Journal Review 3: Blog power: Examining the effects of practitioner blog use on power in public relations

by: Nurshayyidah Syuhadaa bt Che Harun ( 2008334269)

First, before the blog is considered as an effective tool of public relations, public relations practitioners use blogs to increase the strength of the organization, usually in a survey online and also examined the relationship between the powers of the blog for the organization. In this study, there are a few factors about the use of blogs among practitioners that will be discussed later. This study will show how there is a distinction based on the power of blogs; between users and non-users, practitioners and non practitioners and non-owner and the owner of a blog.

In this research, online survey was used to explore the relationship between blog use among practitioners of public relations by Porter and Salot power and also the use of web item. Blog credibility is measured by two questions which have been previously used to assess the credibility of the media. Public relations practitioners who took part as participants in this survey were identified through the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA). Survey results in line with national figures use blogs in the U.S. during the research work as below:

 9.8% of the respondents reported writing and maintaining blogs while 45.5% of the bloggers indicated that thye discuss public relations on their blogs, 23.1% were blogging as a part of their job, and 76.9% bloggers maintained their personal blogs.

Results of this study show that the hypothesis (H1) that public relations practitioners often use the blog to see the power structure they are larger than public relations practitioner is rarely used blog is not supported. (H2) The findings also do not support that public relations practitioners who use blogs more often see a greater power in their organizations than practitioners who often use blogs for information is usually routine and study factors. Therefore, this study did not find any blog as a factor for interactive communication. H3 also not supported that public relations practitioners who use the blog to see greater prestige power in their organizations compared to public relations practitioners who use blogs less frequently. Owner-practitioners will use blogs more frequently than practitioners who are not owners. Owner-practitioners used blogs more than non-owners for the interactive blog communication factor and for the issues identification factor.

However, this study was to answer RQ as follows:

RQ1:              Will practitioners who write or maintain a blog have more power than those who do not blog?

                        This study found that public relations practitioners who write and maintain a blog with more prestige and expertise than a public relations practitioner who does not blog.

RQ2:               How does PR practitioners’ blog use relate to gender, age, professional tenure, race, education, and income?

                        This study found that practitioners who use blogs for routine information and research have been working in public relations significantly longer. They also found that practitioners who use blogs for issues identification are significantly older, and have been working significantly longer in public relations and Males were marginally significantly more likely than females practitioner to use blogs for issues identification.

RQ3:               Do public relations practitioners of different affiliations use blogs differently?

                      This study found that the public relations practitioners of different affiliation use blogs differently for routine information and researches.

RQ4               : Do public relations practitioners’ levels of blog use affect amount of time they spend analyzing issues?

                        This analysis found that public relations practitioners who use blogs for information routine and research, they believe that it affected by helping them to analyze the issues much more quickly rather than practitioners who did not.

RQ5                : Does public relations practitioners’ blog use for revenue generation relate to overall blog use?

                        This study indicated that practitioners who use blogs more for issues identification believed that blogs generated additional revenue for their clients.

RQ6                : Is there a relationship between blog use and the credibility public relations practitioners assign to blogs?

                        The study resulted that the practitioners who were high users of blogs for routine information and research, believed that blogs were more credible than practitioners who used blogs less for routine.

Conclusion

The data obtained showed that the blog is not used as standard public relations tool, but this study clearly shows the importance of blogs on public relations practitioner. This survey data shows the difference between public relations practitioners who use the blog or not to be seen from the use of blogs and blogging on them. Those who write and maintain blogs are those who see improvement in their prestige as a result of the blog.

Scholar: Lance V. Porter, Kaye D. Sweetser Trammell, Deborah Chung and Eunseong Kim.

source: kayesweetser