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The CEO as Celebrity Blogger: Is There a Ghost or Ghostwriter in the Machine?
Source: SO03 Public Relations Journal
Product Code: 6D-020404
Organization/Author/Firm: Samuel A. Terilli / Liney Inga Arnorsdottir
Format: Academic Journal Article
Summary
By virtue of their high-profile, corporate positions, CEO bloggers raise the interest level in, as well as interesting legal and ethical questions about, their blogs. CEO bloggers and other corporate bloggers exist in a legal world in which the speech of corporations is generally deemed commercial speech that receives diluted First Amendment protection. Therefore, a business must pay particular attention to the communications, including blogs, of its associated executives, particularly high-profile CEOs. This article examines a sample of significant CEO blogs to determine whether those CEOs have attempted to distance their blogs from their businesses or have in fact embraced their corporate or business status and used the blogs not for their individual or personal expression, but as acknowledged and thus transparently business-oriented communications tools. The article concludes the latter has occurred far more often than the former and that this result bodes well both for corporate credibility in blog-facilitated communication and for the growth of CEO and similar blogs.
