Blogs and communication Essay

unified communicateging is a recent method of communication in which employees of varied firms and corporations ar entirelyowed to express themselves in the reliable trend in media communications. Several studies conjure up that corporeal intercommunicates should be limited to only conveying of in spirtation beneficial for the confederacy or firm, and thus there is the engage to construct a strategic solicitude scheme for blogging. As a form of communication, blogs do-nothing certainly evolve into a more g all overnment agencyful means of communication.This situation entai direct in indite texts of blogs shall be nailn as a apparatus in comprehend more harvestive results of the business sector. correspond to Business Week Online issued in 2006, A meshworklog (or blog) nooky be a effective market placeing tool, but it digest excessively expose a business to a legal minefield as account by Jacqueline Klosek. Blogs can be employment to market a partys products and military operates, hasten communications with clients, and even counter b dropball publicity. (Klosek, 2006).From the look for, m any benefits of somatic blogging cause been free-base it is a tool for search engine marketing, an aide in twist the friendships reputation as a thought leader, a good throw in crisis management, tool for building relationships with customers, use as a human express to a community, illustrates transp arncy, immediate customer service and feedback, acts as antitheticaliator, and tool to break proscribed what natural(prenominal)s think nigh you and your company. Presently, corporations argon straightway much more concerned to the highest degree their reputations.The vigilant companies realize that knowledge is power in cyberspace. They be trolling rag rooms, discussion boards, online juveniles media and Web sites dismission by their competitors and critics to detect rumblings that could end up making headlines if a re porter or financial analyst discovers them first (Alsop 2004, 21). The solid groundly concern of cyberspace, wherein the transfer of randomness is comparatively sudden than it was ten years ago has unsloped engender a threat to the reputations of corporations which ar forced to enter cyberspace for more exposure.Corporate blogging is iodine dependable fair which corporations whitethorn pursue in rank to protect their reputations and cut of their costs in terms of crises scenarios which could gestate been avoided. Although, the nigh of the companies establish up collective blogs for the purpose of promoting their services, building their good image or gaining any other befits. There is however a limitation in blogging, since legal problems whitethorn arise in the process. C arless statements post on a company-sanctioned blog can come back to haunt the company through litigation and other avenues Klosek stresses.Blogs can cause violations on intellectual-property rights since some in unified blogs do not pose particularised rules that can be followed by the employees. avocation wind secrets may be revealed accidentally take a chanceing the protect status of company schooling. Disclosure of trade secrets can jeopardize the bloggers move since this problem may cause his severance or termination from his position. From legion(predicate) studies and articles compose ab come to the fore bodily blogs, the question has been raised on insufficient management. The integrity rules for security and management of blogs be expected to be established immediately.This inquiry proposal aims to catch that how does somatic blog as a kind of new design be widely adopted and use by the both of the individual blogger and disparate agreements? What argon the benefits of the bodily blogs bring to the organizations? How the public perceives bodied blogging as a kind of new innovation? What are the perceived relative advantages of corporate blog ging according to the bloggers? Why is it to be welcome and common as a boffo new innovation? Is corporate blogging compatible with the existing values and practices of the bloggers?1. 2 Overview of the Structure This proposal is structured into several(prenominal)(prenominal) sections. This section provides the audience with the motivations, objectives and a sketch introduction to the inquiry proposal. In the quest sections, it take ons the Literature revue concerning blogging phenomenon and the process of this successful innovation, the benefits and limitation allow be critically reviewed to provide a background for the research theme. In browse to that see to it real world practices, a metaphysical framework is introduced.In section 3, cognize as Diffusion of innovation supposition leave alone be applied in the analysis part. The DIO theory is withal used in combination with literature review to analyze and illuminate primary data, which will be used to answer the research question and the respective supporting the arguments. arm 4 describes the research methodology and various techniques which the author used to collate falsifiable data. In this section, the case research has been choosing to crossbreed and to a lower placestand the history of the perception and acceptance of blogs as a new innovation by the successful corporation in the business industry.An interview will excessively be carried bulge in the research process. The interview will help to find out the relationship betwixt the employer and knowledgeable blogger, and further testify, discover and summarize the private effects and benefits of the corporate blog as a new innovation. Finally, the discussion and the conclusion sections will be given to summarize of the aspect of findings, contributions, limitations of the research and crests in which the research could further be improved or developed. 2 Literature review 2. 1 judgment of blogsA weblog or blog is a form of an online journal. Schiano, Nardi, Gumbrecht, and Swartz (2004) defined blogs as a great deal updated web pages with a series of archived posts, typically in reverse chronological order. According to Gordon (2006), blogs use straightforward mental object management tool, allowing web pages and entries to be created and updated easily, without the choose to worry some design or architecture issues (Gordon, 2006). Although blog posts are primarily textual, authors may also include photos or other mul measuredia content in their posts.The blog is the fourth biggest communication tool after the e-mail, BBS and ICQ. According to Cooke (2005), about 70 million blogs exist and over 75,000 blogs are beingness created each day. Blogs is and then increasingly become popular. Sprague (2007) traced the growth and organic evolution of blogs. He also discussed how businesses use blogs to lead with customers. There are different kinds of blogs deport today at cyberspace. The most pop ular ones are personal blogs, service, and corporate blogs (Geerts and Kim 2005, 12). person-to-person Blogs provide information about the thoughts, interests and activities of different plurality whether they are individuals or are blogging by aggroups or affiliations. Service blogs are ofttimes brightenic oriented and they are context specific and much instructive than personal blogs. Some groups use service blogs to introduce new technologies and recent ontogeny regarding the corresponding technologies which they present. Finally, the corporate blog which is created and well-kept by a business entity, and is used to provide information about the companys products and services and to interact with clients and customers.(Geers and Kim 2005, 12). Since most scholars who work in the area of brio writing have chosen to see blogs as a development of the written diary (Rak 2005, 166) more and more people engage in writing in blogspots or blogsites. There are both threats and adva ntages which corporate blogging gives to the corporations. At several(prenominal) point, corporate blogging has strengthened the transparency and corporate communications. Since at present, Corporate communication channels include not only printed materials but also information posted on a companys Web sites and blogs (Argenti 2006, 358).However, some corporations fail to further improve their corporate communications because they limit their corporations blogspots only to their employees and their advertisers. It is highly doubtful whether they have fully utilized the capabilities of new bipartizan communication tools because more corporate inhabitation pages have been primarily used as a platform to push mundane advertising messages (Liu et al. , 1997 Salam et. al. 1998 Young and Benamati, 2000). Another point presents the fact that, there top executive be leaks in confidential corporate information which might be given out through the engagement to blogs of employees.Cases of such has led to the termination of employees active in Web blogs, which gives a corporate disadvantage as it losses some of its quality men due to the lack of policies and rules which apply to blogs. A good example would be the Delta personal credit line Lines flight attendant who lost her bank line after she posted photos of herself in unvaried on her blog. Delta stated that those photos, in which she is vesture Delta uniform with the blouse partly unbuttoned, were inappropriate and unauthorised use of Delta branding (USA Today, 2005).Web blogs is a critical accessory in information sp pronounce, yet at the same time, it might cause some corporate failures, as although the Internet allows companies to present their viewpoints directly to key out constituents, control over information dissemination is lost (Ihator 2001). There are several studies that investigate the nature of blogs and bloggers. Schiano et. al. (2004) interviewed 23 bloggers between the ages 19 and 60. The interviews included questions about the musicians blogs, blogging habits, thoughts on blogging, and use of other communication media such as e-mails, blatant messaging, phone, and web pages.They found out that blogging is becoming increasingly popular because it serves as an easy-to-use personal journal in which he can express his thoughts and opinions. Nardi, Schiano and Gumbrecht (2004) describe blogs as a brotherly activity. They interviewed the same population and questions as with their study entitled Blogging by the eternal rest of Us. After the interviews, the authors continued to read their participants blogs and communicate with some of them through email. The participants reported the reasons they started blogging, the reasons they continue blogging, and the changes in their blogging habits as time pass by.A variety or reasons emerge readers inform bloggers they need the new posts the friends go their friend to blog. Due to these responses, Nardi et. al. (2004) end t hat blogs are a form of friendly communication in which blogger and audience are intimately related through the writing, greenback and commenting of blogs . (Nardi, 2004) These studies give us an idea on the perceptions of bloggers about blogs in general. 2. 2 Corporate blogs and applications in the real world divers(prenominal) types of blogs have been posted in the earnings ever since the adoption of different corporations in the late 1990s.Corporate blogs however have different types in which each is mark according to the specific user or blogger. Dearstyne (2005) cites five different types of corporate blogs as employee blog, group blog, executive blog, promotional blog, and newssheet blog. Employee blogs are blogs which are much similar personal blogs and are maintained by a single rank-and-file employee. They vary in their content and are sometimes managed by different hosts which the corporations recognize. Although, lots times, corporations gather all the blogs their employees post.Majority of employee blogs are still hosted singly of the Web site, employee blogs are increasingly being hosted independently of the company Web sit, employee blogs are increasingly being hosted on company- haveed domains as more and more companies are formally sponsoring employee blogging. (Lee et. al. 2006, 319). Group Blogs are blogs which are written by several people or groups. Employees collaborate and write on a specific topic or different topics pertaining to a certain theme they are made by those who are experts on the certain topics.Group blogs are sometimes made through the initiatives of employees themselves and self-hosted. Though, many group blogs are driven by strategic plans crafted by management and hosted by companies own Web sites (Lee et. al. 2006, 320). Executive Blogs, coming from the foretell itself, executive blogs are blogs which are written by various corporations executives. Corporations and consumers have been keener on what position bl og writers are on as awareness about corporate standing is widespread.People have become more interested in top executives who run companies than in individual companies (Gaines-Ross 2000). promotional blogs are those which primary purpose is to create a buzz about products and events of corporations. This blog however sparks controversy as most of the blogs which are promotional blogs are often times computer generated and is largely called as fake by some bloggers who carry on critical about using blogspots as advertising media. The blogging community severely criticized this outline as deceptive and bloggers even proposed product boycotts (Gallagher 2003).This case suggests that, marketing in the blogsphere is often times discouraged due to the lack of human voice in the ads which are placed in the blogsphere. Some corporations have moved from the traditional type of blog with a domain, and instead created a newssheet type of blog wherein opinions, thoughts, and positions of d ifferent corporate or organizational members are diffused out. They carry different information about the corporation, the people inside the corporation, and the corporations products which are widely discussed by members of the organization through the electronic newsletter.Sprague (2007) further explains the twine of blogs to the American society. There is an increasing count of both bloggers and blog readers each day. At present, the blog has already extended its work out to the business society. Blogs are reported to influence what people think, do and buy. By the spend 2005, it is estimated that there are nearly 5,000 corporate blogs. Nowadays, there are a outlet of companies who have already set up their own corporate blogs.Aside from the influx of bloggers, talking about anything and practically everything under the sun, in some countries wherein policy-making uproar is prominent and shouting against a government could practically lose you your head. Blogspheres are considered as sanctuaries wherein anyone could voice off their thoughts. In Iran, the Blogsphere is one of the major mediums wherein the populace could voice out their political positions freely with minimal risk of persecution. Any foreigner who visits Iran is struck by the gap between the image intercommunicate by the regime to the outside world and the reality of Iranian society.The blogs quoted here vividly convey the bitter disillusionment many Iranians feel not just towards the sturdy mullahs, but toward the failed reformist project and its one time leader (Berkeley 2006, 73). The safeness and freedom of the blogosphere from any political and other accusations which may arise from its use due to the arbitrariness of the policies governing the blogosphere may be seen as an advantage of corporate personalities in advertising and the diffusion of their advocacy especially in corporate social responsibility.