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Dialogical Engagement in the Nonprofit
Sector:
Strategic Imperative or Overhyped Trend?
Bo Rettich 10220488
J. Slevin
25-06-2015 University of Amsterdam
Graduate School of Communication Master’s Program Corporate Science
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Abstract
The goal of this research is to scrutinize if and how communication professionals from
nonprofits can use Facebook to engage with their public in a dialogue. In doing so it addresses the problem that nonprofits are increasingly concerned with acquiring funds while having to maintain a positive reputation and organizational legitimacy. This paper scrutinizes to what extent nonprofits from various sectors use dialogical strategies on Facebook; refer to the ground rules for dialogical communication of Pearson and adhere to centripetal or centrifugal dialogue orientation. To formulate an answer to the aforementioned questions a multi-case content analysis has been performed, encompassing twelve nonprofit organization from four charitable sector in the Netherlands. A deductive approach was adopted examining the ground rules for dialogical communication, concertative dialogue strategies/organizational disclosure, news framing, transformative dialogue strategies and generative dialogue strategies. The findings indicate that all nonprofits sectors mostly employ framing as dialogue strategy, refer to most of the ground rules of dialogical communication and adhere to a centripetal dialogue strategy. This research therefore concludes that dialogue is not a strategic imperative for communication professionals but further research is required before stating that dialogue is an overhyped trend.
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Charitable organizations are more and more forced to deal with market pressures typically encountered by for-profit organizations, such as acquiring funds to achieve
organizational goals (Dolnicar, Irvine & Lazarevski, 2008). Therefore nonprofits are keen on adopting business-like techniques (Goerke, 2003), such as marketing. However, unlike their commercial counterparts charities do not have financial marketing objectives but in essence strive for social change (Liao, Foreman & Sargeant, 2001). At the same time, stakeholders of nonprofits are believed to feel more involved with the activities of the organization (Gallagher & Weinberg, 1991) and it is said that charities are prone to garner more attention, both
positive and negative (Shapiro, 1973). Accordingly, managing the opinions of stakeholders and the public is of vital importance for charitable organizations. It is claimed that in order to maintain and possibly enhance a positive reputation and organizational legitimacy nonprofits must foster a dialogue with their stakeholders (Burchell & Cock, 2013). Moreover, Taylor and Kent (2014) explicate that dialogue is considered the most ethical form of communicating as it: “serves to mitigate power relationships, values individual dignity and self-worth, and tries to involve participants in conversation and decision-making” (p. 388). They argue that engagement is a prerequisite for dialogue to occur as it serves as a testimony that interactants are willing and able to fully participate in a dialogue. In doing so, the massive adoption of social media from 2003 and onward (Boyd & Ellison, 2008) are believed to offer nonprofits the possibility to engage with the public. It is claimed that even the smallest organizations have the possibility to implement social media in such a way that a large audience can be engaged, thereby leveling the playfield (Nah & Saxton, 2013). However, there are also academics that are more critical towards the dialogical possibilities of mediated
communication. Thompson (1995) explicates that certain forms of mediated communication are not conversational since the majority of the public does not participate in the dialogue but merely rather play the role of observant. This appears to be true for Facebook as well as their is research that points out that only a fraction of the people is responsible for producing the majority of user-generated content (Courtois, Mechant, De Marez, Verleye, 2009). Even so, it appears that charitable organization are keen on implementing social media: research has shown that nonprofits have adopted social media before Fortune 500 companies and academic institutions (Butcher, 2009). Nonprofits have been found to use Facebook to interact with their stakeholders and inform them of activities performed by the organization (Waters, Burnett, Lamm & Lucas, 2009). Moreover, some research signifies there are differences with regard to the adoption of social media by charitable organizations. To exemplify, Bortree and Seltzer (2009) found that environmental advocacy groups fail to engage their target audience
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through social networking sites whilst Waters (2007) states that nonprofits in the education and healthcare sector employ the most interactive elements in their social media
communication. The problem that nonprofits are confronted with is whether or not it is sensible to engage with their stakeholders and public in a dialogue on Facebook. There is reason to believe that nonprofit organization in certain sectors are employing strategies to interact with the public whilst others refrain from doing this. To find out if and how it is possible to foster a dialogue on Facebook this research will scrutinize how nonprofits from various sectors are employing
What kind of dialogical strategies do nonprofits across various charitable sectors adopt to communicate with their stakeholders on their Facebook page?
By means of answering this research question the author seeks to contribute to the scientific knowledge in two fields of research that require more academic attention. Recent research of Taylor and Kent (2014) views engagement through dialogue theory and explicates that scientific knowledge with respect to the dialogical strategies of organizations is required. At the same time Brodie, Hollebeek, Juric and Ilic (2011) look at engagement through the service-dominant logic and state that the academic knowledge in this field would grow by linking this concept to other theoretical perspectives. By combining both of these conceptual domains this paper seeks to shed a light on how different academic fields interpret
engagement and to what extent these perception overlap or differ. In doing so the author hopes to generate new scientific knowledge and create turmoil that will stimulate other academics to contribute to this field.
Apart from its contribution to academic knowledge on dialogue and engagement this research is also of practical value. It is claimed that organizations can enhance and maintain their reputation and organizational legitimacy by facilitating a dialogue with stakeholders (Burchell & Cock, 2013). Seen as nonprofits mostly depend on the willingness of benefactors to acquire funding it is of vital importance that they have a good reputation and the public perceives them as legitimate. However, Taylor and Kent (2014) state that there is a lack of research as how to organizations use strategies fostering dialogue and ethical decision-making. communication practitioners. According to them engagement is a prerequisite for dialogue to occur. By answering the aforementioned research question the author seeks to clarify how communication practitioners can engage the public and, possibly, facilitate a dialogue.
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Theoretical background
To formulate an answer to the aforementioned research question this paper is
grounded upon literature and research regarding various concepts and academic fields. Firstly, the definition of non-profit organizations and its customers is shortly explicated. Secondly, the engagement concept is reviewed from multiple academic fields and based on these conceptual domains a definition as well as five fundamental propositions are explicated. In this section the engagement concept is also linked to the service-dominant logic. Thirdly, engagement is positioned within the dialogue research paradigm and it is discussed to what extent dialogue is a possibility in social media communication. Finally, a division is made between the different dialogue strategies nonprofits can adhere to in an attempt to engage their stakeholders in a dialogue.
Non-profit Organizations
Although the non-profit sector is a frequent subject of academic research there is no consensus regarding a clear definition for the non-profit organization (Dolnicar & Lazarevski, 2009). Private nonprofit organizations are defined as: “any organization without a financial objective, under private control, which aims to generate a social benefit for a specific sector of society” (Gonzalez, Vijande & Casielles, 2002, p.56). Dolnicar and Lazarevski (2009) in their research adopted this definition with the exception of the ‘under private control’ part. Thereby including charitable organizations which belong to the public sector. Henceforth, this
definition of nonprofits will be adopted. When it comes to the customers of nonprofits it is argued that these relationships are much more complicated as opposed to their commercial counterparts. The reasoning for this argument that a charitable organization in comparison to for-profit organization must maintain many more relationships that are of importance to the survival of the organization (Drucker, 1990). With respect to the customers of nonprofits it is possible to make a division between two types. First of all, end customers of consists of: “clients, patrons, patients, donors, volunteer workers, advocates, trustees, committee members, local government inspectors, the local community” (Bruce, 1999, p.75). On the other hand, intermediary customers play a pivotal role in the work of charities but are not the principal customer group. An example of an intermediary customers are government agencies or local church leaders that refer possible beneficiaries to non-profit organizations (Bruce, 1995). Beneficiary refers to the people that receive help from non-profit organizations (Gonzales et al., 2002). This research will focus on the engagement of all customer segments
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of non-profit organizations that have access to their social media pages. Henceforth, a division between the type of customer (e.g. donor or patient) will not be made.
Engagement
The term engagement is used in many academic field apart from the marketing literature, such as sociology, psychology, political science and organizational behavior (Hollebeek, 2011). Each field has adopted a different conceptual lens from which to view the engagement concept. This plurality has led to various expressions of engagement dimensions depending on the context (Brodie et al., 2011). Since academics from marketing fields have drawn from different research areas to define engagement many sub-forms of engagement and corresponding dimensions have come into being. Scrutiny of several engagement concept in the marketing literature reveals this. For instance, research performed by Patterson, Yu and de Ruyter (2006) on customer engagement based on organizational behavior studies identifies four dimensions: absorption, refers to extent of concentration on an organization or brand, concerns the cognitive aspect of engagement; dedication regards the emotional bond customers’ experience in relation to an organization or brand; vigor represents the extensiveness and persistence of the interaction of the customer with the organization or brand; and interactions encompass the two-way communications occurring between a customer and the organization or brand. Furthermore, customer brand engagement based on social science and management literature is defined as: “the level of a customer’s
motivational, brand-related, and context-dependent state of mind characterized by specific levels of cognitive, emotional, and behavioral activity in brand interactions” (Hollebeek, 2011, p.6). Conversely, Mollen and Wilson (2010) state that online brand engagement contains the dimensions ‘sustained cognitive processing’, ‘instrumental value’ and
‘experiential value’. Despite the variances between academic fields it becomes evident that there is consensus with regard to three dimensions of engagement: a cognitive, emotional and behavioral dimension (Brodie et al., 2011). It is due to this multidimensional nature that engagement can be separated from related concepts such as involvement. To illustrate, engagement, unlike involvement, is not only comprised of the cognitive dimension but also requires the fulfillment of experiential as well as instrumental needs (Mollen & Wilson, 2010). With regard to the experiential aspect the concept of engagement resonates with the service-dominant logic. The service-dominant logic states that value is not created as a result of one party delivering to another party but rather: “is co-created in use with both parties
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playing a role and the value proposition sets expectations of values in-use’’ (Frow & Payne, 2011, p. 225). The conceptual framework of the service-dominant logic is founded upon 10 premises that characterize customers’ co-creative experiences with other stakeholders (Vargo & Lusch, 2008a). Four of these so-called ‘foundational premises’ of the service-dominant logic are suggested to describe the conceptual body behind the engagement concept (Brodie et al., 2011). The first of these premises says that value is always co-created with the customers and thereby stresses within service relationships value can only be created through interactive and co-creative processes between customers and other actors (Vargo & Lusch, 2008a). In addition, the next premises points out that value is created in a network by stating that all actors, both social and economic, are resource integrators (Vargo & Lusch, 2008b). The third premises concerns the subjective and experiential nature of the engagement concept by stating that value is uniquely and phenomenologically determined by the beneficiary (Brodie et al., 2011). To elaborate, every customer has a different experience in a service relationship because they act as a co-creator of their own service experience (Schembri, 2006). The fourth and last premises stresses the transcending relational origin of engagement by claiming that a service-centered view is characterized by a customer-orientation and has a relational nature (Vargo, 2009). In summation, these four premises of the service-dominant logics form the conceptual foundation of the engagement concept. By adopting and adapting the literature on engagement Brodie, Hollebeek, Juric and Ilic (2011, p.9) articulate the following definition of customer engagement:
Customer engagement (CE) is a psychological state that occurs by virtue of interactive, co-creative customer experiences with a focal agent/object (e.g., a brand) in focal service relationships. It occurs under a specific set of context dependent conditions generating
differing CE levels; and exists as a dynamic, iterative process within service relationships that co-create value. CE plays a central role in a nomological network governing service
relationships in which other relational concepts (e.g., involvement, loyalty) are antecedents and/or consequences in iterative CE processes. It is a multidimensional concept subject to a context- and/or stakeholder-specific expression of relevant cognitive, emotional and/or behavioral dimensions.
This definition is based on five fundamental propositions. The first of these
propositions addresses the necessity of an interaction with a focal agent or object for customer engagement to occur, such as brand (Hollebeek, 2011). However, the focal agent or object does not necessarily has to be a brand or organization but can also be a user message or
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content interaction (Massey & Levy, 1999), human-/computer mediated interaction
(Rasmussen 1986) or interpersonal interaction (Brodie et al., 2011). The second proposition claims that customer engagement has a central function within a broad nomological network of related concepts. It appears that academic literature has not yet identified what concepts constitute antecedents, concurring factors and consequences of customer engagement. The third proposition discusses the dynamic and iterative nature of the engagement concept. It is argued here that concepts related to customer engagement can fulfill both the role of
antecedent, concurring factor as well as outcome of engagement process (Brodie et al., 2011). To exemplify, consider the concept of ‘trust’ with the engagement process. For customers that interact with a focal agent or object for the first time trust can be an outcome of the
engagement process while trust can also be an engagement antecedent for customer familiar with a focal agent or object (Bowden, 2009a, 2009b). The fourth proposition refers to the multidimensional nature of customer engagement, encompassing a cognitive, emotional and behavioral dimension, as is addressed by the marketing literature. The fifth and final
propositions describes customer engagement as being dependent upon context as well as personal factors. As a consequence customer engaged should be viewed as a continuum ranging from non-engaged to highly engaged, referring to the levels of cognitive, emotional and behavioral engagement in interactive experiences with a focal agent or object (Brodie et al., 2011). By formulating and discussing the definition of customer engagement the research of Brodie, Hollebeek, Juric and Ilic (2011) provides conceptual lens from which it is possible to further theorize on the engagement concept. However, the authors acknowledge that further research is required with regard to the nascent field of engagement. Specifically, they call for research connecting engagement with other academic theories to expand the academic knowledge with regard to this topic. To answer this call the next paragraph positions engagement within the conceptual domain of dialogue.
Dialogical Engagement
The concept of engagement is accredited a central role in the discussion concerning dialogue in public relations (Kent & Taylor, 2002; Pearson, 1998). In their dialogical theory of public relations Kent and Taylor (2002) state that engagement is a feature of the principle of propinquity. Dialogical propinquity entails that: “publics are consulted in matters that influence them, and for publics, it means that they are willing and able to articulate their demands to organizations” (Kent & Taylor, 2002, p. 26). Engagement therefore signifies that
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publics are able and willing to partake in a dialogue. Therefore, from the conceptual lens of the dialogic theory of public relations engagement is viewed as prerequisite for dialogue to occur. However, research also points out that dialogue itself is an essential factor to foster engagement amongst stakeholders (Briones, Kuch, Fisher Liu, Jin, 2011; Bortree & Seltzer, 2009). Dialogue thus appears to be an antecedent as well as an outcome of engagement. This resonates with the iterative nature of engagement explicated by the definition of Brodie, Hollebeek, Juric and Ilic (2011). Similar to the concept of ‘trust’ and ‘commitment’, dialogue might be considered a antecedent for engagement for existing customers while being an outcome of engagement for new customers. Another possibility is that dialogue occurs concurrently with engagement, such as ‘involvement’ and ‘commitment’ are believed to coexist with dialogue (Brodie et al., 2011). The latter option is coherent with the Dialogue Project at the Massachusetts Institute for Technology (MIT). According to this approach dialogue spurs out of moments of engagement and collective inquiry (Isaacs, 1999). In this sense, dialogue and engagement can be viewed as intertwined concepts that facilitate ethical decision-making by involving participants in this process (Taylor & Kent, 2014). However, Thompson (1995) in his book ‘the Media and Modernity’ argues that the use of dialogue for decision-making processes in the modern world is hardly compelling. In his argumentation he refers to the direct, participatory democracy exhibited by the Ancient Greek civilization stating that this form of governing requires conditions that are very rare in our current society. In his words: “the model presupposes a process of dialogical communication among
individuals of more or less equal status who come together to form, through argument and debate, a collective will” (Thompson, 1995, p. 254). Bearing in mind the scale and complexity and considering the growing interconnectedness of our current society in comparison to the Greek city states the practicalities of this model are too far-fetched. Does this mean that this decision-making based on dialogue, in which interlocutors are able to express their opinion, question to the arguments of others and engage in debate, is a thing of the past, or more specifically, ancient history? No. According to Thomas (1995) this model of direct, participatory democracy can still be practiced effectively but only in relatively small-scale local communities and associations. Pearson (1989) does not claim the scale in which dialogue takes place is of importance but believed that effective dialogical engagement was possible under the condition that interlocutors understood and agreed upon ‘rules of the game’. He identified six dimension that facilitated an ethical environment in which
interactants can have a dialogue. Despite being articulated far before the existence of social media these dimensions set the so-called ‘ground rules’ for dialogue before any form of
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dialogical communication is possible to takes place. With regard to this rules it must be noted that both parties must be aware and agree with the rules. In this sense, the rules of Pearson (1989) can be thought of as being a prerequisite for dialogue to occur. This means that these rules do not necessarily facilitate an actual dialogue but rather indicate that the organization adheres to certain dialogical principles. The first rule prescribes that both parties know and agree when and how the interaction starts, takes place and ideally does not end. By means of planning the conversation in advance rather than it taking place spontaneous people can decide for themselves whether they want to partake in the interaction, thereby minimizing the chance people that potential participants of a dialogue are excluded. Rule number two obliges dialogical organizations to make publicly known how long it will take for them to formulate a response to questions, criticism or inquiries. This rule is especially relevant for social media since questions that are left unanswered will relatively quickly be obviated or forgotten (Taylor & Kent, 2014). Thirdly, interactants should be able to address all topics, even if these issues might be uncomfortable or risky for the organization. Organizations should not refrain from discussing topics even for the sake of proprietary reasons. As a fourth rule Pearson (1989) states that there should be consensus amongst participants of a conversation as to what counts as an answer. If in any case the answer formulated by the organizations does not meet the demands of the inquirer than he or she should be granted the possibility to continue asking more questions. The fifth rule entails that organizations should disclose information about how to contact the organization asides from the social medium itself. The rationale underlying this rule is that the public nature of social media decreases the probability people will use these channels to communicate about private matters. The sixth and final rule formulated by Pearson (1989) is that organizations must be open to reflect and change the rules of the
interaction process and cannot change these rules without consulting publics and stakeholders. Through scrutiny of how non-profits organizations claim adherence to these rules in a social media environment this research addresses a knowledge gap in the field of dialogue research. As is noted by Taylor and Kent (2014) more research towards dialogic communication at organizational level is necessary, thus the following research question is adopted:
To what extent do non-profits claim adherence to the ground rules for dialogical communication as articulated by Pearson (1989)?
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Dialogue Strategies and Framing
The rules of Pearson (1989) have been explicated in such a manner as to favor the underdog but nevertheless assume that organizations play fair. In this sense these ground rules resonate with the idea of a deliberative democracy as described by Thompson (1995, p.255), in his words:
A conception of democracy which treats all individuals as autonomous agents capable of forming reasoned judgments through the assimilation of information and different points of view, and which institutionalizes a variety of mechanisms to incorporate individual judgments into collective decision-making processes.
A process general deliberation is a prerequisite for legitimized decision-making to take place, entailing that individuals are able to consider multiple points of view, reflect on
arguments posed in favor and against specific proposals and finally contemplate the
alternatives before forming their own opinion (Thompson, 1995). According to Thompson (1995) dialogue is not necessarily required for general deliberation to occur: individuals can form their opinion without interacting with others, for instance by reading a book or watching the news. Following this line of though media play a pivotal role in deliberation as they provide a platform for the expression of plentiful perspectives. Seen as the clashing of opposing views nurtures deliberation the deliberative democracy can be thought of as a mediated democracy. The question that arises whether organizations use social media to sprout or inhibit deliberation. In other words, the motivation for organizations to
communicate with their stakeholders through Facebook can be twofold. Organizations can adhere to a centripetal dialogue orientation, meaning dialogue is used with the purpose of seeking agreement, or they adhere to a centrifugal dialogue orientation, meaning dialogue is used to promote multiple perspectives (Baxter, 1992). Adherence to the centripetal dialogue orientation leads to the adoption of strategies that promote the organization’s point of view. These dialogue strategies include framing and concertative dialogue strategies. In general, when an organization uses framing as a dialogue strategy it attempts to reinforce their own perspective. Framing is defined as: “selecting some aspects of perceived reality” to underpin their salience “in such a way as to promote a particular problem definition, causal
interpretation, moral evaluation and/or treatment recommendation” (Entman, 1993, p.53). Research performed by Muralidharan, Rasmussen, Patterson and Shin (2011) indicates that nonprofits and media organizations adopt different frames that support their organizational
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goals. Specifically, this research focuses on five types of framing that account for the majority of all the frames used in American and European news (Semetko & Valkenburg, 2000). Henceforth this paper will focus on the following types of framing: the conflict frame, which stresses conflict between two or multiple parties; the human interest frame, presenting an issue in such a way as to highlights the human interests at stake; the economic consequences frame, adopting a focus on the effect an issue will have economically; the morality frame, centering on religious and moral prescriptions in discussing a topic; and the responsibility frame focusing on the attribution of responsibility for the cause or solution of an issue to a certain group (Semetko & Valkenburg, 2000). Concertative dialogue strategy has the objective of reaching consensus among stakeholders with regard to the strategy, practice or behavior of an organization through the dissemination of background information (Innes, 2004). Organizations that employ concertative dialogue strategies also seek to control stakeholder perceptions but rather do so through the negotiation and confirmation of their actions by stakeholders. Kelleher (2006) states that organizations should use social media to generate support amongst the public for the organization and its causes but at the same time urges for transparency in online communication. For full disclosure to take place several facets are to be disseminated, including information on the organization and its history, hyperlinks to the organizations webpage, logos and/or visual cues and the names of
administrators of their social media pages (Bermann, Abraham, Battino, Shipnuck & Neus, 2007). Scrutiny of the organizational disclosure by nonprofits on Facebook reveals that nonprofits to a different extent make use of this strategy to cultivate relationships with stakeholders (Waters et al., 2009). Transformative and generative dialogue strategies adhere to a centrifugal dialogue orientation seek to foster a multitude of opinions and perspectives by facilitating open and honest communication (Theunissen & Noordin, 2012). When an
organization makes use of a transformative dialogue strategy they attempt to involve stakeholders in the process of organizational decision making by sharing inside knowledge and discussing the organization’s previous policies (Gray, 2007; Skordoulis & Dawson, 2007). Organizations applying a generative dialogue strategy are genuinely concerned with, and want to discover what stakeholders feel and want from the organization, without
imposing framed content or questions, thereby fostering minority voices (Shotter, 2008). An organization that is acknowledged for adopting social media to interact with the public is the American Red Cross. The main purpose of their two-way communication on their social media channels is: “to find out how publics think the organization can be improved” (Briones et al., 2011, p. 39). When it comes to dialogue strategies on social media it appears that
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information is scares. Apart from studies claiming that the dialogical possibilities of social media are not fully capitalized the progress in this academic field has been minimal (McAllister, 2012). According to Taylor and Kent (2014) the research on dialogue has focused mainly on web sites designs features whilst the scrutiny of dialogue as an orientation remains very scarce. Through scrutiny of the content of Facebook posts this research seeks to what extent nonprofits from various sectors make use of certain dialogue strategies and by doing so to what dialogue orientation these organizations adhere. By formulating the following research question the author seeks to contribute to this call for knowledge:
To what extent do non-profits adhere to a centripetal or centrifugal dialogue orientation in
their social media communication?
Methodology
In this section the research design methods used to formulate an answer to the aforementioned research question are explicated. The first part elaborates upon the sample selection and contains an overview of the charitable organizations included in this research. The second paragraph discusses the method and coding procedure performed to obtain the data. The third and last part of this chapter addresses the validity of this research.
Sample and Research Approach
A multi-case study is employed to scrutinize which dialogue strategies nonprofits from various sectors employ Facebook to engage their stakeholders. In doing so it is possible to assess to what extent there are differences with regard to the social media adoption across nonprofit organizations in the Netherlands. The sample is comprised of 12 non-profit organizations that are active in the Netherlands and are accredited by the Centraal Bureau Fondswerving (CBF), an organization of which the purpose is to see to it that nonprofits recruit and spend their funds in a responsible manner (Centraal Bureau Fondswerving, 2015). The following sectors have been classified: healthcare, international help, nature and
environment and wellbeing. The division of sectors is made based on the categorization of the CBF of the various charitable sectors (Centraal Bureau Fondswerving, 2015). From each sector three non-profits were selected on basis of the amount of income they generated in the year 2013 through their own fundraising activities. The non-profits that generated the most income were selected. The rationale underlying this decision is that these organizations were
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most successful in engaging with their customers as they received the most donations from their stakeholders. In table 1 an overview is provided of the non-profits that have been selected on basis of the aforementioned criteria. For each non-profit organization their Facebook page was examined. Some non-profits had both Dutch and international pages, whilst other had only Dutch pages. To include all non-profits and to ensure the results were not influenced by the source of the page the Dutch pages were scrutinized. Since the non-profits frequently post content on their Facebook page only content that was posted in the months of May, April and March in the year 2015 was selected. This resulted in a sample of 519 Facebook posts.
Table 1. Nonprofit sectors and charitable organizations
Method and Coding Procedure
A quantitative content analysis was used to study to what extent the Facebook channels of nonprofits facilitate an ethical environment for dialogue to occur and adopt various dialogical strategies. Content analysis refers to a range of analytical approaches, from more intuitive, interpretative analyses to systematic, strict textual analysis (Rosengren, 1981). By means of objectively measuring and statistically analyzing the gathered data the content analysis performed in this research can be regarded as being more systematic than
interpretative. Through the categorization of concepts, counting and the construction of statistical models the author attempts to explicate how non-profits are facilitating dialogical
Healthcare International Help Nature & Environment Wellbeing Stichting KWF
Kankerbestrijding
Vereniging Artsen zonder Grenzen
Vereniging tot Behoud van Natuurmonumenten in Nederland Vereniging het Nederlandse Rode Kruis
Stichting Aids Fonds – STOP AIDS NOW! – Soa Aids Nederland
Stichting Oxfam Novib Stichting Greenpeace Nederland Nationale Vereniging de Zonnebloem Nederlandse Hartstichting Stichting Nederlands Comité UNICEF Stichting het Nederlands Wereld Natuur Fonds
Stichting Leger des Heils Fondsweving
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communication on social networking sites like Facebook. To make these concepts measurable several coding schemes (see appendices) have been made consisting out of the ground rules for dialogical communication (Pearson, 1989b), full disclosure/dissemination of information to measure concertative dialogue strategies (Berman et al., 2007), framing (Semetko & Valkenburg, 2000), transformative dialogue strategies (Gray, 2007; Skordoulis & Dawson, 2007) and generative dialogue strategies (Shotter, 2008). The adherence to ground rules and the disclosure of organization information will solemnly be measured by looking at the information that non-profits disclose with regard to their Facebook page (e.g. house rules). The extent to which the non-profits display their policy with regard to initiating, proceeding and ending dialogue; how long it will take for them to answer questions; refraining from answering questions; what constitutes an answer and the possibility to discuss the rules is measured through yes or no coding options. Hence, if non-profits refers to one of these rules on their information page the appropriate coding option is yes. As a result hereof this research does not explicate if nonprofits actually adhere to these ground rules but rather shows whether they mention these rules as guiding their social media communication. Through analysis of the interpretation of these rules by charitable organizations it is possible to define if and how nonprofits claim to provide an ethical environment for dialogue to occur on their Facebook pages. With respect to the concertative dialogue strategies, or organizational disclosure, a similar sort analysis was performed. The coding options also included yes or no, however when the information page provided a description of the organization; the history of the organization; hyperlinks to the corporate website; logo’s or visual cues and/or names of the administrators this strategy was actually adopted. Unlike the rules for dialogical
communication it is possible to measure to what extent nonprofits factually disclose information about themselves. This is also true for the measurement of framing as well as transformative and generative dialogue strategies. Once again the coding options ranged from yes to no, measuring the use of these strategies in the content posted on the Facebook page by the nonprofit organization. Framing encompasses the conflict frame; the human interest frame; the economic consequences frame; the morality frame and the responsibility frame. Moreover, the coding method permits the possibility to measure multiple frames in one post, for example a Facebook post can resonate with the human interest and responsibility frame at the same time. Rather than merely measuring if a frame is adopted this allows for more specific conclusion with regard to the relation between the use of different types of framing and the typology of the charitable organization. Transformative dialogue strategies were measured through scrutinizing if a Facebook posts refers to the policy of/inside information
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of nonprofits thereby asking for the public’s perspective. Finally, generative dialogue
strategies were coded positively if the Facebook post did not contain framed content but only asks for opinions or feelings with regard to the charitable organization. By combining the amount of transformative and generative dialogue strategies and comparing them with the usage of framing it is possible to statistically analyze which dialogue strategies are employed most frequently and thus assess if nonprofits adhere to centripetal or centrifugal dialogue orientation. It must noted that the concertative dialogue strategy is not included in this analyses as it is observed on the information page rather than looking at Facebook posts. The rationale underlying this decision is that the description and history of the organization are very broad categories and these could be appropriate for the majority of the Facebook posts, causing too much overlap. For instance, if an charitable organization discusses their policy or discloses inside information and asks for stakeholder opinions this can be perceived as both a concertative dialogue strategy and transformative dialogue strategy. Therefore any post being coded as transformative dialogue strategy should automatically be coded as concertative dialogue strategy, thereby greatly affecting the outcomes of the statistical analysis.
Reliability
To find out whether the variables used in the statistical analysis are reliable
Krippendorff’s alpha was calculated. The calculations revealed that most of the variables were coded exactly the same by the coders, with the exception of the human interest, morality and responsibility frame. Two variables scored above 8.0, only the responsibility frame had a result below 0.80. The explanation for these scores is that the frames that were coded
precisely the same were quite rare while the human interest, morality and responsibility frame occurred were occurred very often and in many different contexts. Hence, the coders might have experienced perceived some Facebook posts differently with regard to these types of framing or simply overlooked them. Albeit the score of the responsibility frame is still acceptable it is relatively low in comparison to the other frame types. An explanation for this is that one of the coders applied the responsibility frame if the cause of a problem was
attributed to non-human issues, such as disease or natural disasters, whilst this is not what the frame is intended for. This problem was caused by misreading the description of the
responsibility frame in the coding scheme and thus can be perceived as an human error. Fortunately it is still possible to use all the variables in the statistical analysis.
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Table 2. Krippendorff´s alpha
Variable Krippendorff's alpha
Conflict frame 1
Human interest frame 0.9298
Economic consequences frame 1
Morality frame 0.8812 Responsibility frame 0.6760 Policy 1 Inside information 1 Minority voices 1 Results
The results section is divided into three parts. Firstly, the display of the ground rules for dialogical communication on Facebook will be discussed. Secondly, the use of the concertative dialogue strategy or organizational disclosure will be addressed. These parts mostly focus on the information page of the Facebook channels of nonprofit organizations and will be depicted through the use of tables. Finally, the third part elaborates whether a
centripetal or centrifugal dialogue orientation is adopted by non-profit organizations through analyses of framing as well as transformative and generative dialogue strategies. In addition, the usage of the various types of framing per sector is scrutinized. These results will be discussed by means of statistical testing performed to indicate which dialogue orientation and strategy is the most dominant.
Ground Rules for Dialogical Communication
To examine if nonprofits explicate whether they adhere to the ground rules for dialogical organizational systems as formulated by Pearson (1989) the information page of their Facebook profiles has been inspected. Scrutiny of these pages merely reveals whether the organizations in this research display which of the ground rules they follow, or not, but it does not necessarily entail they actual do so. In table 1 the results of this inspection are depicted.
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Table 3. Adherence to the ground rules for dialogical communication
Nonprofit organization Rule 1 Rule 2 Rule 3 Rule 4 Rule 5 Rule 6
Stichting KWF Kankerbestrijding X
Stichting Aids Fonds – STOP aids NOW! – Soa Aids Nederland
X X X X
Nederlandse Hartstichting X X X X
Vereniging Artsen zonder Grenzen
X
Stichting Oxfam Novib X X X X
Stichting Nederlands Comité UNICEF
X
Vereniging tot Behoud van Natuurmonumenten in Nederland
X X X
Stichting Greenpeace Nederland X
Stichting het Nederlands Wereld Natuur Fonds
X
Vereniging het Nederlandse Rode Kruis
X
Nationale Vereniging de Zonnebloem
X
Stichting Leger des Heils Fondsweving
X
Scrutiny of table 1 reveals that all nonprofits state that they adhere to the fifth rule, or the rule for contact, and provide the public with a possibility to contact the organization via another communication channel. Hyperlinks to corporate websites are provided by every organization. However, nonprofit organizations active in the health sector did not display their telephone number on their Facebook profile whilst organization from the other charitable sectors did provide this information. Seen as the rationale underlying the rule for contact is that people are not always willingly to disclose certain matters publicly nonprofits should offer the opportunity for people to privately contact the organization. Vereniging tot Behoud
van Natuurmonumenten in Nederland had the best integration of social media channels: the
Facebook info page referred to the other social media channels the organization employed, including Twitter, Youtube and Pinterest. Further analysis of table 1.1 shows that none of the
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organizations mention rule number two or four, respectively the rule for responsiveness and the rule for what constitutes an answer. These rules are of importance as the mentioning of the rules indicates that an interlocutor is provided the chance to ask more when he is not satisfied with the answer he or she received and also responses are provided in an acceptable time limit. By not referring to these rules the nonprofits in this research do not give any sort of guarantee to their publics that have the possibility to discuss answers given to their questions, criticism and inquiries or they will receive a timely response. In fact, with regard to number rule number one and three, respectively regarding the rule for initiating, maintaining and ending dialogue and the rule for refraining to answer, it appears that four nonprofit
organizations address when they will refrain from answering question and even remove the post. These organizations explicate in their Facebook house rules that they will not answer questions that are considered commercial, offensive, racist, politically incorrect or
pornographic of nature and will remove post with this kind of content. With respect to rule number one the house-rules explicated by nonprofits clarify how nonprofits prefer that a dialogue is initiated, maintained and ideally not ended. However, bearing in mind the constitutions of rule number three it delineates that organizations also refrain from handling certain questions. Although one could argue it makes sense to remove certain types of content that is not related to the activities of nonprofits the refraining to handle questions also
provides organizations with an excuse not to handle question that they consider offensive or politically incorrect but are genuine inquires by an interlocutor. Moreover, both Nederlandse
Hartstichting and Stichting Aids Fonds – STOP aids NOW! – Soa Aids Nederland explicate
that they will refrain from handling questions that they perceive as spam or repetitive of nature. However, when an interlocutor poses a question or inquires about the same topic multiple times this could indicate that he or she is not satisfied with the answer. By refraining to handle these questions nonprofits do facilitate an ethical environment necessary for a dialogue to occur. However, three organizations that remove certain types of content or refrain from handling question also offer the public a chance to discuss these rules, as is stated by rule number six or the rule for changing the rules. Regarding this rule it appears that from the four organizations only Vereniging tot Behoud van Natuurmonumenten in Nederland did not mention offering a chance to discuss their policy. Stichting Aids Fonds – STOP aids
NOW! – Soa Aids Nederland, Nederlandse Hartstichting and Stichting Oxfam Novib do
explain that stakeholder are granted the chance to discuss the policy and therefore these are the nonprofit organizations that adhere most to the ground rules as formulated by Pearson (1989). As a result hereof, based on the mentioning of the ground rules, the Facebook page of
20
these nonprofits can be considered the most ethical environment in which a dialogue can take place. Nevertheless, it must be stressed that even though adhering to four of these ground rules is not a guarantee for dialogue to occur. Especially since neither of the organizations explicates how long it will take for them to answer or what constitutes an answer. By doing so the nonprofits have jiggle room to purposefully neglect or provide invalid answers to critical questions or troublesome inquiries of their publics.
Overall, it appears that from our sample Facebook pages of nonprofits active in the health sector claim to provide the most ethical environment for a dialogue to occur, followed respectively by the nonprofits in the development and nature sector. Nonprofits belonging to the wellbeing sector make the least claims with regard to the ground rules therefore is remains unclear if they provide an ethical environment for dialogue to occur. Despite the fact that these claims do not necessarily entail that nonprofits from the health sector provide the most ethical environment for dialogue these results are in line with the findings of Waters (2007) and Bortree and Seltzer (2009). In his research on nonprofit organization’s adoption of websites Waters (2007) found that nonprofits belonging to the health sector provide the most information to their publics. Bortree and Seltzer (2009) inspected the Facebook pages of environmental advocacy groups and conclude that these types of organizations fail to fully seize the dialogical opportunities offered by social networking sites. These findings are coherent with the ranking of the nonprofits in various sectors.
Concertative Dialogue Strategies
For the scrutiny of concertative dialogue strategies the information page of the Facebook page of nonprofits was inspected, except the variable names which was also searched for in the responses of nonprofits to questions or inquiries. Analyses of these pages gives us an overview as to what extent nonprofits organizations disclosed information with regard to the organization and the administrators of the Facebook page.
Table 4. Concertative dialogue strategy or organizational disclosure
Nonprofit organization Description History Links Logo’s Names
Stichting KWF Kankerbestrijding X X X X X
Stichting Aids Fonds – STOP aids NOW! – Soa Aids Nederland
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Nederlandse Hartstichting X X X X X
Vereniging Artsen zonder Grenzen
X X X X
Stichting Oxfam Novib X X X X
Stichting Nederlands Comité UNICEF
X X X X
Vereniging tot Behoud van Natuurmonumenten in Nederland
X X X X X
Stichting Greenpeace Nederland X X X X X
Stichting het Nederlands Wereld Natuur Fonds
X X X X X
Vereniging het Nederlandse Rode Kruis
X X X X
Nationale Vereniging de Zonnebloem
X X X X X
Stichting Leger des Heils Fondsweving
X X X X X
As table 2 illustrates all organizational disclosure strategies were employed by every nonprofit organizations included in this research with the exception of the names of the administrators. From the sample consisting of twelve organizations five did not provide the names of the administrators of the Facebook page. Remarkably, none of the organizations working in the development sector made the names of the administrators publicly known. Hence, it can be concluded that concertative strategies have been employed by seven of the charitable organizations for full organizational disclosure.
Dialogue Orientation and Strategies
To assess whether charitable sector vary in the use of dialogue strategies a chi-test was performed with assertion that all framing, transformative and generative dialogue strategies were used equally by nonprofits in their Facebook communication. The results of these analysis show that charitable organization used framing as dialogue strategy significantly more than transformative or generative dialogue strategies, X2 (2) = 210,44, p < 0,001. Therefore it can be concluded that nonprofits in general adhere to a centripetal dialogue orientation rather than a centrifugal dialogue orientation. This entails that the Facebook
22
channels of nonprofits, regardless of the sector, are first and foremost employed for the sake of promoting the organization’s point of view and controlling stakeholder perceptions rather than promoting multiple opinions. Hence, it is evident that charitable organization do not foster a multitude of views and therefore do not facilitate a process of generalized
deliberation, thus, from the perspective of deliberate democracy, nonprofit’s use of Facebook therefore does not facilitate ethical decision making.
With respect to the frames used by the various nonprofit sectors there were some significant findings. Firstly, there is a significant difference between the use of the human interest frame by nonprofits in the development and nonprofits in the other sectors (Fisher-exact p = 0,006). Relatively a lot of nonprofits in the development sector use the human interest frame but the effect size is minimal (tau =0,004). Secondly, There is a significant difference between the use of the conflict frame by nonprofits in the nature and nonprofits in the other sectors (Fisher-exact p =0,026). Relatively a lot of nonprofits in the nature sector use the conflict frame but the effect size is minimal (tau = 0,01). Thirdly, There is a significant difference between the use of the human interest frame by nonprofits in the nature and nonprofits in the other sectors (Fisher-exact p < 0,001). Although none of the nonprofits in the nature sector do not use the human interest frame the effect size is still minimal (tau < 0,001). Finally, There is a significant difference between the use of the responsibility frame by nonprofits in the wellbeing and charities in other sectors (Fisher-exact p = 0,003).
Relatively less of nonprofits in the wellbeing sector use the responsibility frame but the effect size is minimal (tau < 0,003). Accordingly, it can be argued that organization from different charitable sectors apply different frames to stress certain aspects that affect the stakeholders’ perception of issues in such a way as to promote the organization’s relevance. To elaborate, nonprofits in the development sector select aspects highlighting an emotion or human angle to underpin the salience of their interpretation of reality and foster support among stakeholder and publics. In similar vein, environmental organization use the conflict frame to direct the attention of the public towards the conflict between the preservation of nature and the interests of other groups whilst these organization refrain from stressing the interests of humans. Finally, organization focused on the wellbeing of humans do frame issues in terms of responsibility, indicating they not appoint one specific groups as being responsible for the welfare of people but rather see this as the concern of many peoples.
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Conclusion
Dialogue can be viewed as a continuum, ranging from monologue and propaganda to dialogue (Taylor & Kent, 2014). Monologue is considered selfish as it used personal attributes of the other interlocutors for selfish ends (Johannesen, Valde & Whedbee, 2008) whilst
dialogue is described as ethical because it facilitates interaction, self-discovery and co-creation (Taylor & Kent, 2014). Following this rationale all organizations, and especially nonprofits, should implement dialogue in their decision-making process. However, it is also argued that is not practical to use Facebook to foster dialogue because it would imply that these organization have to facilitate a conversation with thousands or possibly millions of people (Thompson, 1995). Research on the American Red Cross reveals that even large organization do not have enough resources to facilitate an environment in which such a dialogue can take place (Briones et al., 2011). Therefore the claim of Nah and Saxton (2013) that social media have leveled the playfield by offering even the smallest organization the chance to engage their publics is clearly exaggerated. This is also reflected by the findings in our research. Scrutiny of the display of the ground rules of dialogical communication on Facebook shows that not one of the nonprofits in this research explicates how long it will take for them to answer questions or what constitutes an answer. Considering the lack of resources it makes sense that nonprofits are not able to guarantee whether they can respond and how long it will take for them to formulate an answer. Hence, it appears that albeit implementing dialogue in decision-making is considered ethical it is not realistic for nonprofits.
More practical and appropriate is the idea of a deliberative democracy in which Facebook serves as a platform to foster multiple perspective thereby allowing individuals to reflect upon several views and forming their own opinion. However, the results of the content analysis reveal that all of the examined various nonprofit sectors use framing as dialogue strategy on Facebook and therefore seek to control the public’s perception rather than sprouting deliberation. Also, from viewing dialogue as a continuum it becomes evident that the dialogue strategy of nonprofits leans more towards monologue and propaganda than actual dialogue. This conclusion resonates with research stating that nonprofits have an
organization-centered marketing mindset because they believe their existence is required by the market (Andreasen & Kotler, 2003). However, it remains very questionable whether people actually want to participate in dialogue. Although the general conception is that people are active and creative producers of media content (Berthon, Pitt & Campbell., 2008) this
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assertion overlooks the fact that the majority of the content is produced by a fraction of the people (Courtois et al., 2009).
Does this entail that it is impossible to engage the majority of the public and facilitate ethical decision-making? Some research indicates that dialogue is necessary to engage in a dialogue (Briones et al., 2011; Bortree & Seltzer, 2009). However, the author disagrees with this statement. As is explicated by Thompson (1995) people can form reasoned judgments by reading a book, therefore dialogue is not necessary to foster deliberation and thus ethical decision-making. In this sense, organizations that provide their public with information concerning their activities are contributing to the process of deliberation and thus can be considered ethical. This explains why the concertative dialogue strategy, or organizational disclosure, is applied by all organization. With the exception of the names of the
administrators all organizational facets have been disclosed by the charities. In accordance with Kelleher (2006) the findings of this research encourage communication practitioners to advocate the organization and it mission as long as they are transparent in their
communication.
To concise, albeit charitable organizations are using framing as dialogue strategy in their Facebook communication this does not necessarily mean that nonprofits are not ethical. Considering the practicalities it is not realistic to use Facebook to foster a dialogue writ large, charities simply lack the resources for that. In addition, even though nonprofits are not using Facebook as platform to offer multiple perspectives they still add to the process of
deliberation by advocating their purpose and mission. The public can also access plenty of other, more critical sources, to evaluate what nonprofits are saying. After all, nonprofits are more and more forced to acquire funds to assure their survival and completion of their goals (Dolnicar et al., 2008) so it makes sense they are employing marketing to influence the public rather.
Discussion
By choosing a title that states that dialogical engagement is either a strategic imperative or merely an overhyped trend the author seeks to stimulate academics and professionals to ponder how and if dialogue should play a role in mediated communication. One of the goals of this research is to cause turmoil and stimulate other researchers to further scrutinize and develop the concepts of dialogue and engagement. In this sense, the findings of this research offer plenty of opportunities for further academic work. First of all, through
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content analysis of the Facebook pages it has become evident that the various nonprofit sector all employ framing as most frequently used dialogue strategy. Nevertheless there are
occasions in which the charities have used a transformative or generative dialogue strategy. Academics that wish to scrutinize whether and how these strategies work can adopt research focusing exclusively on these type of posts and encompass the reactions of interlocutors in their analysis. In doing so it is a possibility that they find dialogue can occur on Facebook although the expectation is that it does not take place between the entire public but rather a small group of engaged interlocutors. Nevertheless, such results do not entail that dialogical engagement is a strategic imperative as this dialogue would occur between a fraction of the public seen as most of the people do not create user-generated content. In this light,
researchers might also reconsider the role of engagement with respect to mediated
communication of nonprofits. Future research could include qualitative methods in research on dialogical engagement thereby making possible to what extent the public feels engaged through reading different types of Facebook posts. In similar vein researchers can also interview communication practitioners to examine what their rationale underlying the
production of certain social media content is. Since this research adopts a deductive approach it merely focuses the strict measurement of the concepts described in the literature and does not allow for conclusions with regard to the effects of the Facebook content. As a
consequence hereof the findings are limited to the context of the academic literature adopted by the author of this paper. However, there are also advantages to this kind of research. By adhering to a deductive research it has been possible to statistically analyze and objectively report the results of this research. Thereby the conclusions of the author are supported by empirical research. This research method also clarifies to what extent these academic concepts are adopted by communication practitioners. Hence, the strength of this paper is that it
provides academics and professionals the opportunity to evaluate these concepts through another perspective. In doing so the academics might find that dialogue is not a strategic imperative as it is simply not practical for organization to apply on their Facebook page. This resonates with findings in this research thereby falsifying the claims that state social media offer nonprofits the opportunity to engage the public in a dialogue. It appears that nonprofits simply lack the resources to do so and the majority of the public would not even participate in the dialogue. Nevertheless, research that would adopt an qualitative approach could indicate that the facilitation of dialogue does engage the public even if they do not participate in doing so. Therefore communication professionals should not discard dialogue as an overhyped trend just yet.
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Appendix A. CODING SCHEME GROUND RULES FOR DIALOGICAL COMMUNICATION
Variables Descriptions Coding options
Rules for initiating, proceeding and ending dialogue
Does the Facebook page provides information with regard to initiating, proceeding and ending a dialogue?
Yes or no
Rules for responsiveness Does the Facebook page provides information with regard to how long it will take to answer questions, criticism and/or inquires?
Yes or no
Rules for refraining to handle questions
Does the Facebook page provides information with regard to the refrainment of handling questions?
Yes or no
Rules for answering Does the Facebook page provides information
provided with regard to what constitutes an answer?
Yes or no
Rules for contact Does the Facebook page provides information with regard to how to contact the organization (aside from its social media channels)?
Yes or no
Rules for changing the rules Does the Facebook page provides information with regard to the discussion concerning the rules with respect to the interaction?
Yes or no
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Appendix B CODING SCHEME FOR CONCERTATIVE DIALOGUE STRATEGY/ORGANIZATIONAL DISCLOSURE
Variables Descriptions Coding options
Description of the organization
Does the Facebook page and/or its content provides general information on the organization?
Yes or no
History of the organization Does the Facebook page and/or its content provides information on the history of the organization?
Yes or no
Hyperlinks to corporate website
Does the Facebook page and/or its content provides a hyperlink to the corporate website?
Yes or no
Logos/visual cues Does the Facebook page and/or its content provides logos and/or visual cues belonging to the
organization?
Yes or no
Names of administrators of Facebook page
Does the Facebook page provides and/its content provides names of the administrators?
