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Blogging PR: An exploratory analysis of public relations weblogs Keywords: Weblog Public relations Interactivity Usability Abstract: Although there are ever more weblogs on the Inter, this is an area that has been little researched in public relations, and where they have been analyzed it has been as a tool for munication rather than a primary information source in the public relations body of knowledge. This paper provides an exploratory study of the structure and content of 67 blogs on public relations to determine what issues they deal with and whether they are a tool for the theoretical development of the ?eld. In addition to their content we have looked at the structure, usability and interactivity of the blogs. 1. Introduction Blogs are seen by some authors as major tools for online munication, whereas by others they are little more than experts’ opinions on a given issue (Herrera amp。 Celaya, 2020). They are such a recent medium (beginning in 1996) that the concept remains controversial and arguable (Barton, 2020). In any event their persuasive and informative function is of great relevance as they can obtain opinion leadership with a huge in?uence over public opinion. In this sense Sweetser and Metzgar (2020) have demonstrated that in crisis situations, people who read personal blogs have a lower perception of crisis for an organization. The rise of blogs seems to be unbridled and it is a phenomenon that is occurring in all knowledge ?elds (Jenkins, 2020). There are currently over 60 million blogs in existence and 75,000 new ones each day (Cohen amp。 Krishnamurthy, 2020). More than 14 million people worldwide keep a personal diary on the Inter and a further 100 million (one third of the active Web universe) read blogs habitually (Gordillo, 2020). Every six months the blogosphere population doubles, and it is today sixty times greater than three years ago. No munication medium has ever burgeoned so rapidly. Weblog writers produce 700,000 to articles every day—almost one a second (Gordillo, 2020). Since their arrival blogs have been changing, as have their social perception, objectives and cultural, economic, political and media impact (Yang, 2020). Weblogs have diversi?ed and are developing in such diverse spheres as education, business, politics, journalism and public relations. According to Hallett (2020), the municative use of weblogs in public relations has twofold foundations. On the one hand they enable professionals to analyze the market and ascertain the opinions of their audiences to gauge public opinion on a business, product or brand. On the other, they are a major technique for participating and giving opinions both personal and organizational, be it by posting ments on other blogs or creating one’s own. This study, however, does not focus on analyzing corporate blogs, which are used as a public relations tool, but looks at blogs concerning public relations in which public relations or one of its activities is the main theme. Our aim is to analyze what public relations blogs are about, or what issues are dealt with in blog posts, in addition to any structural elements of this new municative tool that may affect its ef?cacy to transmit information: objectives, st