Corporate Blogging to Appear Like You Care

Debbie points out a new trend synthetic transparency (didn’t we used to call this bullshitting?)
Dr. Carl on the Advanced Organizational Communication blog:

Synthetic transparency involves using blogs to give the impression of openness, honesty, and transparency but without really doing so. This notion is based on Norman Fairclough’s idea of “synthetic personalization” which he defines as: ” … a compensatory tendency to give the impression of treating each of the people ‘handled’ en masse as an individual.”

I like this because it describes the tendency to manage perceptions and not actually address problems. It targets that ‘OMG we have a blog we are totally open now (with comments off, trackbacks off, no contact form, no byline, no bio info and third person writing).’


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2 responses to “Corporate Blogging to Appear Like You Care”

  1. Lyle Lachmuth Avatar

    Yeah, it is Bullshit 101!
    If they really, really cared they’d freakin: stop polluting, end discrimination; and who knows what else.

  2. Backbone Blogging Survey Avatar

    Blog Design Reveals A Company’s Level of Transparency

    Andy Wibbels on the Instant Global Impact blog highlights the term synthetic transparency. Andy thinks the term has value and he states that synthetic transparency, “describes the tendency to manage perceptions and not actually address problems. It t…

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