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Social media and organizational visibility: A sample of Fortune 500 corporations
... Social media affordances refer to the different ways in which social media users employ and socially engage with specific features of these technologies (Treem and Leonardi, 2013). The affordance of visibility links to the presence of individuals and organizations on media platforms (Yang and Kent, 2014) and the ease of locating information online (Treem and Leonardi, 2013). In a queer context, visibility is essential for fighting the symbolic annihilation of LGBT people (De Ridder and Van Bauwel, 2015) and for claiming political representation (Sender, 2012). ...
... For this to be possible, such information needs to be public. This is an action social media allow as they permit their users to create content for broadcast to a potential audience (Boyd, 2011), prompting Yang and Kent's (2014) definition of visibility as "the public presence of an individual or organization in the media" (p.563). Putting oneself and one's actions on social media to be seen by others is essential for LGBT people to claim political representation and find communities to belong (Sender, 2012). ...
... Such visibility can also be beneficial to nonprofits. Yang and Kent (2014) linked social media visibility to the frequency with which social media users discuss individual or organizational matters and argued that organizational trust improves with increased daily interactions between organization and audience. Social media allow nonprofits to boost their daily interactions (Uldam, 2017), not only enhancing the potential for visibility but also freeing it from spatial and temporal constraints (see Thompson, 2005). ...
LGBT nonprofit organizations in Lebanon use social media videos to foreground the rights of sexual minorities in a society that institutionalizes homophobia. Employing content and thematic analysis to study twelve of these videos within the Lebanese sociopolitical context, I examine how the organizations enact the online affordance of visibility to transgress local hegemonic discourses and claim representativity and political rights. Engaging in politics online comes with the fear of offline homophobia. Lebanese LGBT nonprofits have therefore adopted strategies to mitigate offline persecution, including the invisibility of individuals within the visibility of the collective. They have also engaged in Pan-Arab activism and relied on local Arabic terms for sexual minorities to create a more nuanced activism for the Arab region than found in transnational LGBT activism. Keywords: LGBT, Lebanon, nonprofits, social media, visibility
... İşletmelerin, ürün ve markaları ile ilgili bilgileri web sayfalarında paylaşmaları (Lea vd., 2006), markanın sosyal medyaki etkileşim oranını, yorum ve takipçi sayısını, marka popülerliliğini (Connor, 2012) ve görünürlüğü artırmaktadır. Görünürlük, bir markanın veya işletmenin medyadaki kamuya açık varlığını ifade eder ve kullanıcıların bir markayı, işletmeyi veya ilgili bir konuyu ne sıklıkla tartıştığını gösterir (Yanga ve Kent, 2014). Bu nedenle görünürlük, tüketici satın alma tercihlerini, güveni (Yanga ve Kent, 2014) ve potansiyel tüketici tabanındaki marka bilinirliğini etkileyecektir. ...
... Görünürlük, bir markanın veya işletmenin medyadaki kamuya açık varlığını ifade eder ve kullanıcıların bir markayı, işletmeyi veya ilgili bir konuyu ne sıklıkla tartıştığını gösterir (Yanga ve Kent, 2014). Bu nedenle görünürlük, tüketici satın alma tercihlerini, güveni (Yanga ve Kent, 2014) ve potansiyel tüketici tabanındaki marka bilinirliğini etkileyecektir. Görünürlük değeri daha yüksek bir marka, daha yaygın tanınmaya, farkındalığa ve etkileşime sahip olacaktır. ...
... Vargo ve Lusch (2008) ile Yazdanparast (2016) da ifade ettiği üzere sosyal medya platformlarının imkan sağladığı iki yönlü iletişim sonucunda, ürün ve iş modelleri geliştirmek, müşterilerle birlikte değer yaratmak ve marka imajı oluşturmak mümkün olabilmektedir. Ayrıca medya gücü yüksek olan işletmeler, daha yüksek düzeyde kurumsal güven, daha fazla bilinirlik ve marka bağlılığı ile artan satışlar gibi sonuçlar elde etmektedir (Yanga ve Kent, 2014). Elde edilen sonuçlara göre, bir markanın sosyal medyada daha görünür hale gelmesi, diğer faktörlerin etkisi sabit tutulduğunda, marka gücünü ve marka değerini artıracaktır. ...
The aim of this study is to examine the relationship between brands' social media visibility, brand strength and brand value. In this context, Social Visibility, Web Visibility and Search Visibility indices which are calculated by BrandWatch in order to determine the social media performance of brands are considered as independent variables. The dependent variables of the study are the Brand Strength Index (BSI) and Brand Value calculated by BrandFinance. In the study, the relationship between the variables was tested by path analysis including 148 Global brand data. As a result of the analysis, it has been shown that social media visibility has a statistically significant positive effect on the strength and brand value of the brand.
... In Li et al. (2019), the term "social visibility" refers to the visibility of the product's consumption or usage to one's interpersonal networks online or offline. In Yang and Kent (2014), "Visibility refers to the public presence of an individual or organization in the media, and has an influence on organizational perceptions in times of crisis, buying preferences, and trust." In Shmargad and Watts (2016), the visibility is that one's actions are visible to other users in the media. ...
... Secondly, it is conducive to social media visibility research. Visibility on social networks has been discussed largely in literature, but is mostly qualitative research (Yang and Kent, 2014;Osch and Steinfield, 2018). For this, we extracted the basic elements for conceptualization. ...
Application of artificial intelligence is accelerating the digital transformation of enterprises, and digital content optimization is crucial to take the users' attention in social media usage. The purpose of this work is to demonstrate how social media content reaches and impresses more users. Using a sample of 345 articles released by Chinese small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) on their official WeChat accounts, we employ the self-determination theory to analyze the effects of content optimization strategies on social media visibility. It is found that articles with enterprise-related information optimized for content related to users' psychological needs (heart-based content optimization, mind-based content optimization, and knowledge-based content optimization) achieved higher visibility than that of sheer enterprise-related information, whereas the enterprise-related information embedded with material incentive (benefits-based content optimization) brings lower visibility. The results confirm the positive effect of psychological needs on the diffusion of enterprise-related information, and provide guidance for SMEs to apply artificial intelligence technology to social media practice.
... Therefore, it is of utmost importance to assess how this new digital cultural context impacts companies in high-risk sectors. Given that information and communication technology, and social media in particular, have affected the way that companies communicate CSR issues to their stakeholders Sriramesh, 2015;Kent;Taylor, 2016), this study examines whether the PR strategies applied by companies in the energy sector demonstrate a dialogic principle in terms of engagement and interaction (Watkins, 2017;Xiong; Cho; Boatwright, 2019) from the semantic perspective using a cluster analysis applied to PR (Javed; Lee, 2018) and content-based research on Twitter (Xifra;Grau, 2010), by means of a meaningful sustainability-focused discourse (Lovejoy; Water; Saxton, 2012). Twitter is one of the universal social media platforms that enables the effective creation of a dialogic dialogue with stakeholders (Saffer; Sommerfeldt; Taylor, 2013; Etter, 2013; Watkins; Lewis, 2014; Grover; Kar; Ilavarasan, 2019; Monfort; Villagra; López-Vázquez, 2019). ...
... First, the results of the present research expand the dialogical perspectives in public relations by the use of social media (Kent;Taylor, 2016) and provide a new semantic insight into the theorizing and operationalization of dialogical PR strategies via social media (Ao; Huang, 2019), because of its linguistic approach to CSR communication models. This study tried to move the focus from a purely reporting or disclosure-focused approach of CSR towards interactive and dialogical perspectives. ...
Social media have opened up new opportunities for the creation of innovative public relations strategies focused on establishing and cultivating relationships with stakeholders on the basis of meaningful dialogue. Consideration of the interrelation between corporate social responsibility (CSR) and public relations highlights new areas for exploration and engagement. Both the dialogical and semantic perspectives reveal the performative and conversational aspects of social media. In general, both the linguistic panorama of CSR and digital media as part of a PR strategy open new possibilities for a dialogical, interactive, meaningful relationship strategy for corporate image management. Based on the linguistic approach to CSR and the Communication Management Approach, this paper explores the linguistic use of Twitter as a primary dialogical strategy to effectively enhance interactive dialogue-based relationships with the stakeholders of the top 50 companies in the energy sector based on tweet data from 2016. Semantic analysis was conducted by advanced text mining and clustering techniques on 3042 tweets monitored in 2017 that contained the leading CSR-related hashtags and keywords. The results demonstrated that the top energy companies apply a defensive and symbolic perspective, mainly for branding purposes. The corporate discourse dominates over a meaningful conversational strategy to foster interaction with stakeholders around sustainability issues on Twitter. The study reveals a homogenized interrelation between CSR, social media, and public relations. The results reveal a tendency for isomorphy in the communication models applied by the companies in the energy sector. Furthermore, similarities in semantics and thus strong tendencies to mutually mimic dialogical strategies are also observed. The semantic narrative built around the brand indicates a limited orientation towards CSR and sustainability. As such, it does not contribute to the creation of a dialogical interaction and meaningful relationships with multiple stakeholders on Twitter, in the high-risk sector represented by the energy industry.
... In practices, instead of creating "dialogues," oftentimes social media is treated as a one-way, sender-to-receiver, "public forum" kind of advocacy tool to sell ideology and goods (Kim & Gambino, 2016). Existing empirical research has found that many organizations failed to achieve the dialogic potential of new media (Huang & Yang, 2015;Yang & Kent, 2014). A content analysis of Fortune 500 corporations and large activist organizations' CSR communication on 32 different social media platforms found that most of them barely use their social media platforms to engage the publics, but rather utilize them as a one-way "information provider" type of communication tool (Yang & Kent, 2014). ...
... Existing empirical research has found that many organizations failed to achieve the dialogic potential of new media (Huang & Yang, 2015;Yang & Kent, 2014). A content analysis of Fortune 500 corporations and large activist organizations' CSR communication on 32 different social media platforms found that most of them barely use their social media platforms to engage the publics, but rather utilize them as a one-way "information provider" type of communication tool (Yang & Kent, 2014). ...
Scarce research has focused on the technological aspects of social media in CSR communication. Many public relations practitioners are reluctant to interact online although social media platforms such as YouTube provide two-way communication interface. Using the MAIN model, this study explored how bandwagon cues (more likes/dislikes) and interaction cues (enable/disable commenting) influence the perceived source credibility assessment (trustworthiness, goodwill, and competence) of CSR information on YouTube. Through a 2 × 2 factorial experiment (N = 204), no interaction effects were found in general; but a main effect of the enabling comment interface existed toward the perceived trustworthiness of the company regardless of likes/dislikes received on the CSR video, which further leads to individual’s attitudes toward the company’s CSR efforts. The finding paves a way for an explanation of the effectiveness of enabling the commenting function of using YouTube to enhance CSR communication.
... The frequency of an organization's presence in the news media coverage can indicate the level of social recognition and legitimacy that an organization is perceived to have . The organizations with a strong media presence are more likely to be in the mind of the public, leading to higher levels of organizational trust and social support (Valentim, 2019;Yang & Kent, 2014). Previous studies have found that several sets of factors may contribute to the level of media attention received by social movement organizations, such as their organizational capacity (Gamson, 1975;Rohlinger et al., 2012), movement issues (Andrews & Caren, 2010), and other contextual factors (F. ...
Does the adoption of digital media platforms affect the success of environmental movements? We address this question by using a representative sample of environmental non-governmental organizations (ENGOs) from Hong Kong and examining the linkages between their digital media adoption and reach and their level of success. Guided by the agenda setting theory, we test whether the digital strategies are related to the shifts in the media and government agenda from 2007–2018. Our findings show that the adoption of digital media contributes to ENGOs’ own media visibility and specific issue salience in the news media agenda, and that the extent of digital reach of ENGOs is also associated with ENGOs’ visibility in the news media. Furthermore, although we find no direct relationships between the digital adoption and the government agenda, we argue that the legislative processes on biodiversity and green energy issues in Hong Kong suggest a pattern of mutually reinforcing interactions between the media agenda and the policy agenda. It is therefore likely that digital strategies contribute to policy changes indirectly, that is, by increasing issue salience in the local news media.
... In the era of SM, social visibility has been defined as a measure of the propagation of a resource amongst social network users (Rathore and Tripathy, 2021). In marketing, it refers to an individual's public presence on SM and how exposure to a whole new audience is gained (Yang and Kent, 2014). Nevertheless, as the field of social marketing research is still in its infancy, there is a lack of research advancing this theory in these new settings (Armstrong and Kotler, 2018). ...
Purpose
The aim of this research is to explore content, traffic and visibility on four social platforms to boost social visibility.
Design/methodology/approach
The study explores content, traffic and visibility in the context of Spanish beer brands. A sample of 3,332 beer brands' social media (SM) sites, specifically the four most commonly used platforms amongst Spaniards, was analysed. An inductive content analysis by a panel of experts identified the main contents. A cluster analysis then divided the significantly different beer brand SM sites, and a Kruskal–Wallis test confirmed the significant differences by content and traffic. To determine and predict SM visibility, a binary logistic regression was conducted.
Findings
The findings reveal that traffic is not significantly correlated with social visibility. Moreover, the SM sites with the highest traffic show significant leisure content. Twitter is significantly different network in traffic and content, whilst YouTube is the best for boosting social visibility.
Practical implications
The study's findings constitute valuable information in understanding how content, traffic and visibility are correlated and help in managing brands' public presence and exposure on SM.
Originality/value
This study contributes to the existing literature by exploring four SM platforms (Twitter, Instagram, YouTube and Facebook), two dimensions of SM interactions (traffic and social visibility) and three main focal points of contents (leisure, product and promotion). This research bridges the gap amongst content, traffic and social visibility and ascertains how to gain traffic and boost social visibility.
... Argenti and Barnes (2009) also noted how social media had changed the rules of strategic communication, including relationship management. Other means by which social media has impacted public relations include the creation of dialogue and relationships between organizations and publics (Elliott, 2011;MacNamara & Zerfass, 2012), the circumvention of the traditional news media and direct communication with publics (Kent, 2013;Wright & Hinson, 2014), the increase in the visibility of organizations (Yang & Kent, 2014), and the influence of opinions of customers regarding a brand (Men & Tsai, 2013). ...
The advent of social and digital media has influenced businesses and professions, including public relations. Research on how social media influences public relations practice abounds; however, these studies have mostly focused on the West, with Africa grossly underrepresented. The present study, therefore, sought to add to the limited literature on the continent by exploring how social and other emerging media are shaping public relations practice in Ghana. Overall, 137 practitioners participated in the survey. Results show that social and digital media have significantly influenced the public relations practice in Ghana. Facebook is the most frequently used platform. Most practitioners also admitted to spending more than half of their time on social media. These results provide insights for practitioners, academics, and researchers, and contribute to the global discussion on how social and other digital media are shaping the public relations practice in Ghana, particularly with insights on implications for their impact in Africa and the world.KeywordsPublic relationsSocial mediaGhanaAfricaDigital media
... Exposure to media attention is a valid aspect of a company's organizational visibility (Bowen, 2000). For example, Yang & Kent (2014) who examined the visibility of organizations in mass media by industry type. They measure visibility using scores from the service's media visibility rating, as well as internal and external elements associated to organizational visibility such as coverage of the organization's Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) activities. ...
This study investigates the effect of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) disclosures on the organizational visibility of 25 non-financial companies listed on the Indonesia Stock Exchange (IDX) during the period of 2015–2019. We posit that ESG disclosure generally affects these firms positively. Our sample consists of 125 firm-year observations of the companies’ sustainability reports, as well as their coverage in the form of news and articles produced by national media. We measure visibility based on the number of media reports received by each of these corporations. Their ESG performances are scored according to the index issued by the Indonesian Ministry of Environment and Forestry. We employed multiple linear regression analysis to test our hypothesis. Our research demonstrates significant positive effects of the ESG in the aggregate and in the individual component of disclosures on organizational visibility. These results align with both the legitimacy theory in recognizing the social contract between a business and society and the stakeholder theory in acknowledging the relationships between a business and its customers, suppliers, investors, and others. Both theories underline and emphasize the importance of organizational behavior for ESG activities. Our study contributes to the vibrant and extensive ongoing debates in the organizational visibility literature regarding corporate ESG disclosure.
... As an engaging method by organizational social media to develop and maintain good relationships with their stakeholders (Saxton & Waters, 2014), communicative content strategies are utilized to help achieve different organizational goals, such as mental health advocacy and promotion (Huang et al., 2016). Among frameworks that explain organizational use of various social media content (e.g., Men & Tsai, 2012;Yang & Kent, 2014), Lovejoy and Saxton's (2012) typology of information, community and actions is the most relevant to this study because it specifically highlights the communicative functions of the messages by nonprofit organizations. In this framework, information content covers social media messages about the organization, its activities, and facts relevant to the stakeholders; community content refers to the interactive messages to engage with and strengthen ties to the public; lastly, action content mainly focuses on getting followers to do things such as to repost, attend an event or to donate (Lovejoy & Saxton, 2012). ...
This study analyzed the content, visual features, and audience engagement data of Instagram posts from two mental health organizations over one year (N = 725). For content features, mental health literacy and communicative strategies were examined. Posts that promoted knowledge of mental disorders and treatments, used information and community strategy were more likely to receive higher audience engagement. Visual features of demographic segments, visual composition, and visual framing topics were analyzed. Images that covered an unspecific population, used illustrated images, and focused on anti-stigma topical frames obtained more engagement. Theoretical contributions and practical applications regarding visual message design and management on social media to promote mental health are also offered.
... Thus, visibility in social media can be considered an important addition when discussing an organization's public image. It should be noted, however, that social media visibility and traditional organizational media visibility are positively related (Yang & Kent, 2014). Nonetheless, an additional investigation of the role of social media visibility, especially for glass cliffs, is advisable. ...
After breaking through the glass ceiling, women often obtain precarious or risky leadership positions in crisis-ridden organizations ( the glass cliff; Ryan & Haslam, 2005 ). Due to women’s minority status, their appointment in a crisis can signal important changes to organizational stakeholders indicating the use of new strategies for overcoming the crisis (signaling theory; Spence, 1973 ). Our study examines whether the media visibility of organizations moderates these signaling effects in ways that either strengthen or weaken glass cliffs. We augmented the archival dataset used by Haslam et al. (2010 ) in which the glass cliff phenomenon was discovered by including data on the media coverage that the Financial Times Stock Exchange index 100 companies received between 2001 and 2005. Our analysis shows that glass cliffs were more pronounced in companies with low media visibility. This suggests that the media visibility of organizations can contribute to increased accountability regarding their personnel decisions in ways that expose women leaders to less discrimination.
... Given the rise of social media, the debate over who has a stronger ability in agenda setting has generated an increasing number of empirical studies, further producing three primary schools of thought. First, some scholars hold that, notwithstanding weakening in its effect on shaping people's minds, traditional media still have the overwhelming influence in setting agendas for their Porismita Borah and Yan Su audience, including those who consume news through social media platforms (e.g., Ceron et al., 2016;Kim et al., 2016;Vargo et al., 2018;Yang & Kent, 2014). For instance, Groshek and Groshek (2013) found that in terms of political and cultural reports, discussions on Facebook and Twitter have been influenced and led by the coverage of The New York Times and CNN, revealing the impact of these traditional media outlets in the digital age. ...
One of the primary areas of communication research is media effects (Neuman & Guggenheim, 2011), and agenda-setting theory falls within this broader area of research. Over the years, media agenda-setting research has examined how the mass
media influences the public agenda with the day-to-day selection of news (McCombs, 2005; McCombs & Shaw, 1972). More than 15 years ago, McCombs (2005) discussed the influence of the Internet on agenda-setting research. With online platforms, both the production and consumption of news changed, and the audience no longer consumes information from a few mainstream media outlets. The original agenda-setting hypotheses have developed abundantly over the years and include concepts such as second-level agenda setting,
intermedia agenda setting, and a psychological component (Meraz, 2011). Second-level agenda setting refers to attribute agenda setting, intermedia agenda setting is about the news agendas among different media outlets and psychological effects describe the individual-level agenda-setting effects. Although each of these elements has received attention from scholars, the majority of the current interest relates to how the agenda-setting hypothesis has evolved in the social media ecology.
... Prevalence of Social Media Victimization. Since abuse and toxicity are often carried out with the intention to humiliate or manipulate targeted individuals [10,17,46,61], social media is often considered to be the chief outlet for housing such attacks due to high visibility [13,65,66] and more opportunities to remain anonymous [11,51,72]. Online abuse and toxicity can be influenced by several socioeconomic factors. ...
Online toxic attacks, such as harassment, trolling, and hate speech have been linked to an increase in offline violence and negative psychological effects on victims. In this paper, we studied the impact of toxicity on users' online behavior. We collected a sample of 79.8k Twitter conversations. Then, through a longitudinal study, for nine weeks, we tracked and compared the behavioral reactions of authors, who were toxicity victims, with those who were not. We found that toxicity victims show a combination of the following behavioral reactions: avoidance, revenge, countermeasures, and negotiation. We performed statistical tests to understand the significance of the contribution of toxic replies toward user behaviors while considering confounding factors, such as the structure of conversations and the user accounts' visibility, identifiability, and activity level. Interestingly, we found that compared to other random authors, victims are more likely to engage in conversations, reply in a toxic way, and unfollow toxicity instigators. Even if the toxicity is directed at other participants, the root authors are more likely to engage in the conversations and reply in a toxic way. However, victims who have verified accounts are less likely to participate in conversations or respond by posting toxic comments. In addition, replies are more likely to be removed in conversations with a larger percentage of toxic nested replies and toxic replies directed at other users. Our results can assist further studies in developing more effective detection and intervention methods for reducing the negative consequences of toxicity on social media.
... The ongoing shift of power to the consumer as a result of the proliferation of social media is not a new finding (Yang and Kent, 2014;Brown, 2008). However, the shift has transformed consumerism from being driven by social factors, such as self-appointed activists, consumer groups, and coalitions of interest-based groups, to a more individual crusade and decentralised movement. ...
Consumerism was defined and studied as protection and active participation in negative business issues that directly affect the consumer. The consumerism model is based on the theory of planned behavior (TPB) using social media (Twitter) to determine any significant differences between two divergent cultures and economies: Saudi Arabia and the USA. Our results suggest a partial fit to the model. The equivalent significant findings for both samples are as follows: 1) Consumers with negative perceptions of government regulatory practices have a more positive attitude towards consumerism; 2) Both countries have a positive subjective norm, intention, and behavior for consumerism. Our findings found that Saudi consumers have a higher level of intent to engage in consumerism behaviors via Twitter than American consumers. Finally, Saudi consumers have a negative perception of government regulatory practices that can be attributed to its restricted civil society relative to the USA.
... Therefore, businesses and organizations want to take the advantage of online reviews to improve their reputation in the online space by means of ethical or unethical. Fake reviews are the most popular among unethical methods which are used by many organizations to make the product valuable to the customers ( Yang and Kent, 2014 ). Further, doctored and planned misinformation is often used to change general perceptions in social discussions ( Gallaugher and Ransbotham, 2010 ). ...
The importance of text mining is increasing in services management as the access to big data is increasing across digital platforms enabling such services. This study adopts a systematic literature review on the application of text mining in services management. First, we analyzed the literature on which has used text mining methods like Sentiment Analysis, Topic Modeling, and Natural language Processing (NLP) in reputed business management journals. Further, we applied visualization tools for text mining and the topic association to understand the dominant themes and relationships. The analysis highlighted that social media analysis, market analysis, competitive intelligence are the most dominant themes while other themes like risk management and fake content detection are also explored. Further, based on the analysis, future research agenda in the field of text mining in services management has been indicated.
... For nonprofits, visibility is one of the most regarded affordances for promoting, fundraising, knowledge sharing, and problem-solving activities (Raja-Yusof et al. 2016). It resonates with promoting their mission, transparency, image, and reputation to stakeholders; but, strongly correlates with mainstream media visibility (Seo and Vu 2020;Yang and Kent 2014). Besides visibility, social media allows users to know the standing of others (Kietzmann et al. 2011). ...
This paper explains how social media drives organization-public collaborative outcomes such as social media-enabled service co-creation in non-profit organizations (nonprofits). We assume a technology affordances perspective to identify social media structures enacted through discovering functional affordances, managing constraints through privacy preferences, and constructing meaning and values, We explain how these structures relate to service co-creation. We surveyed 73 nonprofits on social media and collected 289 usable responses. We apply structural equation modeling to analyze the data. Our findings suggest that symbolic constructed meaning and values together with the organization’s privacy preferences on social media are positively related to socialization, visibility, and information sharing affordances. Unlike information sharing, socialization and visibility affordances are, in turn, positively related to service co-creation. This study advances our theoretical understanding of how social technology structures produce collaborative outcomes and offers practical insights into the cumulative value of social media.
... Social media helps corporations analyze how much general public talks about them and what is the perception of them. Greater presence at social media brings greater attention, which means there is greater brand recognition and loyalty (Yang & Kent, 2014). Brand psychology argue that the brand value is in the perception of another person. ...
... Social media helps corporations analyze how much general public talks about them and what is the perception of them. Greater presence at social media brings greater attention, which means there is greater brand recognition and loyalty (Yang & Kent, 2014). Brand psychology argue that the brand value is in the perception of another person. ...
Google is the most dominant search engine in the world. Due to its monopoly, it is often targeted by regulators, accused of imposing its services, platforms and bias algorithm. The paper aims to determine whether a presence on Google-owned platforms improves the website visibility on the search engine, expressed through the search engine optimisation (SEO) score. For this purpose, the web presence of eight private universities in Serbia on Google My Business, Google Maps, YouTube and Google Images were analysed with software screening and observation of the search engine result page. The research results confirmed that Google favours its platforms, as universities with a symbiotic presence on all of them recorded the highest SEO score. Furthermore, Google gives the highest priority to a verified Google My Business listing, as it signals the authority of the university web presence. Since Google uses more than 250 factors in website ranking, the findings should be interpreted with caution.
... However, many scholars still have substantiated the conventional "traditional-to-social" pattern even in today's digital age (Guo, Mays, and Wang 2019, 567). For instance, Yang and Kent (2014) found traditional media significantly influenced the visibility of social media. Idid and Elawad (2015) found newspapers played a significant role in shaping the agenda of Sudanese blogs. ...
The months-long anti-extradition bill movement in Hong Kong has gained worldwide attention. Grounded in the network agenda-setting (NAS) model, this study utilizes a machine-learning approach to analyze the related coverage of mainstream newspapers in Hong Kong, Mainland China, the U.S. and the U.K. (N = 2118), as well as discussions on Twitter (N = 152,509). Network visualizations showed that each media utilized a unique approach to highlight and connect the substantive and affective attributes. Time-series analyses revealed an overall reciprocal whilst asymmetrical association between the newspapers and Twitter, in which the latter exhibited a stronger influence on the former, particularly in terms of substantive attribute agendas. Yet, Twitter’s impact shrank in terms of the affective attribute agendas and the NAS models. Newspapers, though exerted rather limited impact on Twitter, maintained a certain extent of independence in setting their affective attribute agendas and NAS models. This study enriches the NAS literature through combining substantive and affective attributes in semantic networks.
... Online media are of greater importance for global discourses due to their reach and wide application in strategic communication than offline channels (Valentini, 2015). Regarding these different channels, organizational visibility in earned and shared media is interlinked: public presence of organizations in earned media predicts visibility in shared media (Yang & Kent, 2014). While shared media are not the focus of this study, here, instead, the visibility of organizations in online coverage including earned online media such as traditional news media, specialist news, and owned online media such as blogs is addressed (Stephen & Galak, 2012) to understand the communicative behavior of actors in issue arenas. ...
Stakeholders debate issues of public interest in global online issue arenas, but political decision makers decide on these macro issues at national and supranational levels. A better understanding of the role of organizations in forming and monitoring such issue debates is necessary, given the influence of public affairs activities and media debates on politicians’ and public opinion. However, such a macro perspective is largely missing. This study analyzes the debate around the use of the pesticide glyphosate when the European Union decided on a license renewal in 2017. To uncover emerging salient topics and their relations with organizations, the online global coverage of the issue from the GDELT database (N = 1677) was analyzed using inductive automated content analysis (LDA topic modeling). Only three topics were salient in the arena, most prominently the carcinogenicity of glyphosate, thereby sidelining other relevant aspects. Furthermore, online issue arenas reach globally and are converged communicative spaces where a variety of media participate. Thus, the article develops and tests a typology of online news media for issue arena research. Advancing theory on organizations’ roles and strategies in these online issue arenas, a new classification of actors based on their visibility and communication strategy is proposed.
... Social media are collaborative technological tools that have penetrated and altered workspace activities and interactions, allowing user generated content to be circulated and exchanged on an insurmountable scale (DiStaso, McCorkindale, & Wright, 2011;Qin & Men, 2019;Yang & Kent, 2014). Since the late 1990s, studies (Coombs, 1998;Kent & Taylor, 1998) have examined the application of digital technologies to the public relations practice and have extolled the interactive capability of the Internet. ...
Social media has enhanced integration between marketing and public relations. As such, public relations professionals have had to adapt and grow their knowledge and skillsets to stay relevant and current throughout the evolution of the digital landscape (Gesualdi, 2019). One of the growing areas of focus for public relations professionals has been customer service skills online. This specialization, often referred to as social care or social customer service, has been promoted and discussed heavily in industry circles and publications, but not in academic research. This study focuses on the survey results from 396 employers exploring the social media skills they most prefer university graduates to possess when entering the workforce. The results indicate that public relations and customer service are the social media skills most sought after by employers of university graduates ahead of proficiency in areas such as social media content production, strategy development and analytics. The potential implications of these findings to the public relations profession are examined and future research is also discussed.
... Media visibility. Since Yang and Kent (2014) reported that organizational visibility in mass media significantly affected its visibility in social media, we also included news media visibility as a predictor. In detail, we searched each ENGO's name for media reports in Factiva news database over a 7-year period (2011)(2012)(2013)(2014)(2015)(2016)(2017), and collected news articles mentioning those ENGOs. ...
This study examines Chinese environmental nongovernmental organizations’ (ENGO) use of a microblogging platform Weibo and the factors that contribute to sharing of their messages. By employing the Heuristic-Systematic Model (HSM) of information processing and through a content analysis of ENGOs’ Weibo posts, the study finds that the posts that have more followers and followees and those charged with negative emotions and containing dialogic content are more likely to be shared. More importantly, the results show that government-organized NGOs (GONGOs) and grassroots NGOs differ significantly in the application of Weibo strategies. The study suggests that GONGOs garner more reposts when releasing dialogic content, while grassroots NGOs benefit more from informational content and messages advocating environmental activism and consumerism. The results shed light on understanding social media strategies of Chinese ENGOs, and provide practical implications for the strategic use of Weibo in future environmental campaigns.
... Vargo, Guo, and Amazeen (2018), for instance, indicated that emerging media were responsive to the agendas of fake news, but to a lesser degree compared to legacy media. Yang and Kent (2014) found that mainstream media coverage significantly affected the visibility of social media. Through big data analysis, Ceron, Curini, and Iacus (2016) suggested that the online version of traditional media keeps the power of first-level agenda setting even though a significant difference between the slant of traditional news and the Twitter sentiment appeared. ...
Anchored by the network agenda setting (NAS) model, this study uses a supervised machine learning approach to analyze the agendas of major newspapers in China, Japan, and the United States, and discussions in Twittersphere, on the Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands dispute, as well as their intermedia effects. Network analyses suggested that Chinese media portrayed the dispute in a more biased way, whereas Twitter’s discussions were overwhelmingly negative. Time-series analyses revealed reciprocities between newspapers and Twitter, while the relationship was asymmetrical where Twitter exerted a stronger bottom-up impact. Moreover, most reciprocities emerged between the U.S. and Chinese media, and Twitter.
... Apart from the two-level model of public relations value (Huang, 2012), the past literature has discussed public relations effects in relation to digital media usage and interactivity. It has been argued that the usage of digital technologies, in particular social media, contributes to various public relations effects, including developing direct communication with the organization's stakeholders without being mediated by the news media (Kent, 2013;Linke and Zerfass, 2013;Valentini and Kruckeberg, 2012;Wright and Hinson, 2009), providing dialogs and building relationships with stakeholders (Kelleher, 2009;Macnamara and Zerfass, 2012) and enhancing organizational image and visibility (Gilpin, 2010;Yang and Kent, 2014). In addition, the usage of digital media enhances organizational capacity of symmetrical and two-way communications (Coombs and Holladay, 2018;Kelleher, 2009;Macnamara and Zerfass, 2012), and hence illustrates the significant contribution of interactivity in public relations practices. ...
Purpose
Market-oriented relations has been regarded as a kind of public relations practices widely performed by the practitioners of public relations and marketing. This study attempts to discuss market-oriented relations in the digital era in which public relations and marketing practitioners' involvement in managing market-oriented relations was simultaneously related to their perceptions of interactivity effects, value of public relations and benefits of digital media usage in public relations practices.
Design/methodology/approach
A self-administrated online survey targeting 241 practitioners engaged in coordinating public relations activities in Hong Kong was conducted in 2017.
Findings
Structural equation modeling (SEM) analysis showed that practitioners' involvement in market-oriented relations practices had significant positive effects on their perceptions of interactivity effects, value of public relations and benefits of digital media usage. Practitioners' perceptions of interactivity effects and benefits of digital media usage were positively affected by their perceptions of public relations value, particularly public relations effectiveness. Clients' profitability and business intelligence, as well as interactivity effects in terms of involvement and perceived customization were practitioners' key concerns in managing market-oriented relations.
Originality/value
This study explores how practitioners of public relations and marketing perceived and practiced public relations in the digital era. Specifically, the conception of market-oriented relations in regard to the use of digital media was discussed in the proposed structural model.
... Broadly speaking, PR supports the following two functions: a rhetorical function that focuses on establishing one-way communication from the stakeholders to the public, and a relational function that focuses on building mutual relationships between the stakeholders and the public [34,62]. Social media is an extremely valuable information and communication tool as it is capable of facilitating both of these functions [65]. To study how exactly social media facilitates the rhetorical and relational PR functions in the context of this case study, we turned to social media listening techniques (also known as social media analytics or monitoring). ...
... Apart from the two-level model of public relations value (Huang, 2012), the past literature has discussed public relations effects in relation to digital media usage and interactivity. It has been argued that the usage of digital technologies, in particular social media, contributes to various public relations effects, including developing direct communication with the organization's stakeholders without being mediated by the news media (Kent, 2013;Linke and Zerfass, 2013;Valentini and Kruckeberg, 2012;Wright and Hinson, 2009), providing dialogs and building relationships with stakeholders (Kelleher, 2009;Macnamara and Zerfass, 2012) and enhancing organizational image and visibility (Gilpin, 2010;Yang and Kent, 2014). In addition, the usage of digital media enhances organizational capacity of symmetrical and two-way communications (Coombs and Holladay, 2018;Kelleher, 2009;Macnamara and Zerfass, 2012), and hence illustrates the significant contribution of interactivity in public relations practices. ...
Market-oriented relations has been regarded as a kind of public relations practices widely performed by the practitioners of public relations and marketing. This study attempts to discuss market-oriented relations in the digital era in which public relations and marketing practitioners’ involvement in managing market-oriented relations was simultaneously related to their perceptions of interactivity effects, value of public relations and benefits of digital media usage in public relations practices.
A self-administrated online survey targeting 241 practitioners engaged in coordinating public relations activities in Hong Kong was conducted in 2017. Structural equation modeling analysis showed that practitioners’ involvement in market-oriented relations practices had significant positive effects on their perceptions of interactivity effects, value of public relations, and benefits of digital media usage. Practitioners’ perceptions of interactivity effects and benefits of digital media usage were positively affected by their perceptions of public relations value, particularly public relations effectiveness. Clients’ profitability and business intelligence, as well as interactivity effects in terms of involvement and perceived customization were practitioners’ key concerns in managing market-oriented relations.
This study explores how practitioners of public relations and marketing perceived and practiced public relations in the digital era. Specifically, the conception of market-oriented relations in regard to the use of digital media was discussed in the proposed structural model.
... Whilst new technologies enable self-expressing of users in real time, establish network ties and develop new relationships, satisfying the needs of traditional electronic media, radio listenership is predicted to run into significant drops in public patronage especially among the youthful class (Yang & Kent, 2014). This new change in technology has disrupted the nature and dynamics of radio practice which demands, that traditional radio firms adapt corporate credibility profiles to meet the new media environment. ...
The study focus was to examine audience perception of corporate visibility of radio stations, and its impact on the image and credibility of radio stations in the Kumasi Metropolis, Ghana. Based on quantitative approach, data was collected from 385 respondents (managers of radio stations and radio listeners), and analysed based on both descriptive and inferential statistical tests. The results revealed that most of the radio stations had in place corporate visibility strategies. Though some respondents could not attest to the link between such strategies and visibility, corporate visibility was found to influence corporate image and credibility positively and in a statistically significant relationship. The results suggest a linear dependence of corporate image and credibility on corporate visibility. The implication is that increasing and improving corporate visibility has potential to strengthen corporate image and credibility. Recommendations include the development of customer-oriented service which stresses on good corporate visibility and image-building to influence public perception and choice.
... It is an essential requirement for greater interaction and engagement with the potential customers (De Vries, Gensler and Leeflang, 2012). Further, it can also be beneficial for increasing the visibility in various online communities subsequently leading to a greater outreach (Yang and Kent, 2014). ...
Çevre konusu, sosyal politika uygulamaları arasında öncelik verilen konulardandır. Bu konunun önem kazanmasının nedeni çevre sorunlarının önemli düzeyde artış göstermesidir. Çevreyi korumak sağlık açısından hayati önem taşımaktadır. Çevreyi koruma bilinci konusundaki çabaların amacı, insanlar için daha sağlıklı ve güvenli bir alan yaratmaktır. Bu bağlamda, toplumun her kesiminde çevre duyarlılığını arttırma, çevre konusunda hassas bireyler yetiştirerek bu bireylerde kalıcı davranışlar meydana getirme, doğal ve tarihi değerlerin korunması bilincini oluşturma ve toplumsal katılım önem taşımaktadır. Çevre konusunda bireye, kurumlara, şirketlere, devlete büyük sorumluluklar düşmektedir. Bir kampanya yürütürken, çevre bilinci oluşturma aşamasında birbirleriyle ilişki içerisinde olmaları gerekmektedir. Bu da toplumsal etkileşimle mümkündür. Bu ilişkinin kurulmasında toplumsal iletişimin önemi büyüktür. Toplumsal iletişim, bireylerin ve kurumların çabalarıyla oluşur. Bu çalışmada, çevre konusunda farkındalığın oluşturulmasında toplumsal iletişimin, eğitimlerin, medyanın ve iletişim kampanyalarının rolü tartışılmaktadır. Seçilen şirketlerin çevreci kampanyalarının hepsinde toplumda çevre konusuna dair bir bilinç geliştirmeyi amaçladıkları ve hedef kitleye ulaşabilmek için farklı kanalları kullandıkları, özellikle tüm şirketlerin sosyal medyayı tercih ettikleri tespit edilmiştir
This study explored the impact of power dynamics on digital diplomacy by analyzing the Twitter usage of three diplomatic actors (the Chinese, UK, and US Embassies in Kenya). The research aimed to answer questions about who the diplomats prioritized for engagement, how they used Twitter in crisis communication, and how they became media actors by adopting media logic in their digital diplomacy practices. The results of the study showed that Twitter was utilized by diplomats to control the daily agenda, express opinions, and influence followers and media outlets. The Chinese and UK Embassies made use of the platform for formal communication and to communicate with their diaspora. The US ambassador followed online influencers to set the online conversations and expand their online presence. Meanwhile, the UK ambassador leveraged the media to drive foreign policy and tailor messages to the Kenyan audience. The findings also indicated that all embassies had adopted a media logic by following various media sources.The study also found that the Chinese embassy was quick to respond to any tweet that mentioned human rights issues in Xinjiang, Tibet, and Inner Mongolia, and used Twitter as a tool to correct misinformation. In conclusion, diplomats use Twitter as a tool to engage with different audiences and achieve their diplomatic goals through interactive strategies such as two-way communication, storytelling, influencer engagement, hashtag campaigns, and media amplification. However, diplomats need to constructively engage with the digital public to accomplish their goals, while avoiding the risk of their messages being misconstrued.
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to address the surging reliance on influencer marketing in evolving business models, focusing on a novel approach – the influencer e-commerce storefront. This study investigates various influencer advertising disclosures, social media activities and their impact on consumer engagement and sales within the influencer e-commerce storefront.
Design/methodology/approach
Secondary data was collected on 734 influencers from an e-commerce website based on “influencer” storefronts, and the influencer’s social media activity and content were collected from Instagram. Two-stage seemingly unrelated regression model was used to examine the research model.
Findings
Influencer social media use, encompassing daily posts, story posts and average comments, positively influences consumer engagement and sales on influencer e-commerce storefronts. Notably, the study reveals that different advertising disclosure languages yield varying effects. Unclear disclosures (e.g. branded Highlights) positively impact engagement and sales, while obvious disclosures (e.g. “Sponsored Ad”) negatively affect both.
Originality/value
The study contributes to Persuasion Knowledge Theory, examining influencer e-commerce storefronts and revealing the persuasive impact of undisclosed language in advertising. This study innovatively explores the effects of obvious and undisclosed sponsorship on coping mechanisms, offering insights into consumer reactions. The recommended use of undisclosed language suggests that ambiguity can enhance ad persuasion, guiding practitioners in crafting more effective messages. Moreover, the study extends co-creation theory and service-dominant logic by underscoring the significance of influencers’ social media engagement in co-creating value for consumers. Influencers’ active engagement on social media fosters co-creation, strengthening connections and boosting consumer loyalty.
The COVID-19 pandemic has brought about a global health crisis that has affected every aspect of life. The role of governments in communicating information and shaping public perceptions during this crisis has become increasingly important. This study examines how the United States (US), the United Kingdom (UK), and China framed the COVID-19 pandemic in Kenya through the use of their websites. The study focuses on a comprehensive analysis of the content of the websites of the US, UK, and China, with a specific emphasis on the information provided on the COVID-19 pandemic and the strategies used to frame the crisis. The research found that these countries used a variety of strategies to frame the COVID-19 pandemic, ranging from emphasizing the severity of the crisis to promoting their own public health interventions and emphasizing the importance of global cooperation. The results of the study suggest that the US, the UK, and China used different strategies to frame the COVID-19 pandemic in Kenya and that these strategies had varying levels of impact on public perceptions and behavior. For instance, the US was portrayed as a global leader in the fight against the pandemic, the UK as a generous donor of the vaccine, and China as a good example in epidemic prevention, control, and economic recovery. These portrayals were likely intended to shape their image and promote their foreign policies and values to the world. In the case of Kenya, the US positioned the country as a regional leader and supported its efforts to improve border and trade management systems. China framed Kenya as a "brother through thick and thin," suggesting the importance it places on African countries and how it leverages these relationships in its foreign policy. The UK portrayed Kenya as the best model for COVID-19 response, providing best practices for other countries. The study highlights the importance of accurate and trustworthy information in shaping public perceptions during global health crises and provides insights into the strategies used by governments to promote their narratives. In conclusion, this study provides valuable insights into the use of websites as a tool of digital diplomacy during the COVID-19 pandemic.
zet Etkileşim kavramı, internet ve sosyal medya ile hayatımıza girmiştir ve yeni medyayı geleneksel medyadan ayıran en önemli özelliktir. Rafaeli ve Sudweek (1997: 3), etkileşi min, yüz yüze iletişimdeki "konuşma" ve "dinleme" eylemlerini birleştirdiğini belirtmektedir. Etkileşim, kurumlar ile kamuları arasında iki yönlü, simetrik bir iletişim ve ilişki kurulmasına olanak sağlamaktadır. Bu yüzden etkileşimin, özellikle geleneksel medyada kendine yer bulamayan kuruluşlarca kullanımı hayati önem taşımaktadır. Bu çalışmada, iklim krizinin Türkiye'de etkilerini yoğun olarak gösterdiği 2021 yılında, orman yangınları, müsilaj, aşırı yağışlara bağlı seller ve kuraklığa bağlı flamingo ölümleri gibi çevre felaketlerinin yaşandığı dönemde, hedef kitleleri ile yoğun ilişki içinde bulunan çevreci sivil toplum kuruluşlarının (STK) sosyal medya iletişimi incelenmiştir. 01.05.2021-31.08.2021 tarih aralığında, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram ve YouTube'dan toplanan sosyal medya verisi, Avidar'ın (2013) Yanıt Verme Piramidi'ne uygun olarak içerik analizine tabi tutulmuştur. Sosyal medyadan elde edilen veriler yarı yapılandırılmış görüşmelerin betimsel içerik analiziyle detaylandırılmıştır. Çalışmada, çevreci STK'ların sosyal medyayı etkileşimden çok farkındalık yaratmak, kampanyalara destek sağlamak için ilan panosu şeklinde, geleneksel medya ile aynı mantık içinde, tek yönlü iletişim amacıyla kullandığı saptanmıştır.
يهدف البحث إلى تحليل محتوى المنصات الرقمية للجامعات الحكومية للتعرف على التوجه الذي تتبناه في إدارة علاقاتها مع مجموعات المصالح، وتحديد قدرتها على توظيف المبادئ التي يقوم عليها نموذج بناء العلاقات الحوارية عبر الإنترنت، وذلك بالتطبيق على الموقع الإلكتروني وحسابات التواصل الاجتماعي Facebook & Twitter لكل من جامعة القاهرة بجمهورية مصر العربية وجامعة الإمارات بدولة الإمارات العربية المتحدة، بحيث يمكن تقييم قدرة هذه المنصات على توفير البيئة الافتراضية الملائمة لتفعيل المدخل الحواري في إدارة علاقات الجامعة مع جماهيرها. وينتمي هذا البحث إلى الدراسات الكيفية القادرة على تحليل الظواهر المركبة، وهو ما ينطبق على قضية البحث في إطار خصوصية مجال التعليم الجامعي وتعدد مجموعات المصالح للجامعتين محل الدراسة، وتنوع متغيرات البيئة الثقافية والاجتماعية والاقتصادية في مجتمعي مصر والإمارات. وتم استخدام منهج تحليل المضمون الكيفي لرصد أهم ملامح توظيف المبادئ الحوارية في إدارة علاقات الجامعتين عبر منصاتها الرقمية. وأشارت النتائج إلى تقدم المنصات الرقمية لجامعة الإمارات على منصات جامعة القاهرة في استخدام نموذج بناء العلاقات الحوارية عبر الإنترنت، مع ملاحظة تراجع توظيف مبادئ تنمية الحوار التفاعلي على منصات الجامعتين مقارنة بتوظيف مبادئ التصميم وسهولة الاستخدام. ويوصي البحث بإجراء مزيد من الدراسات لتحليل التوجه الحواري على المنصات الرقمية للجامعات من أنماط ملكية متنوعة وفي دول متعددة، بهدف تحسين التواجد الرقمي للمؤسسات الأكاديمية.
This research aims at analyzing the content of public universities’ digital platforms. Central to this study is to investigate the approaches adopted by Cairo University (Egypt) and United Arab Emirates University (UAE) in managing their relationships with stakeholders and their ability to employ the principles of Online Dialogic Relationship Building Model on their official websites and Facebook & Twitter accounts. As a Qualitative Research, this study analyses a complex phenomenon taking into consideration the special aspects of academic education, the multiplicity of stakeholders and the diversity of cultural, social and economic variables in both Egypt and UAE communities. Qualitative Content Analysis is used to identify the dialogic principles employed in managing public relationships through digital platforms. Research findings showed the advancement of United Arab Emirates University digital platforms compared to Cairo University platforms in using Online Dialogic Relationship Building Model. It is noted that utilization of this model principles for developing interactive dialogue on the two universities’ platforms is retracted compared to utilizing the principles of design and ease of interface. It is recommended to conduct more studies for exploring dialogic approaches to different universities’ digital platforms representing various ownerships and different countries to improve the digital presence of academic institutions.
The growth of Internet and social media have substantially changed how customers engage, interact, and communicate with brands and marketers. Individuals with strong personal appeal and influence play a key role in facilitating greater brand outreach and better performance of online ads. Influencers convey similar or distinct persona to match different atmosphere of social media platforms and types of products and services that they intend to promote. Simultaneously, influencers constantly produce textual and visual narrations of their lives and experiences to enhance consumer trusts and foster consumer responses. However, little is known about the role of influencer personal image establishment on driving online consumer engagement. Besides, there are lack of researches that consider the consolidated effect of influencer persona and narratives during the persuasion process. Instagram, Facebook, Sina Weibo and Twitter have been the most examined social media platforms. However, short video-based social media platforms such as TikTok that embed distinct product and content structures still lack academic attention. In light of the significant role of influencers on consumer attitudes and behaviors, and as this research domain is still developing, a research from a new research perspective is needed. This study derives practical implications across various domains, such as social media marketing, digital advertising, and video advertisement in which identification of key factors of information propagators is essential. Taken together, the findings highlight the critical interplay of influencer persona, expressions of the posts and consumer psychological factors in driving consumer engagement and purchase intention, especially for short-form video-based ads.
In an attempt to curtail and prevent the spread of Covid-19 infection, social distancing has been adopted globally as a precautionary measure. Statistics shows that 75% of appointments most especially in the health sector are being handled by telephone since the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic. Currently most patients access health care services in real time from any part of the World through the use of Mobile devices. With an exponential growth of mobile applications and cloud computing the concept of mobile cloud computing is becoming a future platform for different forms of services for smartphones hence the challenges of low battery life, storage space, mobility, scalability, bandwidth, protection and privacy on mobile devices has being improved by combining mobile devices and cloud computing which rely on wireless networks to create a new concept and infrastructure called Mobile Cloud Computing (MCC). The introduction of Mobile cloud computing (MCC) has been identified as a promising approach to enhance healthcare services, with the advent of cloud computing, computing as a utility has become a reality thus a patient only pays for what he uses. This paper, presents a systematic review on the concept of cloud computing in mobile Environment; Mobile Payments and Mobile Healthcare Solutions in various healthcare applications, it describes the principles, challenges and opportunity this concept proffers to the health sector to determine how it can be harnessed is also discussed.
Social media platforms are being used to shift the balance of power, functioning as tools of resistance for activist publics on social justice issues. This article uses a postmodern approach to public relations with the purpose of clarifying the role of dissensus in social media contexts, connecting it to the principles of the ethics of care that promote dialogue but not necessarily with the aim of achieving consensus. Scholars and practitioners can claim a broader role for public relations in society by considering and analyzing conflicting perspectives in digital communication as a way to engage with activist struggles in social justice and human rights causes. By applying critical discourse analysis (CDA) to a case study that articulates interdisciplinary concepts, this research analyzes the first national weekly Portuguese newspaper Expresso support for the anti-racist cause through its promotion of a manifesto and a Facebook post against racist intimidation. In a contemporary society characterized by fragmentation, taking a public stance on important social and political issues, as in the case analyzed, demands moving beyond consensus-driven communication. The data confirm that social media platforms are not necessarily dialogic spaces and that conflicting communicative perspectives may be a useful way to analyze social change in public relations theory and practice. By taking a public stand against racist intimidation, assuming the possible alienation of specific publics –and “Facebook bullying”– this private newspaper also demonstrated the practical application of the assumptions of the ethics of care.
This study examines the patterns and trends of social media-related public relations research published in 14 journals from 2006 to 2020. It analyzes the theoretical trends (i.e., research topics, theories and theoretical models, hypotheses, and research questions), methodological trends (i.e., types of sample, sampling methods, and research methods), and social media platforms used in 445 published journal articles. The findings are compared with the publication trends of social media-related public relations articles by journals in interdisci-plinary areas, which include communication, public relations, and new media. The results reveal the trends of public relations research across three stages of social media development. In addition, this study provides directions for future public relations research involving social media and calls for more studies on fake news on social media, artificial intelligence on social media apps, and social media influencers. The theoretical and practical implications of the findings are also discussed.
Public relations (PR) plays a dynamic role in any organization, and it aspires to maintain the mutual long-term between the organization and the beneficial public relationships through achieving a balance between the interests of each party. in addition, PR have an influential role in improving relations between countries and global organizations. As has become known, the Internet has changed not only the world radically but also the practices of pr. Especially that two-thirds of the world's population use networking sites. Indeed, online PR restructuring of the radical practices of public relations. Due to the increasing popularity of the online PR role, this article intends to discover the research gaps that effect on the online PR practice in the world. Review of the literature found that there are a lot of gaps, researchers must discovered in the future to enhance the global online PR practice , such as: conceptualize online PR among practitioners, the technical skills that PR practitioner should have, the antecedent factors influencing the practice, the consequences of the ability to adequately utilize online PR, the current use of online PR tools, Mechanisms for the development the performance and additional qualitative research that offers potential contributions to an increased understanding of social media's role in PR and organizational communication.
Purpose
Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) can use social media for communicating information with stakeholders with minimal cost. The ability to access and share information influences the SMEs' performance, but there is little scholarship on the association between the adoption of social media and SMEs' performance. This study aims to investigate the effects of technology-organizational-environmental (TOE) factors on the adoption of social media and SMEs’ performance in developing countries.
Design/methodology/approach
This study employed the TOE framework as determinants affecting the adoption of social media and SMEs' performance. The paper used a self-administered closed-ended questionnaire to gather data, from July 2019 to December 2019, from randomly selected respondents from SMEs operating in Pakistan. Partial-least- squares structural equation modeling was used for the path analysis of 423 responses from SMEs' owners, executives, and managers. It also examines the mediating role of social media between TOE characteristics and SMEs’ performance.
Findings
The findings revealed a direct positive relationship between TOE constructs, the adoption of social media, and SMEs' performance. Full mediation was found between technological factors and SMEs performance, and partial mediation was found between organizational and environmental factors and SMEs’ performance. Complementary mediation among the variables was also examined.
Originality/value
This paper has implications for practitioners and researchers interested in investigating social media adoption in SMEs. It builds an empirical, multi-dimensional hypothesized model, including several determinants that may influence the adoption of social media.
Corporate social responsibility (CSR) efforts via social media are increasingly common and are often key to achieving organizational CSR objectives. Concerns exist about potential damage caused by negative user comments and effects of user feedback to CSR efforts are mostly unknown. Exploring the effects of positive and negative comments to social media CSR statements and subsequent organizational response, this work reports the results of an online experiment (N = 257) that manipulated both user-generated feedback to organizational CSR statements and subsequent organizational responses. Results demonstrate that negative user comments are less of a concern than commonly thought, and call into question the value of organizational response to user feedback.
As social media continues to transform firm–customer interactions, firms must leverage customer reactions to generate actionable insights, especially in contexts (e.g., crisis events) where customer reactions are critical. Using the justice theory, we categorize customer reactions of two firms, Home Depot and Target, during the time-frame of a security hack to understand key themes/topics. We then map the themes/topics to customer sentiments in those reactions. We found that customers associate justice with simple procedures than the experience of dealing with the firm. In addition, it is critical for firms to carefully assess and control customer sentiments on social media during crisis events.
This article examines one issue in how public relations students are socialized in their understanding of the value and power of social media in the practice of public relations. The public relations academic research about social media is explored, as well as the professional claims about the value of social media as a public relations tactic. The researchers conducted a content analysis of 1 year of Public Relations Tactics issues. The data are viewed through the theoretical frame of the socialization literature (Jablin, 1987). The results suggest that claims of social media power far outweigh evidence of social media effectiveness as a communication tool. A disconnect exists between what authors of Public Relations Tactics pieces view as the potential for social media and the research findings about the effectiveness of social media. The final section of the article discusses the implications for public relations educators, professional associations, and practitioners as they consider social media tactics in public relations strategy.
Previous studies of advocacy groups’ Web sites suggest that the use of dialogic strategies could lead to greater dialogic communication. This study examined whether dialogic strategies utilized by environmental advocacy groups via their social networking profiles lead to greater dialogic engagement between organizations and visitors. This study offers the first examination of the relationship between the creation of an online space for dialogue and actual dialogic engagement by identifying and measuring six dialogic outcomes.
There is growing interest about the ways in which the public relations field can contribute to democratization and civil society initiatives. Some scholars see enormous potential for public relations by non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to help get important social issues on the public agenda in transitional nations while other scholars have critiqued the practice of public relations in newly formed nations as a form of hegemony that privileges Western ideas, values, and standards of practice. One thing is certain: more scholarly attention is required if the field of public relations is to truly understand its evolving role in civil society. The purpose of this paper is to explore how the public relations–media relationship contributes to civil society development in Kosovo. The researcher interviewed media professionals, public relations/organizational spokespersons, and civil society experts about the opportunities and challenges of the public relations function in building civil society in Kosovo. The findings suggest that “protocol journalism” is the guiding metaphor for explaining and critiquing the public relations–media relationship in Kosovo. The implications of protocol journalism for media development and public relations credibility are discussed.
As social media moves from “buzz word” status to strategic tool, more practitioners are developing skills related to this online communication technology. This study surveyed working public relations practitioners about their adoption of 18 social media tools and their perception on the growth of social media trends in public relations practice. Results provide an overview of the adoption of social media, as a whole, in the industry.