Social Media, Organizational Identity and Public Relations

The Challenge of Authenticity

Amy Thurlow

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781351662512
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Business General
• Index: Business

Public relations has been swift to grasp social media, yet its impact on public relations practice remains relatively unexplored. This book focusses on a way of understanding organizational identity construction in a virtual context, developing scholarship on the importance of a virtual presence in PR management, and further, to make sense of these identities as authentic, legitimate or plausible.

Through a diverse group of empirical case studies, this book explores the global perspective on organizational identities which transcend global boundaries via the internet including Volkswagen's emissions scandal and Monsanto and organized social media protests. It also explores crowdfunding – an emerging form of capitalist development constructed through sensemaking in social media. By looking at the emergence of organization in today's social media environment, it identifies how the interactive is created on a digitally mediated platform, sharing knowledge and engaging individuals in organizational identity construction.

Viewing the social construction of organizational identities through this lens, this innovative book locates how identities are plausible, authentic and legitimate - or not – through their ongoing communication via social media. It will be of great interest to academics teaching and researching in public relations, organisational communication and social media.

1 Introduction

Social media construct a reality where networks, artifacts, actors, meanings and identities converge without the traditional limitations of time and space (Gilpin, Palazzolo, & Brody, 2010; Fuchs, 2005). The volume of information available through this media, its persistence and its frenzied nature create a challenging landscape for communicators concerned with authenticity and organizational identity.

Over the past two decades, the literature on organizational identity has expanded, changed and required researchers to explore how, and by whom, identities are constructed. Within this research, essentially two main perspectives are presented on the nature of identity. Traditionally, the organizational literature has held that identity is a relatively fixed element (Albert & Whetten, 1985). In that vein, Gagliardi (1986) argued that the primary strategy of an organization is to maintain its identity and that organizations change, in actual fact, only to preserve the essence of their identities. However, in their study of sensemaking during strategic change, Gioia and Thomas (1996) challenged this perspective. They questioned the previously held assumption that identity has permanency in organizations and individuals, and suggest that the concept of identity “may be more fluid than the organizational literature has suggested” (Gioia & Thomas, 1996, p. 371). In fact, this perspective suggests that organizations have multiple identities, in multiple contexts with multiple audiences (Gioia, Schultz, & Corley, 2000). This social constructivist approach has opened the door to many more questions about how individuals within organizations make sense of changing identities.

More recently, the changing nature of digital media communication has demanded that public relations scholars investigate organizational identity in a dynamic and emerging social media context (Dawson, 2015). The further question of how individuals and organizations make sense of these identities is equally important. Let’s take as a starting point the contention put forward by Weick, Sutcliff, and Obsfeld (2005, p. 416) that, “who we are lies importantly in the hands of others, which means our categories for sensemaking lie in their hands. If their images of us change, our identities may be destabilized and our receptiveness to new meanings increases.” From there, Weick et al. (2005) go on to explain the fluidity of individual identities in sensemaking terms saying, “Identity [may] turn out to be an issue of plausibility rather than accuracy, just as is the case for many issues that involve organizing and sensemaking” (p. 416).

Viewing the social construction of organizational identities through this lens, this book will investigate examples of identities that have been made sense of as plausible, authentic and legitimate, or not, in their ongoing communication through social media platforms. This first chapter will introduce the groundwork for the critical analysis of meanings constructed as authentic. The contention here is that social media interactions produce not only channels of and traces of communication, but artifacts of that communication as well. Through the textual production of discursive communication in the form of tweets, posts, shares and likes, individuals collectively construct a socially mediated identity of the organizations with which they are associated. Ultimately, as Putnam and Cooren (2004, p. 323) suggest, discourse “is more than an artifact or a reflection of an organization; rather it forms the foundation for organizing and for developing the notion of organization as an entity.” Social media is also a particularly interesting site of inquiry as it is a contested space in which identity may be both constructed and deconstructed. As Albu and Etter (2016, p. 8) point out, “instead of creating stable structures for information dissemination, social media technologies are volatile and performative and may cause unintended consequences.”

This is not to say, however, that the identities of organizations within social media should be separated from the context of their representations in the offline world. Or that these identities are distinct simply because they occur within the bounds of a particular technology. Meanings constructed within a social media context are understood here to emerge from a particular context, through identified channels, and within a broader communicative environment. As Jurgenson (2012) refers “to a larger conceptual perspective that views our reality as the byproduct of the enmeshing of the on and offline” (p. 84), our understandings of identity constructed within social media must reflect elements of the broader communication environment as well. Jurgenson (2012, p. 84) cautions against separating these dimensions within a form of ‘digital dualism’ which isolates online communication from the rest of the communicative context. As Unger, Wodak, and Khosravinik (2016) conclude, any text may be seen as existing within multiple contexts. In that sense I will not separate online and offline communication as independent of one another, but simply as representing particular elements of a shared broader context. This includes a context wherein content and users from different sources are publicly associated in indiscriminate and unforeseen ways (Albu & Etter, 2016). My intention here is to locate the constitution of organization through social media within broader processes of sensemaking.

I have been using the term social media so far in this introduction to identify a particular technological manner of communication, with its own distinctive characteristics in regard to the construction of meaning, identity and network. At the same time, I am aware that there is no consensus within the literature on exactly what the category of social media defines, nor as to how social media is used. As a starting point, I am using Kaplan and Haenlein’s (2010) definition of social media as “a group of internet-based applications that build on the ideological and technological foundations of Web 2.0, and that allow the creation and exchange of user generated content” (p. 61). As they further point out, however, the broad term of social media has been applied to a wide variety of technologies which are rapidly emerging, converging and re-imaging themselves in a dynamic technological environment (Kaplan & Haenlein, 2010).

Kane, Alavi, Labianca, and Borgatti (2014) also make the point that it may be difficult to clarify what is technologically distinctive about technologies currently labeled as social media because in some cases they reflect characteristics of prior collaborative technologies that introduced knowledge management systems or group decision support systems (Butler, 2001; & Poole, 1994; Alavi & Leidner, 2001) prior to the advent of digital media technologies (Kane et al., 2014).

A third challenge in defining social media is the behavioral impact of individual technologies. As Kane et al. caution,

Even though many of the technological distinctions enacted by social media may only be a matter of degree, the rapid adoption and widespread use of these tools mean that even relatively minor technological differences may result in profound theoretical consequences for individual and organizational behavior.

(2014, p. 276)

That being said, there are some common elements to the nature and uses of social media, as identified in Boyd and Ellison’s (2007, p. 2) definition of social networking sites,

We define social network sites as web-based services that allow individuals to (1) construct a public or semi-public profile within a bounded system, (2) articulate a list of other users with whom they share a connection, and (3) view and traverse their list of connections and those made by others within the system. The nature and nomenclature of these connections may vary from site to site.

With these commonalities and differences in mind, I proceed in the direction that Leclercq-Vandelannoitte (2011, p. 1267) articulates as she summarizes Foucault’s argument, “it is not so much the technological instruments but the discursive practices and power relations that surround them, together with the knowledge and behavior they produce, that matters.” To that end, I will draw on the conceptual framework of communication as constitutive of organization (CCO). CCO theory identifies communication as the ‘building block’ of organizations (Christensen & Cornelissen, 2011, p. 398). Theorists in this tradition have built on Weick’s (1979) work on sensemaking and the process of organizing, to develop a perspective which situates communication as the central, constitutive force in organizing and thus organizations. Although the specific approaches within the theory of CCO may vary (Ashcraft, Kuhn, & Cooren, 2009; Putnam & Nicotera, 2010), there is a common focus on the centrality of language, speech, text and discourse to collective sensemaking within organizations. As Putnam and Nicotera (2009, p. 482) summarize, “CCO is first and foremost a collection of perspectives about grounding the role of communication in the ontology of an organization.” Koschmann (2013, p. 65) summarizes the constitutive approach as seeing “communication as generative of organizational realities and the fundamental process by which we know and understand the social world.”

In their overview of the contributions of CCO theory, Cooren, Kuhn, Cornelissen, and Clark (2011) indicate the importance of CCO scholarship to the existing and growing research on organizational identity. Cooren et al. (2011, p. 1159) point out that CCO provides a valuable perspective on organizational identity and “connects with recent interests in organizational identity from a discourse perspective” (i.e. Leclercq-Vandelannoitte, 2011). From this perspective CCO and current work on discourse and identity continue to reflect organizations as “socially constructed from networks of conversations or dialogues” (Humphreys & Brown, 2002, p. 422).

Cooren and Taylor (1997) have laid the groundwork for further understandings of organizational identity as existing only as “discourse where its reality is created, and sustained” (p. 429). Following from this perspective, further work from these scholars and others in the CCO paradigm have expanded theory on the communicatively constituted nature of organizations to address ways in which individual voices may connect to broader, organizational perspectives. These processes may be embedded or productive of organizational rules and procedures that amplify the power of individual voices and shape future actions and meanings (Taylor & Van Every, 2000).

To gain further insight into the individual and collective processes of identity construction through social media, I also employ here the analytic framework of Critical Sensemaking (CSM) (Helms Mills, Thurlow & Mills, 2010; Helms Mills, 2003). Using this layered approach allows for a more thorough understanding of CCO and CSM and how these two perspectives can work together. For instance, one of the limitations of the CCO perspective is that it does not fully deal with the issue of power. Critical Sensemaking allows for a more fulsome investigation of the power structures at work in processes of organizing and organization which serve to constrain the range of plausible identities available to individuals as they co-construct shared meaning.

As a critical framework and method, Critical Sensemaking (CSM) offers great potential as a theoretical framework for understanding the complex relationships between organizations, identities and social media within a communicatively constituted context. Identity construction as a process represents a growing literature, both in the organizational studies and communication studies disciplines. However, the advent of social media technologies, and the impact that these technologies have had on communicative processes, have transformed the ways in which identities are constructed, and challenge researchers to develop new understandings of how communication, discourse, technology and organization come together.

CSM starts with Weick’s (1995) psycho-social properties of sensemaking which tell us that sensemaking is (1) grounded in identity construction, (2) retrospective, (3) enactive of sensible environments, (4) social, (5) ongoing, (6) focused on and by extracted cues and (7) driven by plausibility rather than accuracy. However, these properties on their own do not fully explain why some experiences, language and events become meaningful for individuals while others do not (Helms Mills, 2003; Helms Mills, Thurlow, & Mills, 2010). Individuals do not make sense of their experiences in isolation from their broader environments. CSM is primarily concerned with ways in which individuals make sense of their complex environments. It puts sensemaking in context by surfacing issues of power and privilege in the process of understanding why some language, social practices and identities become meaningful for individuals while others do not (Thurlow, 2010).

These two perspectives, CCO and CSM, converge to inform our understandings of how communication is made ‘real,’ in this case, in terms of identity. Taylor (1999) points out that, “organization emerges in communication as the consequence of a mapping of the interactive, or ‘conversational,’ dimension onto the textual in order to produce organization as (1) knowledge shared by its members and (2) activity in which they are engaged” (p. 24).

The emergence of organization in today’s social media environment demonstrates how the interactive is created as real on a digitally mediated platform which at the same time shares knowledge among members and engages individuals in the activity of organizational identity construction. This understanding of identity challenges the dominant management contention that organizational identity is a strategic tool for building credibility and increasing profitability and influence among stakeholders (cf. Dowling, 1986) and emphasizes what McNamara and Zerfass suggest, that social media in organizational communication is “mostly experimental and ad hoc, rather than strategically planned” (McNamara & Zerfass, 2012, p. 303). Although much has been written on the importance of a virtual presence in organizational management (Khang, Ki, & Ye, 2012), there has been relatively little scholarship on how to make sense of these identities as authentic, legitimate or plausible.

Clearly, the literature on social media and organizational identity presents us with a complex set of questions in a constantly changing environment. In this volume, I will attempt to address three of the key themes that emerge from the literature. The first is the work on critical understandings of the process of sensemaking in the construction of virtual identities, the second theme deals with authenticity, plausibility and legitimation in mediated identity construction, and the third theme is concerned with communicatively constituted organizational identities in a social media context.

By selecting a diverse group of case study organizations, the focus of this book offers a global perspective on identities which transcend national boundaries via the internet. The featured organizations will include; Volkswagen, specifically with regard to the recent environmental emissions scandal; Monsanto, in relation to the organized social media movement March against Monsanto; and a group of smaller case studies on crowdfunding – an emerging form of capitalist development constructed through sensemaking in social media. The crowdfunding initiatives will reflect organizations from the health care sector as well as social justice projects.

Chapters 1–4 provide an introduction to the core questions of identity construction and the main perspectives discussed in this book, communication as constitutive of organization theory and the analytic framework of critical sensemaking. Chapters 5 and 6 turn their focus to the question of discursive power and legitimation, and begin to look at examples of identity construction in organizational context. Chapter 5 addresses the question of discursive power as reflected in the rhetorical strategies and practices of organizations in the process of constructing their identities. Chapter 6 is titled, Crowdfunding – collective organizing and virtual identities. This chapter presents several empirical examples as a series of discussions to illustrate the discourse of capitalism and the process of identity construction converging on social media platforms.

Chapters 7 and 8 investigate social media identities in crisis. Chapter 7, titled Plausibility and legitimation, analyzes intersections within these two processes. In these intersections we are able to see points of connection in the sensemaking process whereby the property of plausibility is strengthened in relation to other properties with the introduction of various legitimation strategies. Chapter 8, entitled Volkswagen – truth, accuracy and plausibility, follows with a deconstruction of text surrounding that organization’s emissions control scandal. This analysis uses a Critical Sensemaking framework to analyze the documentation of the scandal across social media.

Chapters 9 to 11 offer some insights into the process of actively engaging in sensemaking and identity, leading to some suggestions for further study and questions about the future of technology, identity and communication. Chapter 9, Engagement and enactment, provides a discussion of the process of sensemaking as evidenced in one of the core properties within that process, enactment. In this chapter, I discuss the nature of enactment from within the sensemaking framework, highlighting the ways that meaning and identity are constructed through the actions (including language and text) of the sensemakers themselves. This form of active sensemaking coincides with the propensity toward user engagement which characterizes social media platforms.

Chapter 10, #MarchAgainstMonsanto – social movements, extracting cues and the ongoing nature of sensemaking, explores enactment further. This chapter explores mobilization of social movements via social media from a Critical Sensemaking perspective. In the example of this controversial social initiative, #MarchAgainsMonsanto, the organizational identity of a multinational corporation is challenged by an emerging identity constructed through social interaction. Of particular interest within this process is the crafting of narratives that construct meanings around engagement and enactment, while at the same time highlighting cues from a complex communication environment. The text analyzed in this chapter reflects both narrative data at a particular point in time, as well as an ongoing conversation or narrative construction as key influencers in the social media networks enroll individuals into their social media network and enlarge the reach and range of messages. At the same time, the messages themselves evolve and are re-constituted or co-constituted as they are shared and re-tweeted to the network.

Finally, Chapter 11 pulls together key themes in the book and highlights insights from the featured cases. By investigating the identities which emerge as narratives from the interactive communication networks featured here, I offer some concluding thoughts on how both the process of sensemaking and the communicatively constituted nature of organizations converge on social media, and suggest some further questions regarding technology, identity and communication.