Monologues in the conversational era: Assessing the level of dialogic communication that big firms are reaching on social media

Abstract

Ibex 35 and Fortune 500 companies are still not fully utilizing the dialogic potential of social media. The percentage of companies with a low level of dialogic communication exceeds the percentage of companies with a high level in both groups, according to this study which assesses the level of dialogic communication developed by firms with their external audiences on blogs, Facebook and Twitter in an integrated way. Based on Kent & Taylor’s (1998) framework, a dialogic conceptual tool has been created, refined and applied to all the sample. The tool analyzes 73 variables on three dimensions: Presence, Content and Interactivity. Inter-method triangulation has been applied to carry out the research: virtual ethnography, critical discourse analysis (CDA) and interviews with experts.