When a 'flog' flops

The Internet has completely change our lives eversince 1990s. With the addition of a new media platform, it is no wonder that PR practitioners have taken advantage of its increasing popularity to get to specific target audience.

This week also happens to be my debate with the motion as 'Blogs established by PR practitioners on behalf of clients / organisations facilitate two-way symmetrical communication between organisations and their publics.'

I think my group member Haryanti and I pretty much nailed the debate with our main example of government blogs' obvious screening of comments sent in by the public.

Fake blogs or 'flogs' are blogs established by PR practitioners on behalf of clients/organisations. While on one hand it appears to be a credible, non-biased source, it is in fact created for the purpose of marketing a product, service, or political viewpointof marketing a product, service, or political viewpoint. Its purpose is to inspire viral marketing or create an internet meme that generates traffic and interest in a product or whatever it is that is being talked about in the flog.

A key element of two-way symmetrical communication is equity. With the relative anonymity of online users, unequal power in organisational message development as well as the functions such as deleting or required approval of the comments or feedbacks definitely do not translate into a two-way symmetrical communication.

Especially with the PR practitoners monitoring the comments, they are bound to screen the negative ones, thus failing to allow readers to participate in an authentic conversation unlike two-way symmetrical communication.

Flogs, in my opinion, generate two-way asymmetrical communication. One big flop is the controversy of the Wal-Mart flogs where Edelman , a global PR agency which is famous alongside with agencies like Ogilvy and the likes, failed to be transparent about the identity of the bloggers updating the flogs.

This is what Richard Edelman wrote in his blog:

"I want to acknowledge our error in failing to be transparent about the identity of the two bloggers from the outset. This is 100% our responsibility and our error; not the client's.

Let me reiterate our support for the WOMMA guidelines on transparency, which we helped to write. Our commitment is to openness and engagement because trust is not negotiable and we are working to be sure that commitment is delivered in all our programs."
(URL: http://www.edelman.com/speak_up/blog/archives/2006/10/a_commitment.html#trackbacks)

I bet there are more flogs there waiting to be exposed.

(Read before Week 10:
12. New Media and Public Relations - Kate Fitch)