This study examines how blog-mediated public relations (BMPR) can influence relational trust. It hypothesizes that blog posts with high narrative structure, dialogical self, and blogger credibility will result in more relational trust than low levels of these variables. An experiment was conducted manipulating these variables in blog posts written by a marketing vice president. 314 students evaluated levels of relational trust, blogger credibility, narrative structure, and dialogical self. Results supported the hypotheses that high levels of these variables led to greater perceived relational trust than low levels.

1. The Effects of Blog-Mediated Public Relations (BMPR) on Relational Trust Sung-Un Yang JoonSoo Lim

2. Blog = a simple version of Web-based log or weblog, is a personal publishing or content management system on the Internet, at which an author or multiple authors can publish information which is often displayed in a reverse chronological order

3. 3 Executive Blogs Being transparent in blogs builds trust for a company Sun Microsystems Official blog from the CEO Jonathan Schwartz shares honest observation from a ‘conference’ of startups in Silicon Valley Excerpt from Jonathan Schwartz’s Blog regarding direct feedback from startups: “BUT THERE WAS A TROUBLING, CONSISTENT MESSAGE. IT USUALLY WENT LIKE THIS, THANK YOU SUN. BUT HEY, WHY ARE YOU HERE? I THOUGHT YOU BUILT BIG EXPENSIVE STUFF THAT RAN IN BANKS? OUCH."

4. Many Public Relations practitioners have come to realize that blogging is not just a fad and have recognized a growing trend in the industry

5. Purpose The purpose of this research is to conceptualized empirically test a model of BMPR, which explains how concepts of narrative structure, dialogue, and blogger credibility are attributed to relational trust

6. Variables That Influence Relational Trust in BMPR Salience of narrative structure Dialogical Self Perceived blogger credibility

7. Hypothesis A blog post in salient narrative structure will result in more relational trust A blog post delivered by high dialogical self will result in more relational trust A high blogger credibility will generate more relational trust

8. Method The blog posts written by Susan Becker , Vice President of Marketing and Product Development at Intelli-Q (a company that produces personal computing hardware products The Experiment was conducted on the web by manipulating blogger credibility, narrative structure, and dialogical self. High and Low

9. Participants 314 students from 5 large universities in USA

10. Procedure Participants were randomly assigned to eight different groups ( High VS Low blogger credibility, High VS Low narrative structure , High VS Low dialogical self

11. Scale Blogger credibility Trustworthy, Expert, Reliable, Intelligent, Professional, and Experienced Narrative Structure Showing personal engagement , demonstrating the blogger’s feeling/thinking, having a well-defined beginning, middle, and ending of a story, talking about specific, particular events, rather than delivering news or general knowledge Dialogical Self Seems to make an effort to respond to comments left on her blog, seems to ignore others’ perspectives or opinions, seems arrogant, tends to be authoritative, seeks control over others, seems to be aware of the audience, tries to teach others

12. Result High levels of narrative structure, dialogical self and blogger credibility would result in more relational trust than low levels

13. Relational Trust “Interactivity” Dialogical Self Narrative Structure Blogger Credibility

14. Thank You