Annotated bibliography – Organisational benefits of blogging

Shortly after blogging hit the mainstream, firms started trying to figure out how to tap into the phenomenon.  The initial foray was through marketing (more on that to come) when firms started reading or lurking around consumer blogs and watching what was said about them.  Then firms tried to give it a go themselves, with limited success, by turning their press releases into PR blogs.  The manipulative tone was the exact opposite of what the blogging community expected and valued.  Now firms are letting employees blogs within varying limits and bringing blogging behind the firewall.  Again, I am not sure firms really get why blogging works, with most organisational blogs being less successful than those on the outside.  Too much focus on the mechanics of blogging and too much control and too little focus on providing employees with the freedom to explore the environment and let it become their own.

This is a long list, so again, I am just including a sentence or two from the abstracts.  Enjoy…

Bar-Ilan, J. (2005). Information hub blogs. Journal of Information Science, 31(4), 297-307.

Blogging has become an important activity on the web; the number of web blogs is growing extremely fast, and thus this phenomenon cannot be ignored. This paper monitors a set of blogs for a two-month period in September-October 2003 and characterizes these blogs based on descriptive statistics and content analysis. We have chosen a set of topic-oriented blogs, i.e. blogs whose purpose is to convey professional information.

Cayzer, S. (2004). Semantic Blogging and Decentralized Knowledge Management. Communications of the ACM, 47(12), 47-52.

This article focuses on a system capable of aggregating, annotating, indexing and searching a community’s snippets.

Cox, J. L., Martinez, E. R., & Quinlan, K. B. (2008). Blogs and the corporation: managing the risk, reaping the benefits. Journal of Business Strategy, 29(3).

The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of blogs in corporate communication and proposes general policies to help corporations effectively and ethically use blogs.

Dearstyne, B. W. (2005). BLOGS The New Information Revolution? Information Management Journal, 39(5), 38-44.

This article discusses the emerging popularity of Weblogs, its categories, and the areas in which records and information management (RIM) managers can influence blog policy.

Ip, R. K. F., & Wagner, C. (2008). Weblogging: A study of social computing and its impact on organizations. [Article]. Decision Support Systems, 45(2), 242-250.

This article reviews weblogs and their role as a social networking device for young people and its probable evolution to the organizational computing medium.

Kaiser, S., & Müller-Seitz, G. (2008). Leveraging Lead User Knowledge in Software Development – The Case of Weblog Technology. Industry & Innovation, 15(2), 199-221.

Firms increasingly rely upon information technology (IT) to manage organizational knowledge, though this does not inevitably result in increased knowledge sharing.

Kaiser, S., Müller-Seitz, G., Pereira Lopes, M., & Pina E Cunha, M. (2007). Weblog-Technology as a Trigger to Elicit Passion for Knowledge. Organization, 14(3), 391-412.

The practice of Weblogging as a new social and technological phenomenon in society and business is gaining a growing number of supporters.

Miller, R. (2007). Breaker, breaker: Is the blogosphere today’s CB radio? Public Relations Tactics, 14(11), 17-22.

The article offers tips on how a company can protect its brand online in the U.S. Blogging is sometimes disadvantageous to a company’s product because the criticisms made by bloggers can either make or break a company.

Ojala, M. (2005). Blogging: For knowledge sharing, management and dissemination. Business Information Review, 22(4), 269-276.

The article discusses the significant benefits of weblogs as vehicles for knowledge management initiatives.

Pabarskaite, Z. (2003). Decision trees for web log mining. Intelligent Data Analysis, 7(2), 141.

Complex and extensive web sites are becoming more and more popular. Companies need to justify their investments.

Pinnock, S. R. (2005). Organizing virtual environments: National union deployment of the blog and new cyberstrategies. WorkingUSA, 8(4), 457-468.

Over the past decade, the use of information technology (IT) by American unions to enhance organizing initiatives has been slow and uneven.

Richards, J. (2008). Because I need somewhere to vent: The expression of conflict through work blogs. New Technology, Work and Employment, 23(1-2), 95-110.

Employee resistance has traditionally been analysed as an activity that occurs in the work organisation. In recent years, new Internet communication technologies, such as blogs, have expanded the possibilities for employees to express conflict. This paper explores how these developments can add to our understandings of employee resistance to the labour process.

Ringberg, T., & Reihlen, M. (2008). Towards a Socio-Cognitive Approach to Knowledge Transfer. The Journal of Management Studies, 45(5), 912.

We present first a critique of the positivist and social constructionist positions; then we introduce a socio-cognitive model that captures and explicates socio-cognitive processes involved in sense making during knowledge transfer. Finally, we explore future research streams and managerial implications.

Sprague, R. (2007). Business Blogs and Commercial Speech: A New Analytical Framework for the 21st Century. American Business Law Journal, 44(1), 127-159.

The article focuses on the free speech rights in light of the introduction and influence of Internet Web logs, popularly known as blogs that is applied to businesses. The author reflects that substantial part of business-related communications is beginning to occur in blogs, including advertising which the commercial speech doctrine has not subjected to regulation.

Sunstein, C. R. (2008). Neither Hayek nor Habermas. Public Choice, 134(1/2), 87-95.

The rise of the blogosphere raises important questions about the elicitation and aggregation of information, and about democracy itself.

Wagner, C. (2005). Supporting Knowledge Management in Organizations with Conversational Technologies: Discussion Forums, Weblogs, and Wilds. Journal of Database Management, 16(2), 1-1.

The article reviews requirements and tool availability for knowledge management in virtual communities and other knowledge sharing environments, where professionals wish to quickly and easily share knowledge and information.

Ward, R. (2006). Blogs and wikis: A personal journey. Business Information Review, 23(4), 235-240.

Describes the use of social software and social media, incorporating blogs and wikis, to develop websites to support internal communication and collaboration in a law firm.

Wyld, D. C. (2008). Management 2.0: a primer on blogging for executives. Management Research News, 31(6), 448-483.

The purpose of this paper is to examine how corporate executives of companies are using blogging as a new communications channel.

Xifra, J., & Huertas, A. (2008). Blogging PR: An exploratory analysis of public relations weblogs. Public Relations Review, 34(3), 269-275.

Although there are ever more weblogs on the Internet, this is an area that has been little researched in public relations, and where they have been analyzed it has been as a tool for communication rather than a primary information source in the public relations body of knowledge.

Annotated bibliography – blogging behaviours

The next group of literature I looked at was the psychology-based research on blogging norms and behaviours.  Of all the categories, this is the largest and the focus of many of the CMC and cyber-psychology journals. As I look at the length of the list (26), I am thinking that full abstracts are too much, so I have just put the first sentence or two for each.

These were the most fun articles to read because they really tap into what intrigues me about blogging – why do we do it?  While the subject of most of my posts is on all of my insecurities around getting readers and encouraging readers to comment, I rarely talk about how much fun it is.  Even though I have heaps of other writing to do for my thesis, I really enjoy writing for the blog.  There is something very liberating about the casual style of blogging.  Even though this is a research blog and not my own private diary, it does serve as a catharsis for me – giving me the opportunity to talk about things that are on my mind.  Here is what is on some other researchers’ minds…

Baker, J. R., & Moore, S. M. (2008). Distress, Coping, and Blogging: Comparing New Myspace Users by Their Intention to Blog. CyberPsychology & Behavior, 11(1), 81-85.

New Myspace.com users ( N = 134, mean age 24.5 years) completed a questionnaire about their intent to blog and several psychosocial variables. Intending bloggers scored higher on psychological distress, self-blame, and venting and scored lower on social integration and satisfaction with number of online and face-to-face friends. Intending bloggers may view this activity as a potential mechanism for coping with distress in situations in which they feel inadequately linked with social supports.

Chu, S.-C., & Kamal, S. (2008). The effect of perceived blogger credibility and argument quality on message elaboration and brand attitudes: An exploratory study. Journal of Interactive Advertising, 8(2), 1-31.

To understand information processing on blogs, this study investigates how perceived blogger trustworthiness affects blog readers’ elaboration of brand-related messages and its interaction effects with argument quality.

Ducate, L. C., & Lomicka, L. L. (2008). Adventures in the blogosphere: from blog readers to blog writers. Computer Assisted Language Learning, 9-28.

This paper reports on a year-long project in which students participated as both readers and writers of blogs. Specifically, this study examines the steps students progress through while reading and writing blogs, students’ reactions to blogging, and how self-expression is characterised in the blogosphere.

Furukawa, T., Matsuzawa, T., Matsuo, Y., Uchiyama, K., & Takeda, M. (2006). Analysis of user relations and reading activity in weblogs. Electronics & Communications in Japan, Part 1: Communications, 89(12), 88-96.

The relationships among weblogs (blogs) can be recognized through bookmarks (favorite blogs linked to from the user’s own blog page), comments, and trackbacks. Such connections between blogs form blog networks, which can be a useful information source in recommending information to the user.

Gillett, J. (2007). Internet Web Logs as Cultural Resistance. Journal of Communication Inquiry, 31(1), 28-43.

This article examines an Internet project — sarsart.org — that features digital artworks created in response to the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) outbreak in spring 2003. Qualitative methods including archival research, semiotic analysis, and interviews are used to examine the emergence and substance of this Internet project.

Guadagno, R. E., Okdie, B. M., & Eno, C. A. (2008). Who blogs? Personality predictors of blogging. [Article]. Computers in Human Behavior, 24(5), 1993-2004.

The Big Five personality inventory measures personality based on five key traits: neuroticism, extraversion, agreeableness, openness to experience, and conscientiousness.

Gurak, L. J., & Antonijevic, S. (2008). The Psychology of Blogging: You, Me, and Everyone in Between. American Behavioral Scientist, 52(1), 60-68.

The phenomenon and practice of blogging offers a rich environment from which to look at the psychology of the Internet. By using blogging as a lens, researchers can see that many predictions and findings of early Internet research on social and psychological features of computer-mediated communication have held true, whereas others are not as true, and that the psychology of the Internet is very much a sense of the one and the many, the individual and the collective, the personal and the political.

Harp, D., & Tremayne, M. (2006). The gendered blogosphere: Examining inequality using network and feminist theory. Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, 83(2), 247-264.

This study examined gender inequity among the most-read political blogs on the Web. Sampling over one year from blog rankings, we found that 10% of the top bloggers were women. Discourse analysis of bloggers’ explanations for gender disparity revealed three dominant beliefs: women do not blog about politics, women’s blogs lack quality, and top bloggers do not link to women’s sites. We use network and feminist theory to explore these claims and offer suggestions for increasing the representation of female voices in the political Blogosphere.

Herring, S. C., Kouper, I., Scheidt, L. A., & Wright, E. L. (2004). Women and Children Last: The Discursive Construction of Weblogs. Journal. Retrieved from http://blog.lib.umn.edu/blogosphere/women_and_children_pf.html

Weblogs (“blogs”), frequently modified webpages containing individual entries displayed in reverse chronological sequence, are the latest mode of computer-mediated communication (CMC) to attain widespread popularity.

Herring, S. C., & Paolillo, J. C. (2006). Gender and genre variation in weblogs. Journal of Sociolinguistics, 10(4), 439-459.

A relationship among language, gender, and discourse genre has previously been observed in informal, spoken interaction and formal, written texts.

Hsu, C.-L., & Lin, J. C.-C. (2008). Acceptance of blog usage: The roles of technology acceptance, social influence and knowledge sharing motivation. Information & Management, 45(1), 65-74.

Recently, there has been a dramatic proliferation in the number of blogs; however, little is published about what motivates people to participate in blog activities.

Huang, C.-Y., Shen, Y.-Z., Lin, H.-X., & Chang, S.-S. (2007). Bloggers’ Motivations and Behaviors: A Model. Journal of Advertising Research, 47(4), 472-484.

During the past few years, there has been an exponential growth of blogs, and behind these blogs are numerous bloggers who create and manage them. It is widely expected that bloggers armed with their own blogs will make a tremendous impact on both mass communication media and marketers who rely on such media. However, given the widespread use of blogs, there has been little systematic analysis of the factors behind blogging activities. To serve as a stepping-stone, this article presents a model that addresses the relationships among blogging motivations and behaviors, and reports the empirical validation of the model.

Huang, L.-S., Chou, Y.-J., & Lin, C.-H. (2008). The Influence of Reading Motives on the Responses after Reading Blogs. CyberPsychology & Behavior, 11(3), 351-355.

As the number of blogs increases dramatically, these online forums have become important media people use to share feelings and information. Previous research of blogs focuses on writers (i.e., bloggers), but the influence of blogs also requires investigations from readers’ perspectives.

Jung, T., Youn, H., & McClung, S. (2007). Motivations and Self-Presentation Strategies on Korean-Based “Cyworld” Weblog Format Personal Homepages. CyberPsychology & Behavior, 10(1), 24-31.

The main purposes of this study are to find out individuals’ motives and interpersonal self-presentation strategies on constructing Korean weblog format personal homepage (e.g., “Cyworld mini-homepage”). The study also attempts to find predictor motives that lead to the activities of posting and maintaining a homepage and compare the self-presentation strategies used on the Web with those commonly used in interpersonal situations.

Kaiser, S., & Müller-Seitz, G. (2008). Leveraging Lead User Knowledge in Software Development – The Case of Weblog Technology. Industry & Innovation, 15(2), 199-221.

Firms increasingly rely upon information technology (IT) to manage organizational knowledge, though this does not inevitably result in increased knowledge sharing.

Kuhn, M. (2007). Interactivity and Prioritizing the Human: A Code of Blogging Ethics. Journal of Mass Media Ethics, 22(1), 18-36.

The increasing popularity of blogs and blogging, as well as their integration into the mainstream media mix, has sparked an ongoing discussion of whether a code of blog ethics is necessary or even feasible. In this article, I draw upon new communication technology ethics scholarship and an exploratory survey of bloggers to propose such a code. This code, unlike previous proposals, recognizes interactivity and the importance of prioritizing the human element in computer-mediated communication as the core values in blogging ethics.

Lee, D.-H., Im, S., & Taylor, C. R. (2008). Voluntary self-disclosure of information on the Internet: A multimethod study of the motivations and consequences of disclosing information on blogs. Psychology and Marketing, 25(7), 692-710.

As marketing paradigms have shifted toward the need to build a relationship with consumers, marketers need to facilitate two-way communications in order to better understand them.

McCullagh, K. (2008). Blogging: self presentation and privacy. Information & Communications Technology Law, 17(1), 3-23.

Blogs are permeating most niches of social life, and addressing a wide range of topics from scholarly and political issues1 to family and children’s daily lives.

Nardi, B. A., Schiano, D. J., Gumbrecht, M., & Swartz, L. (2004). Why We Blog. Communications of the ACM, 47(12), 41-46.

This article reports that blogging is sometimes viewed as a new, grassroots form of journalism and a way to shape democracy outside the mass media and conventional party politics.

Pabarskaite, Z. (2003). Decision trees for web log mining. Intelligent Data Analysis, 7(2), 141.

The investigation proposes decision trees for web user behaviour analysis. This includes prediction of user future actions and the typical pages leading to browsing termination.

Perlmutter, D. D., & Schoen, M. (2007). “If I Break a Rule, What Do I Do, Fire Myself?” Ethics Codes of Independent Blogs. Journal of Mass Media Ethics, 22(1), 37-48.

As the latest tool for disseminated information and editorial comment shaping public opinion, blogging is quickly gaining popularity, prominence, and power. One major controversy for the new medium of circulating news and commentary is to what extent or even whether blogs should have codes of ethics.

Riva, G. (2002). The Sociocognitive Psychology of Computer-Mediated Communication: The Present and Future of Technology-Based Interactions. CyberPsychology & Behavior, 5(6), 581-598.

The increased diffusion of the Internet has made computer-mediated communication (CMC) very popular. However, a difficult question arises for psychologists and communication researchers: “What are the communicative characteristics of CMC?”

Stefanone, M. A., & Jang, C.-Y. (2007). Writing for Friends and Family: The Interpersonal Nature of Blogs. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 13(1), 123-140.

This research explores variables related to the use of personal-journal style blogs for interpersonal goals. A random sample of bloggers completed surveys exploring how the combination of extraversion and self-disclosure affect strong tie network size, which in turn serves as motivation to use blogs as an alternative communication channel.

Trammell, K. D., & Keshelashvili, A. (2005). Examining the new influencers: A self-presentation study of a-list blogs. Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, 82(4), 968-982.

This study investigated impression management tactics and self-presentation on popular A-list blogs. Building on Goffman’s constructs of self-presentation and operationalizing impression management strategies, this study content analyzed the most-linked-to blogs.

Wei, C. (2004). Formation of Norms in a Blog Community. Journal. Retrieved from http://blog.lib.umn.edu/blogosphere/formation_of_norms_pf.html

This paper reports on a study of a community of blogs devoted to knitting and compares the community’s stated normative guidelines with actual practice.

Zuckerman, E. (2008). Meet the bridgebloggers. Public Choice, 134(1/2), 47-65.

As the blogosphere has expanded outside its original US context, it has changed from an extended community in which everyone shares a roughly similar set of suppositions and languages to a set of separate blogospheres characterized by different cultures and languages.