Guest editorial

Citation

Xu, J. (2015), "Guest editorial", Journal of Communication Management, Vol. 19 No. 3. https://doi.org/10.1108/JCOM-06-2015-0044

Guest editorial

Article Type: Guest editorial From: Journal of Communication Management, Volume 19, Issue 3.

Exploring the role of social media in public relations: an introduction to Journal of Communication Management>’s (JOCM’s) latest issue

Like with other communication fields, the internet has significantly influenced public relations practices since its introduction in the mid-1990s, and as such, the number of research studies examining internet-related public relations has been steadily growing. In particular, scholars have made concerted efforts to investigate the role of social media sites (SMSs) in public relations. As we reflect on the literature, the latest issue of JOCM contains a series of empirical papers – using content analysis, survey, interview, and experimental design – that capture just a taste of cutting edge thinking and research in the domain of social media and public relations. We hope that in reading this volume, researchers will not only gain a greater appreciation for the richness of this rapidly growing field, but also will be inspired to undertake their own investigations that will meaningfully advance this line of scholarly inquiry.

Tao and Wilson, in their work, “Fortune 1000 communication strategies on Facebook and Twitter,” examine the content-based communication strategies used by Fortune 1000 corporations on Facebook and Twitter. They find that corporations implement consistent strategies across Facebook and Twitter, predominantly communicating corporate ability and corporate social responsibility. In addition, there is no evidence of hybrid strategy on either platform. This study extends the current scholarship on corporate public relations practice and serves as a step stone for future work examining multiple SMSs.

This line of inquiry is also captured in Kim, Park, and Im’s study, “Relationship maintenance strategies on the Facebook pages of current US Senators,” though this time in the political context. The content analysis of Facebook pages of current 99 US senators in the US 112th Congress reveal that among the six relationship maintenance strategies, senators’ official web sites often enact positivity and openness, while lacking access and assurance. This research encourages a broader lens through which to consider relationship theory, and offers unique insights to advance the theory in public relations.

As we shift to the third empirical piece, Porter, Anderson, and Nhotsavang, in their article “Anti-social media: executive Twitter ‘engagement’ and attitudes about media credibility,” offers a two-study design on business leaders’ use and perceptions of Twitter. A content analysis reveals that senior executives using Twitter frequently engage in one-sided conversations using disproportionately more formal language. A survey shows that compared to personal contact and traditional media, senior executives hold less confidence in Twitter’s value and credibility. Integrating the current literature and empirical evidence, the authors posit a number of underlying challenges in realizing the potential of the evolving social media environment. They also propose a starting-point for theory development regarding this significant emerging area of communication.

In a relevant context, Ruehl and Ingenhoff’s paper “Communication management on social networking sites: stakeholder motives and usage types of corporate Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube pages,” investigate the motives of politicians and digital natives in Switzerland for using company profile pages on social media applications by conducting semi-structured interviews. They conclude that social media management in corporations represents an intersection of communication management with other different business areas. This paper is particularly interesting for both its emphasis on stake holders’ perspective, and its integration of social cognitive theory and uses and gratification theory.

Walden, Bortree, and DiStaso, in their work “This blog brought to you by … Exploring blogger perceptions of a product endorsement policy and reviews,” bring us to the domain of organization-blogger relationship (OBR) through the lens of a disclosure policy. Extending the transparency literature and relationship management, an online survey of technology bloggers reveals concerns among bloggers about efforts to persuade them and what they should disclose. The study demonstrates the effects of review behaviors on OBR and offers an organic explanation of how this relationship evolves. This research is particularly appealing for its unique consideration of OBR from a policy perspective.

And finally, Xu and Wu, in their study, “Using Twitter in crisis management for organizations bearing different country-of-origin perceptions,” employ an experiment to extrapolate the effects of social media and country-of-origin on stake holders’ crisis appraisal. The findings suggest that using Twitter substantially mitigates stake holders’ negative evaluation of the organization undergoing a crisis. The organization’s less favorable home country image exacerbates the negative management outcomes during a crisis. This study is one of the few of its kind in international public relations research based on laboratory experiments, the use of a non-student sample demographically resembling the national profile of Twitter users in the USA also enhances the ecological validity of their findings.

These papers by no means capture the full array of interesting work being conducted on social media in public relations. They simply include works that represent a small sampling of the exciting directions this line of research is taking. Internet-related public relations research is still in its growth stage as more new media sites continue to emerge and evolve, we have only begun to explore the myriad of ways in which social media may be impactful in public relations practice. There has been no better intellectual climate in which to extend our research than the one that currently exists. We hope that this volume serves to inspire public relations scholars to expand their efforts to examine how social media – from whatever perspective – might affect the processes and management outcomes of public relations in ways that continue to be theoretically sound, methodologically rigorous, and practically insightful.

Dr Jie Xu

Department of Communication, Villanova University, Villanova, Pennsylvania, USA