoring and environment canning. By checking what is discussed in recently PR blogs, we can infer the main topics in the PR area. And PR blogs are also excellent data gathering sites. By monitoring how individuals are interpreting and responding to organizational events and activities before such information reaches the mainstream media, public relations professionals can formulate better, and more effective responses. What’s more, PR blogs can be used as a persuasion tool to influence individuals and publics.

However, there is still weakness in PR blogs. First of all, there are quite a few organizational bloggers who are not adequately trained in public communication, or independently decide whether or not going public on an issue rather than consulting with organizational leaders. Actually this phenomenon also exists in other social media, such as twitter. In Weibo, there are lots of organizational accounts posting tweets which have quite bad influence on their corporate image. There is no doubt that this is the result of inadequate training of their Weibo account administrator. What’s more, the credibility of information from PR blogs is another big question. Actually, from my point of view, this is a problem for all social media.



resource:
Kent, M. L., 2008. Critical analysis of blogging in public relations. Public Relations Review, 34, 30-40. 

Weibo & Twitter I

Yesterday the presentation about macroblog was quite good and the class activity on TweetChat was funny. I do not use twitter very often and this was the first time I knew about TweetChat. But I often use Weibo—the Chinese version twitter and I’m quite sure there is a similar function in Weibo just like TweetChat. 

So this makes me wandering whether I can do a comparison between Twitter and Weibo, not that academic and serious, just from my using experiences. And I’m sure this comparison should be funny since Weibo is the copy of Twitter but also has some unique features which adapt to the requirements of Chinese users. I’m quite sure this comparison may take me several times and might be some kind of random. So I named this first post on the comparison “Weibo & Twitter I” since there should be the second one, the third one in the future.

OK, let’s back to the TweetChat. I checked my Weibo account after class and found there really is a function similar with TweetChat which named as WeiTopic. But there is not a particular website for this WeiTopic. We have to logon to the page from the Weibo homepage. The homepage of WeiTopic is like the picture below.

 

As you can see, there are lots of topics listed on the homepage and they have been classified into different types. Besides the topic you can see a small tag like “new” or ”hot” which identify it as a new topic or a hot topic. You can choose one topic as your favorite, click that topic and tweet on it. The topic tag will add to your tweet automatically. What’s more, you can create your own topic by just adding your topic name into the middle of “##”, such as “#My Favorite#”.

However, I also find a disadvantage in WeiTopic—I cannot find an easy way to search a topic since there is no search engine for WeiTopic like in TweetChat. As a result, there is no particular page for all the tweets on the particular topic like the discussion page showing all of our tweets on CPR590 in our class. So there might be an aspect Weibo need to inprove.

Credibility of News from Twitter

As you know, I have a Chinese version twitter-- weibo account and I use it very often to get the timely news which happens in China. And nowadays, I find that it is more and more difficult for me to distinguish whether the information which is disclosed from twitter is true or false. From my point of view, the credibility of information from weibo as well as other social media is a big problem which needs to be concerned carefully.

There are several reasons may cause the inaccuracy of information from weibo. First of all, the post person just wants to fake a breaking pseudo event and makes it spread widely so that his/her account could be famous. Besides, hackers may steal famous person's/organization's account and pretend ro be the famous person/organization himself/herself/itself to post fake news.

There is an example which happened in weibo last year. At that time, a Chinese famous actress broke her marriage and the reason for her divorce was a kind of mystery which most entertainment media wanted to know. Suddenly, a message was posted out from her ex-husband's weibo in which the man recognized the reason of their divorce was his betray and he claimed he had loved another actress. However, one day later, another message was posted from this weibo account and claimed the last post was wrote by a hacker who stole his account. Actually it is difficult to figure out whether the former message was sent by hacker or the ex-husband himself. Till now, we still don’t know the real reason for their divorce…

Another reason for the inaccuracy of information from weibo is that the post person himself/herself also don’t know the real condition. For example, the timeliness is very important for a reporter to post a message on weibo for breaking news. He may not get enough information to dig out the whole thing or check with different sources. Or he cannot write enough details with the 140 letters limit.

So, for us readers, we need to concern the information carefully before we retweet it.

Accuracy of Breaking News from Twitter

I just read an article wrote by Larry Atkins, a journalist and lawyer, taling about the accuracy of breaking news from twitter, facebook, and other social media. He argued from a view of journalist and mentioned that it is obvious that twitter has brought so much benefit to news consumers-- twitter allows consumers to follow the department of breaking news in real-time by a reporter on the scene. It also allows consumers feel more of a personal connection with the reporter.

But there is one big problem that consumers and media need to concern which is the accuracy of the breaking news from twitter as well as other social media since in breaking news stories, journalists have little time to check facts and verify sources. Atkins mentioned several big news from twitter which are proved not true later.

Actually canards also appear quite often in Chinese version twitter-- weibo. And they often spread quite fast. When so many people in weibo retweet one thing during a short period of time, it is difficult for you to distinguish it whether it is true or false. At most of time, you will regard it as true and retweet it to your friends and followers which makes more people see this fales news.

According to this problem, news consumers should be careful about relying on and trusting breaking news story reports. We need to verify the news through multiple sources before we retweet it to our followers.



resource:
Media and Consumers Must Be Careful in Relying on Twitter for Breaking News
by Larry Atkins
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/larry-atkins/twitter-reporting-pitfalls_b_914873.html

Press Release, Die?

In Chapter 7 of PR2.0, Deirdre Breakenridge talks about the social media release. At the beginning of this chapter, Breakenridge mentions there are three main schools of thoughts about the future way of the traditional news release.

According to Tom Foremski, there should be a drastic change in the traditional news release. He even wrote an article named "Die! Press Release! Die! Die! Die!" to argue that we need break down the traditional release to set up a better communication tool. Well, on the opposite side, some others think the traditional news release still has the value to spread news. It is not the right to change. Of course, there are some people holding the ideas between these two opposite sides: yes, it is the time for traditional news release to change, but this change is not that drastic argued by Foremski. And I am one of them.

From my point of view, the development of internet, especially the growth of Web2.0, gives a big challenge to the traditional news release which makes them have to change. The traditional news release has to find ways to adapt to the developing of social media for their surviving. But these changes should be manipulated step by step. It is a mild transfer from 1.0 to 2.0, not a drastic one.

Actually my undergraduate dissertation is about the new strategies for newspapers to survive in this new media circumstance. I think I’m lucky to have the chance to watch this epochal change.

resource:
PR2.0 New media, New tools, New audiences  by Deirdre Breakenridge, Chapter 7

Social Meida-- A Powerful Tool

Well, for this week, I still want to talk about the phenomenon that social media make mediocre individuals more powerful than before. And this time, I want to give some examples which happened in China.

As you know, there is very strict gatekeeping for the dissemination of  information in China, especially for the traditional media such as broadcasting, TV program, newspaper, magazine, and so on. And for the social media, there are also kinds of prohibitions. Facebook, Twitter, Google and some other social medias are forbidden in China and we have our own version facebook, twitter and google. Thanks to these Chinese version social media, we individuals have more voice than before and have more power to make decisions for our society.

About four monthes ago, there was a colleage student named Yao Jiaxin who was famous for his criual murder after knocking down a woman by car. At the very beginning, the court tried to free him from death because of his family background. But individuals who use Chinese twitter and facebook sponsored an activity to let the government know most of Chinese netizens think he should die for his intentional murder. And at the end, Yao was announced to death by the court under the pressure from social media. That's a kind of victory of mediocre individuals by using social media.

There are lots of other examples that happen in China which show the big power that social media bring to the public. And it seems that the public has been more and more poewerful by social media. Thanks to social media. Thanks to the meida revolution.

Reactions to Introduction Part of PR2.0

By reading the introduction part and Chapter 7 of our textbook PR2.0, I get some ideas.

In the introduction part, the author described the structure of PR2.0 and raise the question: are you ready to be 2.0 ready? He mentioned several social media and argued that the new PR toolkit maps out the different stages of accepting technologies. they are early adopters, early majority, late majority, and laggards.

The early adopters are people who do not want to take risks. Potential adopters look to early adopters for advice and information about the innovation. Because early adopters are not so far ahead of the average individual in  innovativeness, they serve as a role model for many other members of a social system.

This makes me remember the time I used Weibo in China about two years ago. At that time, Weibo just started in China as a Chinese version of twitter because of the forbiddance of twitter by Chinese Government. I was in my forth year of undergraduate and at that time one of my roommates interned in SINA company which is one of the biggest internet media companies in China. She worked for the promotion of Weibo and recommended me to use it. So I become one of early adopters for Weibo. Just as the theory says, I watched my roommate for more information and also I was watched by others who had the intention to use Weibo.

How time flies! It has been two years and Weibo has become one of the most important social media in China. What's more, it has become the tool I use most.



resource:
PR2.0 New media, New tools, New audiences  by Deirdre Breakenridge

New Way to News

These days twitter has become one of my most important tools to get news. Actually the time I use twitter is much more than the one I use facebook. And it is a kind of weird that I do not like to write twitters but I like to watch what other people are talking about. And I like follow other people but do not like to be followed.

It is seemed that I'm wasting the vital function of twitter-- making mediocre individuals more powerful in the world. Anyway, I just want to hide myself after the screen and watch what is happening all around the world. I know there are some people just like me--do not write anything, just follow others. This should be an interesting research topic about whether some people do not like to use the social media's inportant function to empower themselves. I think I may try this topic if I have the chance.

Since twitter and facebook is forbidden in China, I also has a Chinese version twitter( named Weibo) and a Chinese version facebook( named Renren) account. I use them a lot. I check my Weibo at least 3 times a day even though I'm super busy on that day. And it is quite interesting that the people I follow in Weibo are quite different from the people I follow in twitter. I would like to follow news orgnizations in twitter to get news timely while in Weibo I much more like to follow individuals who have the same interests in movies, songs, and animations with me. Maybe the culture backgroud is the most  important reason for this phenomenon.

Anyway, thans to twitter, as well as Weibo.

Web2.0-- Empowering Individual Comsumers

As it is said in "Your Web, Your Way", Web2.0 is quite different from its first coming. All about the Web2.0 is to empower individual comsumers. With the Web2.0, we are not only comsumers but also creators. Besides sharing other people's information, we can work on our own information with creativity which can bring us big business as well as power.

Social meida provide us so many tools to deal with informations, such as YouTube, Blog, Facebook, Twitter, etc. And these tools give us the opportunity to speak aloud to the whole world. So many persons have been known by the world just by using social media, such as Leila who makes public video diaries in YouTube, Megan Gill who uses Facebook to do social networking, Lee Kelley who writes a military blog, and so on. There is no doubt that the Web2.0 helps them increase their social influence.

Just like Lev Grossman said in the "You-- Yes, You-- Are TIME's Person of the year", Web2.0 will not only change the world, but also change the way the world changes. It is a revolution.

Of course, everything has two sides. The social media may also have some shortcomings. In "Enough About You" Brian Williams argued that the social media has developped a user-generated generation. They concerned themselves as the most important people in their lives and just pay attention to the informartion which they like. Brian Williams warned us if we pay too much attention to what we have already had, we may miss the next great challenge.



resources:
Your Web, Your Way
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1570815,00.html
Enough About You
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1570800,00.html
You--Yes, You-- Are TIME's Person of the Year
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1570810,00.html
Power to the People
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1570816-4,00.html