A LONGITUDINAL STUDY OF THE GLOBAL AUTOMOTIVE INDUSTRY
MEDIA: “TURBO-CHARGED” BY THE USES AND GRATIFICATIONS
OF SOCIAL MEDIA 2005-2010
Northwestern
University, USA
ABSTRACT
What
distinctions do journalists make between Asian, European and U.S. media
relations programs in the automotive industry? What do journalists really think
of public relations efforts on behalf of their readers, listeners, viewers, employers
or clients? How would automotive journalists
use social media? Would
the data be more revealing if there were corporate and global regional
differences? This report and analysis is based on six years of survey research
data collected from 367 journalists in 2010 and from 2005-2009. The research is
based on nine Asian, seven European and three U.S. automotive corporations.
Using in-depth annual surveys from 2005-2010 the authors structure the findings
with a uses and gratifications framework. The preliminary findings in 2010 suggest
that the specialized media including freelancers covering the automotive
industry have a great deal to contribute to our general understanding of the
global relationships between PR and the press. Since the data is based on nine
Asian, seven European and three U.S. automotive corporations the responses
permit a geographic corporate cross-cultural comparison on some dimensions. The
authors will structure the findings using a post hoc uses and gratifications
approach.
INTRODUCTION
The exponential growth of social media
outlets such as blogs, Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn has dramatically changed
today’s media landscape. Social media are essentially self-promoting in that journalists can promote their articles and gain
story ideas therein. At the same time, the interactive and social nature of
social media makes it an attractive way for advertisers to market products and
services. Thus, increasing global marketers have tapped the potential of social
media and develop advertising strategy to target consumers around the world.
Different from traditional media channels such as newspapers and magazines,
social media provide a communal place for consumers
to communicate with one another and share brand experience, which greatly
increases brand exposure [19].
With social media’s capacity to facilitate immediate and two-way
communication, brand-related conversations are
generated and exchanged among consumers easily and quickly in the era of
consumer control. In this regard, it is also imperative for global automotive
companies to gain an in-depth understanding
of the psychographic and social needs of their consumers and underlying reasons for consumer use of social media. Accordingly,
understanding how automotive journalists use social media and compare their
social media habits to traditional media usage will provide valuable
implications to international advertising and public relations research and
practice, and advance our knowledge of cyber behavior in a global context.
USES AND
GRATIFICATIONS OF SOCIAL MEDIA AMONG AUTOMOTIVE JOURNALISTS
Recently, social media has gained much
interest among communication, marketing, and advertising scholars and
practitioners [2], [6], [7], [10], [12]. As defined, social media are “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” [7, p. 61]. Social media encompasses varied
applications and platforms including blogs, social networking sites, company
sponsored discussion forums, product or service
review websites, to name a few [12]. In their recent article, Mangold and Faulds [12] argue that social media have become a hybrid element of
integrated marketing communications (IMC) and present a promising tool for
communicating with customers. Drawing from the six years of data from the
global automotive industry, findings suggest that social media have played a
significant role in influencing various aspects of public relations practices
such as how and why traditional and online journalists use social media as a
source of information. Unfortunately, current academic literature offers very
little insight into the uses and gratifications of social media among
journalists. Even though social media, in particular blogs, have become one of
the most commonly used tools for work by journalists, motivation and usage patterns
of these emerging media among journalists have not yet been articulated.
Therefore, this
study examines the usage behaviors and motivation for using social media among
journalists in the global automotive industry through uses and gratifications
theory [8]. The core idea of uses
and gratifications theory centers on the underlying social and psychological
needs that motivate individuals to use certain types of media for
gratifications. These needs trigger the media use because the media users’
behaviors are assumed to be goal-directed [4], [8], and [17].
Gratifications, on the other hand, attract and hold individuals to the certain
kinds of media and the types of content that best satisfy their social and
psychological needs [18]. Ko, Cho, and Roberts [9] applied uses and gratifications theory to explain
psychological and behavioral dimensions regarding online context and found that
different individuals can use same mediated communication for different
purposes. With the exponential rise in popularity of social media, a few recent
studies have employed uses and
gratifications to frame theoretical background [5], [13], [15], and [16]. For example, Quan-Haase
and Young [15] compared the gratifications obtained from Facebook
with those from instant messaging. Ancu and Cozma [1] examined
the uses and gratifications of accessing political candidate profiles on
MySpace. Overall, findings of these studies suggest that social interaction,
information seeking, and entertainment are common gratifications of social
media motives and usage. However, prior research mainly focuses on consumers or
“audiences.” No research to date has examined the perspective of the
journalist, particularly in the global automotive industry where the
relationship between the corporate and the press is increasingly interactive
and dynamic due to the emergence of social media.
Previous studies on uses and gratifications
have stressed that the intrinsic needs
interact with social environments and personal characteristics to
produce the perceived problems and solutions, which lead to the different
motives to use media [18]. From a
longitudinal standpoint, the development and advance of social media
from 2005 to 2010 could create a different technologically situated social
environment for automotive journalists, and thus result in their distinctive
social media usage motivations and patterns.
METHODOLOGY
The current paper focuses on the
survey study conducted in 2010. The number of respondents to this sixth
iteration of the survey continues to grow slightly, with 367 responses in 2010 compared
to 363 respondents in 2009. The respondents completed the Web-based survey during
July and August of 2010. Among the 367 responses, 33% were from California,
8% from Illinois and
7% from Michigan, with a total of 37 states represented in the survey. In terms
of the respondents’ job function, 72% were print journalist, followed by online
journalist (71%), blogger (27%), photo journalist (24%), book author (15%),
radio journalist (12%) and so on. Additionally, the
respondents' areas of expertise were virtually unchanged from last year, with a
large majority (82%) doing vehicle reviews, followed by general interest
stories (57%). Figure 1 presents respondents’ area of expertise.
Figure 1. Respondents’2010 area(s) of expertise
The initial e-mail invitation to
participate went out to 1,800 journalists. It included a cover letter from an
industry media leader who gave a brief background and provided a link to the
survey. The
survey was conducted by the Motor
Press Guild, MPR, and designed by the Gronstedt
Group, a U.S. based consulting firm, with input from media industry experts as
well as several car manufacturer professionals. The survey includes both quantitative rating questions and a qualitative,
open-ended question. To gauge respondents’ use of social media, two
quantitative questions were asked: (1) which
of these social networking tools do you use for work? and (2) what role(s) do these social media play in your reporting? In addition, a
qualitative, open-ended question was used to gain an understanding of how automotive companies could
better support journalists’ use of social media (“Please tell
us how automotive companies could better support your use of social media?”). All
comments for the open-ended
question from respondents in this survey are "true
verbatim" complete with misspellings and grammatical errors (See Appendix).
Questions concerning the overall
media relations were also included. “Successful media relations” are defined by
the seven criteria. The seven criteria are: (1) Has
knowledgeable PR people, (2) Provides useful press releases, product
information and materials, (3) PR department responds speedily, (4) Provides
access to top executives, designers and engineers, (5) Does a good job of
providing test vehicles, (6) Has an effective online press room, and (7) Organizes
effective media events. Respondents were asked to rate carmakers on these
criteria on seven 7-point Likert type scales, ranging from 1 (Strongly
Disagree) to 7 (Strongly Agree).
PRELIMINARY
RESULTS
Media Relations
Before examining the use of social media
among automotive journalists, overall media relations
in each geographical group (Asia, Europe and the U.S.) was discussed to
provide a bigger picture of the global automotive industry media. The
preliminary findings that beg for more comparative analysis provide more
questions than answers on the distinctions between companies and global
manufacturing regions. The three geographical groups and automotive
manufactures in each region are presented as below (See Table 1).
Table
1. Automotive manufactures in the U.S., Asian, and European
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US
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Ford
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GM
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Chrysler
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Asian
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Mitsubishi
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Suzuki Auto
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Subaru
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Mazda
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Nissan
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Hyundai
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Honda
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Toyota
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Kia
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European
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VWPorsche
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BMW
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Mercedes
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Audi
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Jaguar/ Land Rover
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Volvo
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Granted, these distinctions are
harder to make as Volvo and Jaguar/Land/Rover now have Asian ownership,
Chrysler has a European minority owner, etc. Nevertheless, it’s an interesting
analysis. Findings
reported and requiring analysis simply describe Asian automakers falling behind. The average scores for the last five years on
the category of Overall Media Relations were combined in three geographical
groups as per below (see Figure 2). The U.S. brands
continued their positive trend from last year and still enjoy a lead over the
Asian name plates, which turned around their negative trajectory from last
year. The European automakers decreased slightly from last year and are still
trailing Asian and U.S. companies by a huge margin.
Figure 2. Asia, Europe, U.S. Geographical comparison
Other findings point out that
all seven criteria of what define “successful media relations” are in decline. Journalism
satisfaction with the automotive industry as a whole dropped on six of the
seven criteria of successful media relations. Online Press Room saw the biggest
drop; the average car company saw a decline of almost 10% on this criterion
from last year. Two Asian companies and one U.S.
company enjoy the number-one position on three of the seven criteria of
successful media relations among the total journalist population. An Asian firm
tops the Online Press Room, Best Product Information and Fastest Response Time
categories. A U.S. company is ranked first on Provides Access to Top
Executives, Designers & Engineers, Online Press Room, and Organizes
Effective Media Events. Another Asian company (different country) leads the
industry on, Test Vehicles, Media Events and Product Info, while a European
company is top-ranked in Knowledgeable PR People, and Hyundai is top-ranked in
Test Vehicles.
Six of the seven criteria of successful media
relations had a negative net-improvement score for the second straight year
(i.e., the number of companies that improved average scores minus the number of
companies with declining scores). A net improvement score of two means that 11
companies improved their scores on that criterion and nine companies had
declining scores. “Useful press releases” was the only criterion with a
positive net improvement score. “Online press room” saw a staggering drop; all
20 companies lost ground on this important criterion.
The Role of Social
Media in the Global Automotive Industry
Based on the six years of data regarding the
role of social media in the global automotive industry, the descriptive
findings highlight possible over time comparisons with more analytical methods.
For example, findings of the 2006 report suggest that almost half of the
journalists read blogs regularly, with many of them using blogs (both personal
and corporate blogs such as GM’s public Fastlane blog and Chrysler’s
TheFirehouse.biz) as a useful source of information (e.g., buzz and rumors).
The results also suggest that only a fraction of respondents write their own
blog and use blogs as outlets for reporting. In the 2010 report, interestingly,
the results showed that blogging has experienced the largest rise, with 27% of
respondents were bloggers, compared to 3.7% bloggers in 2006. Moreover, the
average journalist published for 3.4 different media channels in 2010,
including blogs, podcasts, print, and online publications, rising from 1.3
channels in 2006. Facebook has emerged as the most commonly used social media
platform for work by automotive journalists. Taken together, these results
emphasize the changing media landscape of convergence and highlight changes and
trends in social media usage among journalists from 2005-2010. This comparison
between years would allow researchers to draw conclusions about how different
social media fulfill journalists’ needs over time.
Specifically, a number of
questions relating to the growing impact of social media were included in the 2010
survey. The first question asked what social media the respondents use in their
daily work. As seen in the graph below, Facebook almost doubled and is now the
most popular social media, overtaking LinkedIn by a wide margin (although
LinkedIn is growing rapidly as well). Overall, every social medium is growing
dramatically and the share of journalist curmudgeons who are not using any
social media is down from 40% last year to just 21% (See Figure 3 below).
Figure 3. Social networking tools used for work
2010
Next was the question, "What
role(s) do these social media play in your reporting?" Clearly, many
respondents still use social media to catch up with the latest buzz and rumors
and to promote their articles, but the number of journalists who use social
media to generate story ideas have increased significantly from last year (See
Figure 4 below).
Figure 4.
The different roles of blogs 2010
When asked respondents
how automotive companies could better support their use of social media, there
is a clear division between reporters who are embracing social media (“The
automakers are doing a bang-up job. The world runs on Twitter”) and detractors
(“Quit being faddish. Are you really getting anything out of them?”). These
results suggest that the traditional roles of journalists and PR organizations
are being challenged as new social media are emerging. The Appendix listed the
unedited responses to the question, “Please tell us how automotive companies
could better support your use of social media?” Content analysis will be used
to mine the responses to this open-ended question.
PRACTICAL
IMPLICATIONS FROM THE RESEARCH
This
research summary has reported some of the descriptive statistical findings.
Some of the findings beg for a managerial interpretation for the agencies,
industry and journalists who contribute and read the anticipated annual
reports.
For
example from the 2010 report , Facebook has now replaced LinkedIn as the most
commonly used social media tool for work by automotive reporters. It has almost
doubled in use in just one year, and is now used by an overwhelming majority of
reporters for their professional work. This finding raises a question of how
many automotive or other industry PR departments have a well-developed Facebook
strategy. The surveys contain lines of verbatim quotes on how the media use
Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and other channels that deserve further content
analysis. An overwhelming majority (71%)
of the reporters want to attend more webinars in the future, but they have some
serious reservations about the way automotive companies run their webinars. The
research contains comments by the media to be mined for cross global
differences.
IMPLICATIONS
FOR RESEARCH IN CYBER BEHAVIOR
The main objective of the
proposed research is to conduct a post-hoc analysis of six years of highly rich
industry data and decipher the imperative role that social media plays among
journalists in the global automotive industry. Drawing from the theory of uses
and gratifications, this study attempts to understand the relationship between
public relations and the press in terms of information flow and examine social
media motives and usage behaviors among journalists. As mentioned earlier, in
2010, Facebook has ranked as the most popular social media outlet used by
automotive journalists for their professional work. This finding raises an
important question as to how global automotive or other industry could develop
effective and efficient Facebook or overall social media strategy that better
serves journalists and consumers. The global growth of marketing communications
activities in social media presents both significant challenges and
opportunities for international advertising and public relation scholars and
professionals to understand consumer as well as journalist motivations for
using social media and the effectiveness of social media as a useful information
source. This study will offer implications for both theory and practice, as
well as suggestions for further research.
Theoretically, uses and gratifications theory
allows researchers to examine mediated communication situations via needs,
motives, and gratifications within a cross-cultural context [18]. That is,
“culturally situated social experience reinforces basic biological and
psychological needs while simultaneously giving direction to their sources of
gratification” [11, p. 99]. Accordingly, it is speculated that uses and
gratifications of social media among automotive journalists may differ from
cultures to cultures. Recent cross-cultural studies
suggest that different cultures produce distinctly different media usage and
communication styles. For instance, Pfeil, Zaphiris, and Ang [14] investigated
the relationship between national cultures and communication styles in
Wikipedia, and found that cultural differences exist in cyberspace. That is,
the patterns of contributions to Wikipedia are related to the users’ dominant
cultural orientations, such as individualism and collectivism. Chau et al. [3] found
that consumers from different cultures use the Web for different purposes and
perceive the same Web sites differently. These findings from prior studies
highlight the potential cultural influence on automotive journalists’ use of
social media and cross-cultural differences in overall cyber behavior. Thus, it is reasonable to suspect that journalists from different cultures might display
different patterns of uses and gratifications in the culturally-embedded social
media including blogs. For example, journalists from a collectivistic culture
such as China may emphasize more on social interaction and relationship
building gratifications than those in a more individualistic culture (e.g.,
U.S.). Thus, a careful examination of social media uses and
gratifications among journalists in different
cultural contexts is deemed as necessary in increasing our understanding of cyber
behavior on a globe scale. Similarly, investigating social media uses
and gratifications from the perspective of consumer could contribute to the
literature on cross-cultural consumer behavior.
From a managerial perspective, findings of
the proposed research will provide initial insight into social media strategy
in an international context. Global automotive or
other industries should adopt a balanced standardized and localized strategy
when developing their social media tactics in other cultures. For example,
Japan based car companies such as Toyota and Suzuki should maintain
consistent global brand images, while tailor their marketing activities to meet
the specific and varying needs of American consumers and journalists when conducting business in the U.S. Along this
line, future research could investigate social media usage among journalists
in other countries and employ a framework based on uses
and gratifications theory as to why automotive journalists
integrate numerous social media into their media habits. Likewise, it is crucial
to examine global automotive company’s social media marketing strategy and
decide whether journalists’ and consumers’ reliance
on social media is related to that company’s overall social media marketing
performance.
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