The changing blogosphere and its impact on public relations practice and professional ethics

Please cite this article in press as: Lahav, T., & Roth-Cohen, O. The changing blogosphere and its impact

on public relations practice and professional ethics: The Israeli case. Public Relations Review (2016),

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.pubrev.2016.08.006

ARTICLE IN PRESS G Model

PUBREL-1525; No. of Pages3

Public Relations Review xxx (2016) xxx–xxx

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Public Relations Review

Research in Brief

The changing blogosphere and its impact on public relations

practice and professional ethics: The Israeli case

Tamar Lahav∗, Osnat Roth-Cohen

Ariel University, School of Communication and the Institute for New Media, Society and Politics, Kyriat Hamada, Ariel, 40700, Israel

a r t i c l e i n f o

Article history:

Received 31 August 2015

Received in revised form 20 May 2016

Accepted 29 August 2016

Available online xxx

Keywords:

Public relations

Israeli blogosphere

PR professional ethics

New media

Web-blog

a b s t r a c t

The present study is drawing a comprehensive overview of the Israeli blogosphere, its

impact on PR practitioner work, and the professional ethics implications of the tightening

relationships betweenPRpractitioners andbloggers. Thefindings illustrate auniquepattern

according to which bloggers willingly accept PR involvement in their content creation. This

phenomenon raises ethical questions since bloggers’ decisions to accept compensation may

impact the trust that consumers have in reviews at blogs.

© 2016 Published by Elsevier Inc.

1. Introduction

The new media arena poses fresh challenges for local PR practitioners, who must now navigate between traditional media

and hundreds of internet sites, social networks, and blog-hosting web sites. Much research has focused on the blog as a genre,

presently celebrating its 20th anniversary as a routine PR tool. Researchers found that cooperation with bloggers can benefit

organizations and PR practitioners; therefore, the blogosphere has apparently become a legitimate platform for PR activity

(Porter, Sweetser, & Chung, 2009; Xifra & Huertas, 2008).

This study seeks to contribute to the existing literature by presenting for the first time, and by means of the Israeli case,

the different types of the working patterns in the Israeli blogosphere and demonstrate each type’s influence on PR work

methods and tactics and its professional ethics implications.

The study focuses on the development of the commercial relationships between PR practitioners and bloggers and dis￾cusses the ethical consequences. The paper could contribute to raising the ethical issue for discussion in relevant Israeli

organizations, and for formulation of an ethical code for bloggers and its enforcement.

2. Method

2.1. Research questions

What are the Israeli PR-bloggers working patterns?

What are each pattern’s implications on PR strategy and tactics?

∗ Corresponding author.

E-mail address: [email protected] (T. Lahav).

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.pubrev.2016.08.006

0363-8111/© 2016 Published by Elsevier Inc.