Measuring online dialogic conversations’quality: a scale development

Digital technologies are catalysts for change within many large organisations all over the world today (Solis and Breakenridge, 2009). They have rapidly transformed the ways companies can relate and engage with their publics by offering different means of stimulating multi-directional digital communication flows (one-to-one, one-to-many and many-to-many). The value of these technologies is increasingly recognized by companies, and many have begun to consider the setting and managing of a strategic social media presence one of their top issues when creating a communication agenda (Valentini, 2015). Social media are Internet-based, digital technologies whose applications allow for the creation and exchange of user-generated contents (Valentini and Kruckeberg, 2012). Within the field of public relations and corporate communications, it can be argued that a “dialogic paradigm” has emerged as a means of understanding social media’s potential for organisations to build and cultivate two-way relationships with digital publics. Social media are praised because they offer organisations the opportunity to dialogically connect with their publics through direct communication and engagement, bypassing the gatekeeping role of journalists. At the same time, social media can be used as a forum to collect direct public inputs, ideas and comments (Valentini and Kruckeberg, 2012). When social media are used as a means to listen to publics’ needs and respond to them, these media can become extremely valuable tools for building organisation-public relationships (Baird and Parasnis, 2011; Briones et al., 2011; Valentini et al., 2012). Online dialogic communication, defined as “any negotiated exchange of ideas and opinions” (Kent and Taylor, 1998, p. 325), plays a key role in building organisation-public relationships and can also improve reputation in the real world (Aula, 2011). Even in critical situations, when companies face direct attacks by digital Downloaded by UNIVERSITY OF AARHUS At 10:47 02 November 2016 (PT) publics who share their critical opinions in diverse online issues arenas (Coombs and Holladay, 2014), the use of dialogic communication has been praised for being the most effective strategy to mitigate criticism (Romenti et al., 2014). Developing and implementing dialogic communications that can boost online dialogic conversations is, however, a time and resource-consuming activity that requires communication professionals to assess which organisational benefits are associated with specific dialogic communication efforts. Such assessment is possible only when communication professionals understand and are able to evaluate the dialogic communication abilities of their own organisation. The purpose of this paper is to develop a measurement scale designed for communication professionals to help them assess the quality of dialogic conversations in their online corporate platforms. The scale was developed through a close review of existing models and constructs and then empirically redefined via a pilot study. The paper concludes with reflections on the implications of the proposed scale for theory and practice in corporate communication and public relations.