Sergei Golitsinski >> MA Thesis Results

Chapter 4. Results

This research examined 156 blogs containing 201 relevant posts, connected by 1.548 links (which constituted 774 connections between pages). This chapter describes the results of examining this data.

The data analysis consists of the following parts:

A quantitative analysis of blogs will examine the blogs in terms of numerical data, such as the number of posts and comments for each blog, as well as the number of inbound links from relevant blogs and the number of outbound links to relevant blogs.
A chronological analysis of blog posts will quantitatively describe the timeline of the posts, i.e., the chronological development of the conversation in the blogosphere.
A qualitative analysis of blog posts will classify each post as positive (P), negative (N), neutral (NT) or balanced (B).
A qualitative analysis of mainstream media articles will classify each article according to the same scale as blog posts.
Based on the carried out analysis, I will identify a set of blogs, which proved to be most influential in the context of the Edelman/Wal-Mart blog case.
Finally, I will examine all blog posts and mainstream media articles to identify specific negative themes. I will elaborate on each identified theme to demonstrate the details, as well as the scope of the negative publicity.

For convenience of reference, each blog is assigned an identification number (ID), which are consistent throughout this thesis.

Quantitative Analysis of Blogs

The purpose of this analysis was to quantify the scale of the conversation, as well as to identify numerical criteria which may help determine the significance of each blog as a facilitator of the conversation, i.e., to identify the most influential blogs. Detailed statistical analysis of this data is outside of the scope of this research.

Blogs were analyzed quantitatively based on the following criteria:

number of relevant posts per blog;
number of comments per blog;
number of inbound links from relevant blogs per blog;
number of outbound links to relevant blogs per blog.

I believe that each of these criteria may be interpreted to some extent as a measure of a blog’s participation in a given conversation. Multiple relevant posts demonstrate the blog author’s considerable interest in the subject. Outbound links direct the blog’s readers to other blogs participating in the conversation. Inbound links direct readers from other blogs participating in the conversation; and, most importantly, indicate a measure of trust extended from the linking blogs. Finally, the number of comments on a blog is a direct indication of the scale of the conversation.

This chapter provides tables with the top 20 results. Complete lists are available in Appendix B.

Number of Relevant Posts per Blog

Most of the blogs contained only one relevant post. Only 16% of the blogs (25 out of 156) contained between 2 and 5 posts relevant to the subject. However, these results show a disproportional distribution of comments and links, with the top 25 blogs in this category (or 16% of all blogs) providing more than 1/3 (35%) of the total number of relevant posts, 45% of all comments (732 out of 1.623), 27% of all outbound links (210 out of 774) and 33% of all inbound links (255 out of 774). This observation suggests that blogs containing multiple posts, on the average, may be more influential that single-post blogs. A list of the top 20 blogs in this category is given in Table 1.

Table 1. Top 20 Blogs with Multiple Posts

Number of Comments per Blog

More than half of all blogs (58%) had comments. These blogs provided 59% (119) of the total number of relevant posts, 69% of all outbound links (531) and 66% of all inbound links (513). This data is, overall, proportional; however, it is noteworthy that the top five blogs in this category (or top 3% of all blogs), containing more than 100 comments each, are responsible for 52% of all comments, 7% of all outbound links and 20% of all inbound links, which is highly disproportional. A list of the top 20 blogs in this category is given in Table 2.

Table 2. Top 20 Blogs with Comments

Number of Outbound Links per Blog

88% of blogs contained outbound links (i.e., links to other relevant blog posts). These blogs also contained 85% of all comments and 81% of all inbound links (i.e., links from other relevant blog posts). A list of the top 20 blogs in this category is given in Table 3.

Table 3. Top 20 Blogs with Outbound Links

Number of Inbound Links per Blog

73% of blogs contained inbound links. These blogs also contained 95% of all comments and 89% of all inbound links. That is in sharp contrast with the previous category where a greater percentage of blogs (88% vs. 73%) contained less comments (85% vs. 95%). This may suggest that blogs with a large number of inbound links are likely to have more comments, whereas more outbound links does not necessarily imply more comments. A list of the top 20 blogs in this category is given in Table 4.

Table 4. Top 20 Blogs with Inbound Links

Chronological Analysis of the Conversation in Blogs and Mainstream Media

The purpose of a chronological analysis is to quantitatively describe the timeline of the entire conversation – both in the blogosphere and in mainstream media

Analysis of Blog Posts

The data shows that the conversation started on 10/9/2006 and was actively carried on until the end of the month. The conversation was triggered by the story published on businessweek.com (Gogoi, 2006a), which created 200 comments and was followed on 10/10/2006 by a post on walmartwatch.com (Jack, 2006) with 65 comments and a post on dailykos.com (JR Monsterfodder, 2006) with 278 comments. However, the blogosphere truly “exploded” on 10/16/2006 with 37 posts – the day when Edelman’s CEO Richard Edelman posted an apology to his own blog, which caused even more controversy than the original story.

66% of all posts appeared in the period between 10/12/2006 and 10/20/2006, which means that the main part of the conversation lasted a little over a week. Figure 3 illustrates the progress of the conversation in terms of the number of posts for each day in October.

Figure 3. Blog Posts for October 2006

The data in Figure 4 and Figure 5 demonstrates the timeline of both – posts and comments – as observed from October 2006 until November 2007. 76% of all blog posts appeared in October 2006; 92% of all comments were made for blog posts which appeared in October 2006. Therefore, the data shows that the bulk of the conversation took place within the first three weeks after the situation occurred.

Figure 4. Blog Posts for 2006 - 2007

Figure 5. Blog Comments for 2006 - 2007

Analysis of Mainstream Media Articles

The mainstream media data is by far less interesting than that of the blogosphere. Only 18 relevant articles were discovered, 50% of which were published in October 2006. The rest were published from November 2006 to April 2007. Figure 6 illustrates this data.

Figure 6. Mainstream Media Articles for 2006 - 2007

Qualitative Analysis of Blog Posts and Mainstream Media Articles

All blog posts and mainstream media articles were classified as positive, negative, neutral or balanced. There was no specific criteria for this classification and it was carried out by one person only, therefore the results cannot be considered absolutely reliable in terms of exact numbers. However, in terms of demonstrating the main trends of the conversation and the scale of negative publicity, I consider these results to be accurate.

Classification Criteria

When classifying a post, I analyzed all the relevant content available on the web page. A reader who visits the web page with the post is exposed to all the content on the page, so I did not distinguish between the post itself, the comments, the trackback and pingback sections.

A blog post often contained extensive quotations, or even “reprints” of other posts. In a few cases, posts were digests of other blogs. In all such cases a post was analyzed based on the available content, not the content’s authorship. The same principle was applied to mainstream media articles.

I did not estimate the degree to which a post or an article was negative or positive, because it was irrelevant for the purpose of this research. What mattered was whether the content in question contributed to negative publicity or not.

The following criteria were used for classifying the results:

Posts and articles were classified as positive if they did not contain any negative opinion, and the information was presented from a positive perspective.
Posts and articles were classified as negative if there was some negative opinion (for online sources – in the content itself or in comments) or if the information was presented from a negative perspective.
Posts and articles were classified as neutral when the coverage of the situation was minimal, did not include the author’s (or editorial) opinion, and, therefore, did not create any significant negative publicity.
Post and articles were classified as balanced if both, negative and positive opinions, were expressed. With blog posts, in some cases a post was positive, but a significant part of the comments was negative, in which case the post was classified as balanced.
One blog post was unavailable at the time of the coding. That post was classified as not available (n/a).

Classification Results of Blog Posts

According to the results of this classification, 66% of the posts were negative, 11.5% were positive, 24% were neutral, and 10.5% were balanced. Therefore, 76.5% of the posts (negative and balanced combined) provided access to negative information or opinions. Figure 7 demonstrates the quantitative results of this classification.

Figure 7. All Blog Posts Displayed by Type

Figure 8 demonstrates the chronological development of the conversation during the most important period: October 2006, arranged by the type of posts.

Figure 8. Blog Posts for October 2006 Displayed by Type

Classification Results of Mainstream Media Articles

According to the results of this classification, 78% of the posts were negative and 22% were neutral. Figure 9 demonstrates the quantitative results of this classification.

Figure 9. All Mainstream Media Articles Displayed by Type

Selecting the Top Blogs

The purpose of the carried out analysis was to select a set of blogs, which were most influential in the context of the Edelman/Wal-Mart blog case. These blogs will be used to identify the individuals who had the most impact on the conversation. These individual authors or contributors represent the key data which may support or not support the main hypothesis of this study and will be examined in the next chapter.

As it has been noted in the previous chapter, the method of selecting the source data for this research has limitations. I cannot be sure that I have located all the blogs which participated in the conversation. However, I estimate that my method located most of them. Therefore, by selecting the most influential blogs from a data set which is incomplete, yet contains most of the existing relevant blogs, it is reasonable to assume that this sample will include most of the influential blogs on this topic.

Selection Criteria

I have analyzed each blog in terms of the number of relevant posts it contains, number of comments, number of outbound links to relevant blogs, and number of inbound links from relevant blogs. I have also classified each blog as positive, negative, neutral or balanced, and examined the timeline of the entire conversation.

There is no existing formula to calculate the degree to which each blog affected the conversation; therefore, the suggested selection criteria are only an attempt to identify the most influential blogs in this context. The most important criteria for a given blog, in my opinion, are comments left by readers, for they provide direct evidence that the blog had an impact on the conversation. The next important criteria are inbound links from other relevant blogs: while there is no concrete evidence that these links have been used by readers, they signify a considerable endorsement from the linking blog, which implies a certain level of importance of the blog to which the link points. Although this is not the topic of this study, it is necessary to mention that determining “the importance,” or popularity of a web page based on the quantity and quality of its inbound links is a well researched concept in computer science and is the mathematical foundation of most Internet search engines. (Brin, Page, 1998) Outbound links provide connections between a blog and other blogs participating in the conversation. Finally, multiple relevant posts demonstrate the blog author’s considerable interest in the subject and, for that reason, may attract additional readership. Based on this reasoning, I have come up with the following selection process:

Select the top 50% of blogs with the most comments;
Add the top 25% of blogs with the most inbound links;
Add the top 10% of blogs with the most outbound links;
Add the top 5% of blogs with the most posts;
Add the blog which started the conversation;
Remove blogs which were positive or neutral in nature.

This study is focused on estimating negative consequences, which result from negative publicity. Therefore, positive and neutral blogs will be removed from the final set.

List of Most Influential Blogs

The selection process was executed in the following steps:

45 blogs were selected as the top 50% of blogs with comments.
29 blogs were selected as the top 25% of blogs with inbound links (12 new blogs added)
14 blogs were selected as the top 10% of blogs with outbound links (5 new blogs added)
1 blog was selected as the top 5% of blogs with multiple posts (1 new blog added)
1 blog was selected as the one that started the conversation (0 new blogs added)
4 positive and 9 neutral blogs removed

As a result of this selection, the final set consists of 50 blogs. This set represents 32% of all blogs, 44% of all blog posts, 88% of all comments, 66% of all inbound links and 51% of all outbound links. 90% of the set represents negative posts, the remaining 10% represent balanced posts. Table 5 displays the complete list of these blogs.

Table 5. 50 Most Influential Blogs

Analysis of Negative Themes in Blogs and Mainstream Media

This research is focused on the subject of negative consequences and negative publicity caused for an organization by blogs. Positive or neutral themes in blogs or mainstream media have no effect in regards to supporting or not supporting the main hypothesis of this research. Therefore, I have examined only negative themes, both in blog posts and mainstream media articles. The purpose of this analysis is to identify the main themes and, through examples, illustrate the specific content of the expressed opinions, as well as to estimate the extent to which these opinions were negative. The results of this analysis will help speculate on the scale of the negative consequences caused by the blogosphere.

The identified themes, however, are not exhaustive and mutually exclusive. Furthermore, blogs, identified as examples supporting each theme, are provided as a sample listing only: each blog was selected because a particular theme was expressed in its posts especially vividly. Creating a precise mapping of themes to blog posts is beyond the scope of this research.

Negative Themes in Blog Posts

After analyzing the 201 blog posts, I summarized the negative content, which constituted seven main themes:

Richard Edelman and/or Steve Rubel are not participating in the conversation;
Edelman’s and/or Rubel’s statements are inadequate;
Edelman is blamed for not being transparent;
Edelman is blamed for violating WOMMA Code of Ethics;
General negative comments on Edelman;
Public relations people know very little about the blogosphere and social media;
“Real world” negative consequences for Edelman and/or Wal-Mart.

Richard Edelman is the CEO of Edelman and a blogger himself. Like Richard Edelman, Steve Rubel is a prominent blogger; he works for Edelman. WOMMA is the Word of Mouth Marketing Association; whose Code of Ethics was crafted with Edelman’s help.

Table 6 lists the blogs which contain posts supporting each theme. The blog details are available in Appendix B in Table B5.

Table 6. Blogs Supporting Main Negative Themes

Following are brief descriptions of each theme together with selections of opinion examples supporting each theme.

1. Richard Edelman and/or Steve Rubel are not participating in the conversation. The news about Edelman launching and operating “Wal-Marting Across America,” a blog for Wal-Mart without disclosing their involvement broke out on October 9, which instantly triggered a heated discussion in the blogosphere. However, the agency responsible for the blog kept silent until October 16, which might have caused even more controversy. Edelman had been considered a leader in the field of public relations when it came to embracing new communication technologies and, in particular, the blogosphere. Richard Edelman, the agency’s CEO, as well Steve Rubel, as a senior vice president, are both very prominent bloggers, who were considered experts on social media and the changing role of public relations in the online community:

Edelman is being held to a somewhat higher standard than another run-of-the-mill PR shop might be in a similar situation, but that is only fitting because they have put themselves out front on the blog transparency and “being part of the conversation” issue and they failed to uphold those commitments. (Ingram, 2006)

Naturally, the online community turned to them for an explanation of the situation. Despite the fact that the essence of the blogosphere is conversation, neither of them responded until a week later.

The following examples from blog posts and online news articles demonstrate to what extent the online community was surprised and alarmed by the agency’s silence:

So where is Edelman in this particular conversation? Missing in action. As dismaying as this latest misstep is, it’s even more dismaying to see Edelman’s high-powered social media experts failing to walk the talk. (Holtz, as cited in Burn, 2006)

Now PR industry blogger Shel Holtz is laying it on thick, wondering why in this era of transparency Richard Edelman and his braintrust haven't stepped up with a mea culpa …. It's great stuff. There's nothing like a public spat between PR gurus. And it's particularly informative to learn what the PR kings do when their own scandal erupts: stay silent. (Ryan, 2006)

And what is the point of blogging if you’re not participating in the conversation? …. Is not the whole point of public relations in this new social participatory medium to not control the conversation – but to become part of it? (Hung, 2006b)

[Edelman’s and Rubel’s] silence became more acidic than the original faux-pas. (Defren, 2006b)

Silence is not golden. Silence gives consent. (Defren, 2006a)

It seems like “shocked“, and “outraged” at the “utter hypocrisy” and “ongoing silence” is but skimming the top of this PR disaster (for, ironically, a Public Relations firm) (Hung, 2006a)

2. Edelman’s and/or Rubel’s statements are inadequate. On October 16 at 2:58 p.m. Richard Edelman posted a statement to his blog. 14 minutes later, Steve Rubel posted a statement as well. Both statements caused significant criticism; arguably, even more than the controversial blog itself. Both statements are presented below:

For the past several days, I have been listening to the blogging community discuss the cross-country tour that Edelman designed for Working Families for Wal-Mart …. 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. (Edelman, 2006b)

As many of you know, over the past few days the blog community has been actively discussing the Working Families for Wal-Mart blog. As my CEO Richard Edelman explains on his blog, our firm failed to be completely transparent. I am sorry I could not speak about this sooner. I had no personal role in this project. There is a process in place that I had to let proceed through its course. This is why it took some time. Like Richard says, we are committed to the WOMMA guidelines on transparency. (Rubel, 2006)

To summarize, Edelman’s statement acknowledges an error in failing to disclose the identity of the two “Wal-Marting Across America” bloggers. Rubel, in his statement, denies all responsibility. The blogosphere’s response was mixed: there were some bloggers (mostly public relations practitioners) who felt that these statements were sufficient. However, the overwhelming reaction was negative:

Edelman PR's mea culpas for creating a blatantly fake Wal-Mart blog ring hollow because Richard Edelman apologizes for getting caught, not for the agency generating yet another unethical Wal-Mart social media campaign. (BL Ochman as cited in MarketingVOX, 2006a)

The PR industry is out there working on a PR cover-up of this event. In the news and on the blogs now, the dominant headline is “Edelman apologizes”, and PR industry folks are out there, busy writing babble about how they don’t think Edelman or Wal-Mart did anything wrong. They’re saying that the lies were just an “omission”. (Wood, 2006)

But the key words I really wanted to see in their posts – particularly in Richard's – were buried just below the rather slick surface, alas. Five simple words: “We were wrong. I'm sorry”. I was concerned that Richard’s very carefully worded “mea culpa” was rather too polished – a commitment to transparency, without a clear, succinct, and direct apology. (O'Connor Clarke, 2006)

Edelman screwed up, big time. Not just because of the blog and the lack of full disclosure – which may have happened because Wal-Mart ignored their advice, or didn’t ask for it – but because of their lack of response, and the relative inadequacy of that response when it did come. (Market Sentinel, 2006)

Those are perhaps the saddest words about the matter. It is boilerplate old-school PR and disregards everything that Web 2.0 and the blogosphere has championed about all of us as individuals. This is the people's revolution. If you don't understand the ground rules and the speed at which things move by now, it's time to take yourself out of the game. Their apology is empty. OK, they admit to screwing up but there's an even bigger problem now. It's time to explain how this could even happen. (Astor, 2006)

3. Edelman is blamed for not being transparent. A very common theme was the lack of transparency in Edelman’s actions:

It lacks transparency – the very thing Wal-Mart's PR agency likes to trumpet. (Burn, 2006)

The effort, launched in part to redefine the often-pejorative term “Walmarting,” which can refer to the obliteration of small businesses when big-box retailers come to town, may yet come to stand for the obliteration of trust in the authentic voice of blogs when big marketers and PR firms settle in the blogosphere. (MarketingVOX, 2006b)

Moral of the story: It’s not nice to fool the blogosphere. Just be upfront, honest, and authentic. (Hussey, 2006)

Koetsier (2006) summarizes the principles of transparency, quoting Robert Scoble, a prominent blogger, “who humanized Microsoft while being honest about the fact that Microsoft paid his mortgage:”

You want to start a corporate blog? Great. Be upfront about it.
You want to start a marketing blog and get paid for it? Great. Be honest about who you are.
You want to start a PR blog for your client? Great. Tell us who you are and who your client is.

You want to do that fake stuff? Keep it where it belongs, in mainstream media. (Koetsier, 2006)

It is necessary to mention, that the scale of Edelman’s criticism by bloggers can be explained, in part, by Richard Edelman’s own commitment to transparency, which he expressed on multiple occasions in his own blog:

Bloggers can take care of themselves in this evolving world. They should be careful to disclose receipt of product samples, membership on advisory boards or any other financial consideration that might affect their impartiality. (Edelman, 2006a)

We cannot tolerate any arrangement that envisages payment for placement. To do otherwise completely undermines the essence of our position as honest advocate and eliminates the separation of church and state for the media. Why bother reading the editorial copy if it is purchased in the same way as the advertising? (Edelman, 2005)

A company just has to take a look at the blogosphere to see that its customers are now clearly and firmly in charge of the conversation. So, companies need to establish relationships, based on mutual respect, continuous dialogue and transparency. (Edelman, as cited in Jack, 2007)

These statements were brought up by bloggers in multiple posts and comments.

4. Edelman is blamed for violating WOMMA Code of Ethics. Edelman was not only a member of the Word of Mouth Marketing Association (WOMMA), the agency also helped create the association’s Code of Ethics. Multiple blogs mention the issue of Edelman violating this code of ethics; Constantin Basturea’s blog offers the most detailed discussion. The post offers an explanation of exactly what principles Edelman violated:

Wal-Marting Across America campaign/blog was obviously breaking the Honesty of Identity guidelines:

Clear disclosure of identity is vital to establishing trust and credibility. We do not blur identification in a manner that might confuse or mislead consumers as to the true identity of the individual with whom they are communicating, or instruct or imply that others should do so.
Campaign organizers should monitor and enforce disclosure of identity … Explicit disclosure … would be required for [a] corporate representative that could be mistaken for an average consumer. (Basturea, 2006)

The same goes for Honesty of Relationship:

We practice openness about the relationship between consumers, advocates, and marketers. We encourage word of mouth advocates to disclose their relationship with marketers in their communications with other consumers…
We stand against shill and undercover marketing, whereby people are paid to make recommendations without disclosing their relationship with the marketer. (Basturea, 2006)

The post speculates on the possibility of WOMMA sanctioning Edelman for violating its Code of Ethics:

There is a chance to have a positive outcome for this story. If WOMMA’s willingness to keep his members accountable will meet with Edelman’s willingness to accept publicly a sanction, then marketers will get a clear signal that their engagement in social media has to follow clear rules, and that breaking these rules will have consequences … If not… – then we’re back to the world of Old PR: we have nice ethical codes, but there’s no way to enforce them. (Basturea, 2006)

5. General negative comments on Edelman. In addition to being blamed for the discussed issues, Edelman was accused of dishonesty, unethical behavior and professional incompetence. The agency, as well as its top management, also became the target of numerous negative comments in general:

Hard to believe that the Edelman team would then give Wal-Mart such bad advice, as in: Here's how to behave in the corporate blogosphere: fake it. (Weil, 2006)

[Edelman] screwed up royally …. Edelman was being duplicitous and tricking people. (Taylor, 2006)

To use the blog to shamelessly push your own agenda, not smart. (Hussey, 2006)

Covert websites and blogs are 100% bad. (Jones, 2006)

Wal-Mart blogging exercise that appears to have broken every unwritten rule in the book. (Holmes, 2006)

Pity it reads just like typical PR rubbish. Hold on a minute, it is PR rubbish! It turns out that this idea was cooked up by the Edelman agency - the same Edelman whose boss writes a blog, and that hired a slew of PR bloggers. (Fraser, 2006)

#1, if Wal-Mart had insisted on opacity rather than transparency, shouldn’t Edelman have simply resigned the account? #2, if Edelman originally had the idea, shouldn’t the firm have known better? #3, Edelman’s silence after all this is absolutely intolerable. There’s no question about that point; it just is. (Defren, as cited in Lystrup, 2006)

Edelman, ostensibly in the vanguard of the social media revolution, has betrayed the very principles it has been espousing. Moreover, it failed to subsequently join the heated online conversation for several days. (MarketingVOX, 2006a)

They've tarred the whole PR industry, humiliated themselves, and worse still, they've soiled the blogosphere, which the corporate world shouldn't be involved in unless they are completely transparent and honest. (Arnott, 2006)

Not that it's shocking or unheard of, but it is surprising coming from Edelman. It's hard to respect a hypocrite. (Huyse, 2006)

We call it as we see it: Wal-Mart lied. Photographer Jim Thresher lied. Edelman helped them engineer the lie. (Wood, 2006)

6. Public relations people know very little about the blogosphere and social media. It was not just Edelman who became the target of criticism: public relations as a field received its own share of criticism and ridicule in regards to its incompetence in all matters concerning the blogosphere and social media in general:

But what do the people on the inside of PR firms really know about blogging and social media? If the recent Edelman/Walmart fiasco is any indication I’d say that they know very little …. Sounds like a company that knows how to talk but hasn’t yet learned how to walk. (Jones, 2006)

Lots of companies and organizations are starting to cautiously participate in the blogosphere without really understanding it. Many are participating using an old school PR/advertising mindset. Meaning they are trying to manipulate people instead of trying to talk to them. (Zeigler, 2006a)

Edelman f-ed up, but the problem is we gave them too much credit in the first place. Not to use a terrible cliche, but it reminds me of the scorpion and the frog crossing the river. Edelman is a PR firm. It manufactures image. (Aarons, 2006)

[Richard Edelman and his team] are still thinking in old media terms: This was a typical 'broadcast media' stunt, an attempt to change the way people think about Wal-Mart by playing up the warm fuzzy angles and neglecting to mention that the whole thing was set up from the start. (Charman, 2006)

Big media trying to adapt blogs to their business model instead of adapting their business to blogs, and Edelman are making exactly the same mistake – trying to use blogs for PR, instead of trying to adapt PR to blogs. (Charman, 2006)

Blogging is not something you can learn in an afternoon, or a day – it's as complex and alien to PR people as Chinese culture is complex and alien to me. (Charman, 2006)

If you simply employ PR people who happen to blog, all you'll get is the same old PR attitudes, but with comments and trackbacks. (Charman, 2006)

These opinions on public relations as a field in general were triggered not only by Edelman’s role in the situation (as well as Edelman’s silence in the aftermath), but also by Edelman’s CEO eventually participating in conversations on a few prominent blogs. Edelman left comments which, in fact, supported opinions about the incompetence of public relations people in the field of social media. The following discussion is a good example:

I do believe that PR can participate in a substantive and positive manner in the blogosphere. I agree that it means we have to change PR to be transparent, genuine, two-way (so we listen, not just talk). [This] Wal-Mart program … was a publicity stunt aimed at the mainstream media with a new media component. We failed to be open about the identity of the photographer--our mistake whether in new or old media. (Edelman, 2006d)

In this comment, Edelman states that “PR can participate … in the blogosphere,” and that it has to change to transparent and genuine. However, almost one sentence later he admits that the blog his agency operated was “a publicity stunt aimed at the mainstream media.” (Edelman, 2006d) In my opinion, it is a given that a publicity stunt is the opposite of transparent and genuine. The blogosphere responds with the following:

This is more than just a disclosure issue, this goes right to the heart of what blogging and social media is about...i.e., conversation versus publicity stunts. (Puschmann, 2006)

Repeat after me: "the message" is dead, gone and not coming back. Blogs are conversations, conversations are social interaction and social interaction is about your relationship to a person, not a statement. (Puschmann, 2006)

What this is really about is an error of judgment: choosing control of the message over the credibility of those who deliver it …. The medium is not the message. The medium is the messenger. (Puschmann, 2006)

And finally, an inevitable conclusion about the role of Edelman in educating the field of public relations on the blogosphere:

They have misled countless other PR practitioners into believing the public relations industry has a role to play in the blogosphere, when all the empirical evidence shows that the blogosphere utterly rejects PR, and becomes immediately suspicious whenever a seemingly independent blog appears that promotes the cause of a corporation, candidate or issue. The fact is, in an environment where the public only trusts ‘people like me,’ public relations professionals have zero role to play. The sooner the industry admits it, the better for everyone (Chapel, as cited in Astor, 2006)

7. “Real world” negative consequences for Edelman and/or Wal-Mart. In addition to negative publicity, there were “real world” consequences for Edelman, Wal-Mart and the two sponsored bloggers. These consequences became another theme in the online conversation. Some bloggers discussed the consequences of the agency loosing its reputation:

Suffice it to say that Edelman's reputation has taken a deserved hit and they should be embarrassed. Publicity and high profile hires to the contrary, they just don't seem to "get it," and also seem determined to prove that at every turn. (Getgood, 2006)

Frankly, I think this is hurting Edelman worse than it is hurting Wal-Mart. They release their Technorati blog research and instead everyone is talking about Wal-Mart. (Zeigler, 2006b)

Could [Edelman] recover by hiring another blogger? Doubt it. I don’t know a blogger who would work for them. Talk about deep-sixing your credibility in a heartbeat. (Hussey, 2006)

If this keeps up, I don’t see how Walmart will continue to retain Edelman. (Bruni, 2006)

Others mentioned repercussions for the two sponsored bloggers. The couple lost their privacy; besides, Jim Thresher, the Washington Post photographer was accused of breaking his employer’s policy about freelancing and had to repay his share of the covered expenses:

Thanks to an organized Wal-Mart opposition group, the whole world now knows who Jim and I are, where we live, what our home life is like and where we work. (St.Claire, as cited in Burn, 2006)

A photographer for The Washington Post, who shot photos during a cross-country trip for a pro-Wal-Mart web site, broke the paper's policy about freelancing and has been ordered to remove the photos. (Burn, 2006)

Thresher agreed … to repay about $2,200 for his share of vacation expenses to Working Families for Wal-Mart, an advocacy group that was launched and is financially supported by the retail chain. (Kurtz, 2006)

Wood (2006) offers a good summary of the consequences for all the parties involved:

So, Edelman wins the lame-o PR firm of the year award, because now people like me who never even heard of the WalMartingAcrossAmerica blog have heard about how Wal-Mart couldn’t find any real honest-to-goodness Wal-Mart lovers to make a blog. No, what Edelman has shown us is that Americans have grown to hate Wal-Mart so much that they had to hire people to make a fake blog. Fake blog. Fake trip. Fake couple. Fake everything. (Wood, 2006)

Negative Themes in Mainstream Media Articles

The negative content of the mainstream media articles can be summarized into the following three themes:

Real identities of the bloggers revealed;
Nondisclosure of Wal-Mart and/or Edelman covering the bloggers’ expenses;
Discussion of fake corporate blogs.

Table 7 lists the articles supporting each theme. The article details are available in Appendix B in Table B6.

Table 7. Mainstream Media Articles Supporting Main Negative Themes

The first two themes are mostly descriptive. However, the theme of fake corporate blogs is presented in detail and offers additional insight, this time from the perspective of mainstream media:

A "flog" is a fake weblog that purports to chronicle an ordinary consumer's passion for a business or product, typically without the company behind it declaring an interest. It is a scandalously dishonest practice. (Rowan, 2006)

The lesson for the PR community is to use blogs with care. Monitor them carefully, and encourage an open dialogue between organizations and stakeholders, but never fake a blog because in cyberspace, there really is nowhere to hide. (Rogers, D)

It's time PR goes on the offensive in supporting truth and justice in the blogosphere. If we hope to embrace - rather than alienate - the better part of humanity and its growing choice of communication, we have to put an end to the ham-handed attempts of some to pull a fast one on the blogosphere. (Jones, 2007)

Look no further than Edelman's now legendary attempts to punk the blogosphere on behalf of Wal-Mart with its recent Wal-Marting Across America campaign. The public and professional outcry was deafening, and Edelman was contrite in response. (Jones, 2007)

But a lack of transparency has backfired on some businesses - most notably Wal-Mart and its PR agency Edelman in the US, where sponsored spinning has given the retail giant a burst of publicity that it certainly was not seeking. (Faithfull, 2007)

Faithfull (2007) provides a summary explaining the scale of negative publicity caused by the blogosphere:

OK, some PR companies are getting slapped on the wrist at the moment, but truth on the internet is going to become a massive issue. Bloggers might be the ones to expose a con, but you then risk that negative publicity being highlighted to a completely different and much larger audience. Then you have a real problem (Faithfull, 2007)

Summary of Results

In this study I conducted quantitative and qualitative analysis of 201 blog posts and 18 mainstream media articles. Following is a summary of the results.

1. Quantitative analysis of blogs. Blogs were analyzed in regards to the following numerical data: number of relevant posts per blog, number of comments per blog, number of inbound links from relevant blogs per blog, and number of outbound links to relevant blogs per blog. The results of this analysis were used in selecting the top influential blogs. Detailed results are presented in Appendix B.

2. Chronological analysis of the conversation in blogs and mainstream media. The purpose of this analysis was to quantitatively describe the timeline of the conversation – both in the blogosphere and in mainstream media. The results show that, although some posts appeared as late as in October 2007, most of the conversation lasted not more than a month, with 66% of all posts appearing within two weeks. It is important to underscore that the blogosphere “exploded” with controversy and criticism (37 posts) on 10/16/2006 – the day when Edelman’s CEO Richard Edelman posted an apology to his own blog. 50% of the mainstream media articles published in October 2006.

3. Qualitative analysis of blog posts and mainstream media articles. All blog posts and mainstream media articles were classified as positive, negative, neutral or balanced. According to the results of this classification, 66% of the posts were negative, 11.5% were positive, 24% were neutral, and 10.5% were balanced. Therefore, 76.5% of the posts (negative and balanced combined) provided access to negative information or opinions. 78% of mainstream media articles were negative and 22% were neutral.

4. Selecting the top blogs. The purpose of the carried out analysis was to prepare the data which will help select a set of blogs, which were most influential in the context of the Edelman/Wal Mart blog case. These blogs represent the key data which may or may not support the main hypothesis of this study. To identify these blogs, I designed a selection process and applied to the results of the quantitative and qualitative analysis. The final set consisted of 50 blogs, which represented 32% of all blogs, 44% of all blog posts, 88% of all comments, 66% of all inbound links and 51% of all outbound links. 90% of the set represented negative posts, the remaining 10% represented balanced posts.

5. Analysis of negative themes in blogs and mainstream media. The purpose of this analysis was to identify the main negative themes and, through examples, illustrate the specific content of the expressed opinions, as well as to estimate the extent to which these opinions were negative. The results of this analysis will help speculate on the scale of the negative consequences caused by the blogosphere.

For blog posts, I identified the following seven negative themes:

Richard Edelman and/or Steve Rubel are not participating in the conversation;
Edelman’s and/or Rubel’s statements are inadequate;
Edelman is blamed for not being transparent;
Edelman is blamed for violating WOMMA Code of Ethics;
General negative comments on Edelman;
Public relations people know very little about the blogosphere and social media;
“Real world” negative consequences for Edelman and/or Wal-Mart.

For mainstream media articles, I identified the following three negative themes:

Real identities of the bloggers revealed;
Nondisclosure of Wal-Mart and/or Edelman covering the bloggers’ expenses;
Discussion of fake corporate blogs.