What do blog readers think? A survey to assess ghost blogging and commenting
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These slides accompany the study published in the Research Journal of The Institute for Public Relations: http://www.instituteforpr.org/blog-readers-think-survey-assess-ghost-blogging-commenting/ The study is authored by Yoon Cho, Tom Bivins and me.
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What do blog readers think? A survey to assess ghost blogging and commenting
- 1. What do blog readers think? A survey to assess ghost blogging and commenting TiffanyGallicano,Yoon Cho, andTom Bivins
- 2. Qualified Expectation of Reality Is the fictitious content immediately obvious? Can people identify that the content is fictitious based on the context? Is appropriate disclosure provided, so no one is fooled? Is the fiction irrelevant to the essence of the communication? Wheeler,T. H., & Gleason,T. (1994). AEJMC conference paper. Wheeler,T. H. (2002). Phototruth or photofiction? (book).
- 3. Method:Three Online Surveys 507 corporate blog readers 510 readers of politicians’ blogs 501 nonprofit blog readers Randomly sampled from a U.S. Census representative population by Qualtrics Response rate: 14%
- 4. Blogging: Is Deceit Occurring? I think it’s common for a [company] to have a blog that lists the [president or CEO] as the author, even though it’s really written by someone else. Percentages are approximate. 57%26% 17% Corporate 52% 28% 20% Politician Nonprofit 34% 39% 27%
- 5. Blogging: Is It Permissible? I think it’s okay if a [politician] is listed as the author of the blog, even though it’s really written by someone else – as long as the ideas come from the [politician] and he or she approves the message. Percentages are approximate. 40% 22% 38% Corporate 34% 22% 44 % Politician Nonprofit 35% 18% 47%
- 6. Commenting onTheir Own Blog: Com Is Deceit Occurring? I think it’s common for a [NP] to have a staff member write comments in reply to readers’ comments on the [ED or P]’s blog w/out a disclosure statement that is a staff member responding on behalf of the [ED or P]. Percentages are approximate. 64%21% 15% Corporate 65% 19% 16% Politician Nonprofit 53% 24% 23%
- 7. Commenting onTheir Own Blog: Is It Permissible? I think it’s okay if a [co. P or CEO] to have a staff member write comments on the [P or CEO]’s blog w/out a disclosure… as long as the ideas come from the [P or CEO] and he or she approves the message. Percentages are approximate. 40% 24% 36% Corporate 37% 24% 39% Politician Nonprofit 34% 22% 44%
- 8. Commenting on Others’ Blogs: Com Is Deceit Occurring? I think it’s common for a [politician] to have a staff m. write comments in reply to other people’s blogs w/out a disclosure statement that is a staff m. responding on behalf of the [P]. Percentages are approximate. 52% 28% 20% Corporate 51% 25% 24% Politician Nonprofit 44% 28% 28%
- 9. Commenting on Others’ Blogs: Is It Permissible? I think it’s okay for a [co. P or CEO] to have a staff m. write comments in reply to other people’s blogs w/out a disclosure… as long as the ideas come from the [P or CEO] and he or she approves the message. Percentages are approximate. 33% 23% 44% Corporate 28% 23% 49 % Politician Nonprofit 31% 19% 50%
- 10. RadicalTransparency A philosophy for doing business that refers to prioritizing transparency above all other competing values, with the exception of disclosing information that violates regulations or ethical principles. Gallicano,T. D., Brett, K., & Hopp,T. (2012). IPRRC conference paper.
Hinweis der Redaktion
- When you discuss ethics in your classes this year, one topic worth considering is ghostblogging. Ghost blogging refers to the practice of writing blog posts on behalf of someone else who is stated as the author. Under the best conditions, it’s like speechwriting in the sense that the content comes from the stated author and the stated author gives final approval. The easiest way to handle this ethical question is to use disclosure. However, preliminary research suggests that it is unusual for an executive blog to contain a disclosure statement about writing assistance. So it’s important to know whether our students should insist on disclosure when they are in the workplace. With this in mind, we examined the ethics of ghost blogging and ghost commenting and whether these practices were advisable for relationship building. Tom Bivins and I joined forces with grad student Yoon Cho, and we obtained funding from the Arthur Page Center and the University of Oregon’s SOJC to find out whether blog readers expect ghost blogging and whether they find the practice to be permissible. We used a framework that Wheeler and Gleason developed for the ethics of altering photographs and applied it to social media ethics. (next slide)
- This framework is a set of questions that public relations professionals can ask to determine the ethicality of some type of fiction. In the context of ghost blogging, the fiction is that the stated author is not the real author. If audiences think executive blogs are like executive speeches, then when we examine these two questions, we could interpret that the fiction is obvious and no deceit is occurring.
- 5-point Likert scale + agreed or strongly agreed = neutral - disagreed or strongly disagreed In the corporate and politician contexts, more than half understood and the percentage of people not expecting it was low, so we think we’re on pretty solid ground here to say that a reasonable person would expect it. In the nonprofit context, we do not think that the results are positive enough to ethically justify ghost blogging.
- Participants were more likely to expect ghost blogging than they were to find the practice permissible, even with the ideas for the content coming from the stated author and the stated author providing content approval. With disapproval at nearly 40% in the corporate group and in the mid-40s in the other two groups, this is a substantial enough number in our view to classify undisclosed organizational ghost blogging as a poor way to cultivate lasting relationships with readers in all contexts in our view. This is an important finding, considering that 71% of PRSA survey respondents expressed that this practice is permissible in a study I presented at IPRRC with Kevin Brett and Toby Hopp last March. We conclude that although ghost blogging is ethical, it’s not an effective practice for relationship building.
- Interestingly, respondents were more likely to expect that a busy executive or politician is going to delegate commenting rather than writing the blog. We believe that ghost commenting on the stated author’s blog is ethically justified in all three contexts based on these results.
- In our view, there is not enough approval in any of the contexts to justify ghost commenting as a long-term relationship strategy.
- We believe ghost commenting on other people’s blogs is ethically justifiable for all three contexts.
- Not surprisingly, we didn’t find support for the use of ghost commenting on others’ blogs as a long-term relationship strategy. When considering all of these results, given that most respondents expected ghost blogging and disapproved of it, it’s possible that a philosophy of radical transparency would offer a strategic advantage.
- If a blog is ghostwritten, having a disclosure statement to explain the process would be one form of radical transparency. Future research is needed to discover whether a blog with a disclosure statement could be more engaging than a blog without one by people who expect ghost blogging to occur.