Organisations no longer control what people say about them
Online media thrust organisations into the reputation economy.
IN THE DARK AND DISTANT days before the internet, and especially before social media, the story the public received about an organisation came mainly through its public relations people. Only when misdoing was discovered would contrary material appear in the media.
As the use of social media grew, so the ability of organisations to control what people said about them diminished. Now, the reputation of organisations rests on what people believe about them. Much of that is informed by social media and specialist websites. This created what we know as the ‘reputation economy’.
The VW ‘dieselgate’ scandal in the US offers an example. When the company was found to be cheating on emission standards, it was reviled on both mainstream and social media and great harm was done to the corporation. The public perception of what had been regarded as a reputable corporation collapsed. It was seen as a betrayal of trust. Even now, well after VW rectified the issue, the incident remains in people’s minds. That I discovered when I mentioned I was thinking of buying a VW van and the person I was talking to warned me against it. Remember dieselgate, he said.
It can be a challenge for business and government to decide when social media and other comment reaches the stage at which it challenges earnings and reputation. How long do they wait to respond? Respond too early and they look guilty. Respond too late and the damage is done. It is understandable that they monitor social media to gauge when to act.
Tell the full story
The reputation economy is of interest to local government, too. As the level of government closest to the lives of people where they live, councils are monitored by the local press as well as by individuals and organisations in their communities.
Councils are frequently the subject of criticism, dissatisfaction and derision. Just as with businesses, this can reach a point at which a response is necessary. It is here that the citizen journalist needs to take care to discern reality from assumption and presumption.
An example. Randwick Council in Sydney’s Eastern Suburbs removed some small trees to make way for a public plaza. A few locals who liked the trees were angry about their removal and spoke to a reporter at the local newspaper. The paper sent a photographer who, one weekend day, entered the fenced-off construction site to photograph the stumps of the small trees.
The newspaper’s write-up that appeared with the photographs quoted the complainants, however the reporter failed to contact council for a comment. The tree removal was portrayed as council mismanagement and as that horror of environmentally-minded urban people — tree destruction. It was also media mismanagement by the newspaper in not giving readers the full story.
Reaching that point when it becomes necessary for an organisation to respond, council contacted the newspaper to let them know why the trees were removed and that they were small dwarf species, not the “magnificent trees” the locals told the paper they were. The plaza would provide a much-needed meeting and social space outside the community centre, and the landscaping which would follow construction would create habitat for local wildlife and enhance the area. It would include trees, council said.
The newspaper reported council’s comment. The complainants were found to be a small number of vocal local people with a history of continually criticising council, finding fault with whatever it did.
I found it curious why the reporter did not speak with council after listening to the complainants. That would have made it a fuller report. All it would have taken was a phone call.
Reporting council comment an edition or two after the initial report might have constituted a more-complete report made over time, however the time lapse could have led readers to miss it.
Information is no longer owned exclusively by organisations
Organisations, corporations, government, even community groups no longer have control over their public image. Their reputation is no longer in their hands alone.
That local government is not all that happy with the freedom to comment afforded by the internet and social media was something I learned when I set up a facebook page to follow the development of a multiple-use public park and bushland reserve in Sydney.
Living nearby, obtaining photos was easy and council had the management plan for the site online. The facebook was complementary of council, yet what I think alarmed their PR person was the freedom of someone to openly comment on the development and use of a site they were responsible for.
…incidents and events are usually more complex than they are portrayed by the different sides in any controversy…
Like other councils and corporations, the council knew it no longer controlled the flow of information. There were now other actors on the media stage and there was nothing they could do about it.
Had I been their PR manager I would have maintained contact with bloggers and social media posters in the local government area, feeding them information, notifying them of events they might like to cover and preemptively contacting them to give council’s perspective on any controversy.
As in the previous example of the removal of trees, it works best when bloggers following local government keep in mind that incidents and events are usually more complex than they are portrayed by the different sides in any controversy. A knowledge of how local government works is also useful.
An approach for citizen journalists
How does the citizen journalist approach issues like this?
Make sure to assess what an accused says against what the accuser says. Where relevant, get opinion from a third source distant from the issue, such as a planning expert in the case mentioned. Doing that brings perspective and clarity to the issue.
Another lesson from the incident is that, just as corporations and government can lie, so can people in community groups.
Citizen journalists, too, are participants in the reputation economy. Our reporting influences what people think about us. Editorial independence comes with listening to what the different interests say and using logical, analytical thought to report in a way that clarifies issues for readers. Clarifying trends and issues is surely one of our main roles.
