Abstract
The authors performed a content analysis of 50 blogs related to public relations. The study extended the literature on credibility to investigate visual credibility and technical credibility. Of particular interest was the dimension of dynamism. The results showed that visual credibility and technical credibility were strongly related. In addition, visual dynamism contributed 30% of the variance in visual credibility and technical dynamism explained 46% of the variance in technical credibility. Seven interactive features such as number of links, five customization features like RSS feeds, and six visual features like moving images were also investigated for their associations with visual and technical dynamism and credibility. A proposed model for scholars and practitioners is presented.
Kelly N. Martin is a doctoral candidate in the communication, Rhetoric and Digital Media Program and Melissa A. Johnson, PhD, is director of Graduate Studies in Communication at North Carolina State University Raleigh, NC.
Notes
The opening page image is a screen shot of the Caribbean Public Relations website at http://www.caribbeanprblog.com/courtesy of Karel Me Intosh.
1Intercoder realiabilty rates as well as the tables and figures referenced in this article can be found at http://vcquarterly.org/martinl7_3.pdf