ABSTRACT
With the emergence of interactive communication that more easily allows consumers to contact public relations offices, researchers are increasingly investigating the dialogic potential of online communication for maintaining relations with the general public (Bortree & Seltzer, 2009; Kent & Taylor, 1998, 2002; Kent, Taylor, & White, 2003; Rybalko & Seltzer, 2010). Kent and Taylor (1998) defined dialogic communication as “any negotiated exchange of ideas and opinions” (p. 325) with the purpose of engaging in honest, open, and ethical give-and-take with the public. The authors urged public relations organizations to facilitate dialogue by establishing channels and procedures for fostering dialogue, including social network sites (i.e., Facebook and Twitter). Specifically, public relations professionals argue social network sites and Twitter facilitate two-way communication by opening up new direct avenues of communication between organizations and their public, providing more transparency by creating additional information channels and making it difficult for those who practice public relations to help companies manage, regulate, and influence information. That is, the extent to which companies may systematically control the mode of company-to-public (and public-to-company) communicative interaction and information flow. This study puts these assertions to an empirical test by analyzing comments on the Facebook and Twitter accounts of 25 randomly selected Fortune 500 companies according to which of the four Excellence Theory models they best describe, and how well they achieve each of the five objectives—truthfulness, authenticity, respectfulness, equitability, and social responsibility—of the TARES test. By analyzing the ethicality of public relations practitioner’s comments on Facebook and Tweets, this study adds the dimension of behavior to the broader studies of the ethical reasoning of public relations practitioners; what they actually do is addressed in this research, and can be considered in context of other studies that show what they are capable of.
