Blogging in the Corporate Sphere
The concept of Corporate Blogging began with the birth of weblogs in 1997. In 1999 only 23 were known to be in existence but growth was enormous and by July 1999, Pitas, the first free to air build-your-own weblog tool was launched. Weblogs were link driven sites with a mixture of thoughts, links, essays and perspectives and provided a forum for individuals to share thoughts and perspectives with other webloggers (Blood, 2000). As the popularity of weblogs grew, so did their scope and they began to influence not only the way people communicate and recorded their thoughts, but the practice spilled over into corporate applications in Politics, Marketing and Journalism.
Blogs are usually made up of brief, frequently updated posts that are arranged chronologically, and include links to other web content. Corporate Blogs follow this same format, creating major communication opportunities in the corporate sphere. The Oxford dictionary states the definition of corporate to be a united body of individuals. This can include a business and marketing union, political or journalistic body.
Corporate blogging in a marketing and business context refers specifically to blogs maintained by companies in order to get the word out about products and services. Undoubtably, such companies are benefiting from incorporating blogs into their companies. Biz Stone, author of Blogging- Genius Strategies for Instant Web Content purports that although corporate blogging has emerged rapidly, it will still continue to grow. Stone believes that in larger companies and organisations, project teams such as marketing, product development, audience research or sales will maintain or adopt their own blogs for corporate purposes, similar to the approach taken by Macromedia and other companies. He furthers this proposition by forecasting that in some companies, sensitive research and product development will be confined to the intranet, while others will be made available on the web in order to help publicise the company’s expertise (Stone, 2002, p.165). While such discussion provides an interesting perspective, the future of blogging in Australia also raises significant debate.
Weblogs offer marketing and advertising companies another way to promote interactivity, giving them a greater opportunity to build and maintain long term relationships with their stakeholders. Andrew Sullivan (quoted by Siemens, 2002, p.1) illuminates the influence blogging has had as a new communication medium.
Communication via a weblog can be distinguished from other forms of corporate communication by insisting that it constitutes a particular kind of communication relationship between audience and storyteller, and not merely the dissemination or the recapitulation of past experience. Clients feel at ease and less threatened by weblogs, viewing them as “sort of like� a conversation between themselves and the agent (Langellier and Peterson, 2004, pp. 163-164). This suggests a changing relationship between clients and agencies as a 'new kind of perception'; and so the discussion of blogging as a New Communication Medium for the corporate sphere emerges. Coinciding with this, in his article, Danny Bradbury has investigated how blogs can become a real business asset when they are used as a knowledge management tool (2003, p.1).
Political blogging follows a similar definition to that of a personal weblog, however political weblogs obviously discuss political beliefs, (often in a subjective manner) using blogs to bring daily commentary to campaign trials. When tragedy occurred on September 11, 2001, weblogs became an alternative media source for retrieval of information, as major news sites like CNN were overloaded. Weblogs tracked developments instantaneously, and people were able to directly respond to the blogs, meaning they felt that they were kept more up-to-date. Following September 11, with the war in Iraq, war blogs proliferated, some even gaining an international following. Over all the other mediums, such as the world's most prominent newspapers and television networks, it was Salam Pax, an Iraqi, who provided the most immediate account of life during the war. He was the voice and description of a lone voice in a war zone where reporting was controlled and sanitised by vested interests.
Weblogs really began to get political in January 1998 when a story about Monica Lewinsky's affair with President Clinton was posted. This created much debate about the legitimacy of online journalism, demonstrating the medium's power to steer news (Grossman, 2004, p. 45). However, many people have begun to use weblogs as a means of communicating their personal political beliefs and as a tool to promote political engagement. The majority of people utilising weblogs for political aspects are 'everyday', 'normal' people, however in March 2003 Howard Dean's blogforamerica.com was the first ever official campaign blog for a presidential campaign (Grossman, 2004, p.45). The blog helped raise a staggering $7.6 million, and Dean, then the front runner won praise for his Internet savvy. Political candidates everywhere jumped on the bandwagon. Rebecca Blood, author of the weblog handbook, hopes that the weblog community, particularly those interested in politics will consider following her list of weblog ethics (Blood, 2002, p. 114). While there has been no formal legislation passed regarding weblog ethics, it is important to discuss the Ethical situations that can potentially arise in corporate blogging.
Catherine Miller 17:33, 8 Sep 2004 (EST)
Blogging has had many repercussions on the practice of journalism. Opinions as to the importance, severity and extent of these repercussions are varied and divided. Many questions are raised as to the validity of blogging as a form of journalism, ethics in both Journalism and Blogging and the possible future of Blogging as Journalism.
There is much writing and discussion over the issue of whether blogging constitutes journalism. To define if indeed blogging is journalism, then journalism itself needs to be defined. (Raynesford, 2003) argues that if indeed journalism is defined as 'the reporting of news in a fair, balanced and accurate way', then blogging is not journalism at all. However the lines become unclear if journalists and media outlets do not in truth, adhere to these principles. Matt Haughey, creator of Metafilter.com told Ms Raynesford, that blogging allows for a greater deal of truth and accuracy as bloggers reveal their sources in links and thus create a channel for audiences to check the veracity of facts themselves. He said, 'While people from journalism backgrounds tend to say they aspire to high ideals of truth, fairness and accuracy, I don't think the output of most newspapers comes close to that.'
And herein lies the rub. Blogging is or is not journalism, depending on how one defines what constitutes the practice of journalism. Ethical considerations are tied in with the respective definitions of journalism and blogging and the overlap and relationship between the two. (Lasica, 2002 (1)) suggests that blogging and journalism need each other and each has a vital role to play in completing the other. The line between the two remains blurred and there are strong and heated views on both sides. However, as blogs become another tool of tomorrow's multidirectional news media, the line will ultimately be defined, and though the ride may be bumpy, it will be well worth the journey (Gillmore, 2003). If indeed blogging is to play an important role in news dissemination alongside journalism there is a need not only for a Journalistic Code of Ethics but a Bloggers Code of Ethics, (Hiler, 2002).
Blogging has changed the relationships audiences have had with journalists and the media. Greg Ruggerio in Rushkoff's Media Virus says, 'Media is a corporate possession'¦You cannot participate in the media. Bringing that into the foreground is the first step. The second step is to define the difference between public and audience. An audience is passive, a public is participatory. We need a media that is public in its orientation.' (in Blood, 2002). Blogging does just that. The audience is no longer passive, but becomes actively involved, able to comment, post their opinion. They become involved as customers families and citizens (Gillmore, 2003). This is evidenced by the reporting on the recent Iraqi war. (Lasica, 2002 (2)) discusses a case of a freelance journalist traveling to Iraq to report, funded by the readers of his blog. Lasica argues that blogging is re-personalizing journalism and restoring the trust between the journalist and the audience. In this way Corporate Blogging has become a powerful tool and change agent for the way audiences and the media interact and will be a shaping agent of the news reporting and information dissemination of the future.
Blogging has been heralded as the 'ground zero of the personal web-casting revolution' (Lasica, 2002, (3)) and is undoubtedly an integral part of the media dialogue. It looks to be a publishing revolution more profound than the printing press. 'Weblogs could be to words, what Napster was to music 'except this time, it'll really work' (Sullivan, A. 2002). The recently hailed Top Blogs provides a list of the most popular weblogs, based on how many people have logged onto them (Baker, 2002).
Reference List and Bibliography
Camilla Northcote 17:17, 3 Sep 2004 (EST)
Catherine Miller 14:10, 4 Sep 2004 (EST)
Catherine Miller 16:52, 25 Aug 2004 (EST) --Camilla Northcote 16:53, 25 Aug 2004 (EST)
