Lies at Wal-Mart
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Cornelius Puschmann
Abstract
Blogs are increasingly popular among private persons, public institutions, nongovernmental organizations and companies. While a range of communicative functions is associated with blogs in the way they are used specifically by corporations, one key area of interest is clearly public relations. This is especially pertinent to large businesses that face a significant amount of criticism in the media. As an example for such a case, this paper presents an analysis of Life at Wal-Mart, an image blog maintained by Wal-Mart Stores Inc. Following a description of corporate blogs as an emerging genre, I will outline how Life at Wal-Mart is used to further specific communicative goals of the company and what the findings indicate for a modern theory of digital genres.
Abstract
Blogs are increasingly popular among private persons, public institutions, nongovernmental organizations and companies. While a range of communicative functions is associated with blogs in the way they are used specifically by corporations, one key area of interest is clearly public relations. This is especially pertinent to large businesses that face a significant amount of criticism in the media. As an example for such a case, this paper presents an analysis of Life at Wal-Mart, an image blog maintained by Wal-Mart Stores Inc. Following a description of corporate blogs as an emerging genre, I will outline how Life at Wal-Mart is used to further specific communicative goals of the company and what the findings indicate for a modern theory of digital genres.
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- List of contributors vii
- Preface ix
- Genres in the Internet 1
- Re-fusing form in genre study 27
- Lies at Wal-Mart 49
- Situating the public social actions of blog posts 85
- “Working consensus” and the rhetorical situation 113
- Brave new genre, or generic colonialism? 143
- Online, multimedia case studies for professional education 163
- Nation, book, medium 193
- Critical genres 221
- A model for describing ‘new’ and ‘old’ properties of CMC genres 239
- Questions for genre theory from the blogosphere 263
- Index 291
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- List of contributors vii
- Preface ix
- Genres in the Internet 1
- Re-fusing form in genre study 27
- Lies at Wal-Mart 49
- Situating the public social actions of blog posts 85
- “Working consensus” and the rhetorical situation 113
- Brave new genre, or generic colonialism? 143
- Online, multimedia case studies for professional education 163
- Nation, book, medium 193
- Critical genres 221
- A model for describing ‘new’ and ‘old’ properties of CMC genres 239
- Questions for genre theory from the blogosphere 263
- Index 291
