I think this comes closest to what I’d think about social media, certainly the ‘having something at stake’ definition, anyway. Though I don’t only think that about social media.

Everyone affected by a decision has something at stake in it. They may not even know it. They may have no obvious or formal means to participate in it, or in the response to its effects. The extent to which their well-being, as defined by any number of quality of life measures, is affected by it may never be acknowledged by people with a financial or political stake in the decision.

The problem for a long time has been that the business community, on balance, has consistently answered the age old ‘am I my brother’s keeper?’ question with a resounding and definitive, “No!”

There is a way in which the term stakeholder is sometimes used as a conferral of apparent status to mollify people and obscure the functional disregard for others of those who regard themselves as the ‘real’ stakeholders. Terminology is not as important as intent, and any discussion along these lines is more interesting to me in terms of what people trying to leverage social media think of its participants rather than as a definitive commentary on what we really are.

If you think of those affected by your/your clients’ decisions as having an important stake, you’ll act accordingly, even if you make errors in judgment from time to time. If you think of those affected as a rabble that deserves no more than attempts to buy them off with the occasional dog and pony show, you’ll also act accordingly, and now people have more direct means of publicizing how much that has always ticked them off.

We are pushing against the old modes in our search for new modes. This probably makes sense in terms of how this stuff must evolve; it has something do with what it takes to get us thinking in new ways, or out of the old mind sets, but eventually there is the danger that in changing our mind sets we loose something of value that the old mind sets had.

You could make a critical evaluation of older media forms from the perspective of these new ways of thinking about them, and see how our new ways existed in the old forms, and then the difference between how they existed in the old forms from how they exist in the new forms.. Or more particularly, think about about how they could fit in the new forms over all ecology.. Inside of which you could just as easily have parts that conform to what we more conventionally think of as old media forms.

So, by adding 1+1+1, a blog is the ultimate social media.

Looking forward to seeing you on Monday morning and to participating in some lively debate.

I tend to agree with Ike about the semantics of audience vs. community - not too dissimilar from the viral/WOM or advertising/PR semantic arguments that have been going around.

Not everyone thinks of audiences the way you’ve defined them. I’ll give you a perfect example: the bleachers section of Fenway Park. If you think that the crowd can only cheer or leave, you’re mistaken. Ever heard of the wave? Or chanting? Or taunts? Those actions require leaders from within the audience. And even though the Red Sox franchise may seem to have a command & control, members of the Red Sox Nation are very much connected with each other.

Again, it may just be a distinction over how we use the words, but my point is, the words don’t matter - it’s the concept behind them that does.

But your comment assumes PR should be running social media, which is usually not the case, or at least, in full. I’m not sure companies have a choice on how to treat social media conversations if they want to actually engage anyone. Assuming you can control how you approach it, means you can predict the reaction. If anything we’ve learned out here, from Southwest’s miniskirt issue to jetBlue’s scorned YouTube apology, assuming control of reactions is a classic corporate error.

The question is, do you treat stakeholders as audiences or as communities? I think the answer depends on your goal & communication needs. The choice of medium should follow from that.

Your question assumes that you’ve already chosen the medium (social media). Of course, the dominant thinking argues that social media is for dialogue, engagement, conversation - the community approach. But I think there’s room for an interesting conversation about the audience approach to PR. It’s been considered the “devil term” pretty much since 1984, when Grunig & Hunt introduced the 4 models of public relations. However, this doesn’t mean it hasn’t been and it isn’t practiced. So the answer is “it depends,” but the interesting conversation is to figure out what exactly it depends ON.

If anyone is interested in further reading, here are the sources, or contact me for summaries/abstracts/powerpoint slides:
Grunig, J. E., & Hunt, T. (1984). Managing public relations. New York: Holt Rinehart and Winston.
Freeman, R.E. 1984, Strategic Management: A stakeholder approach. Boston: Pitman.
Mitchell, R.K., Agle, B.R., & Wood, D.J. (1997) Toward a theory of stakeholder identification and salience: Defining the principle of who and what really counts. Academy of Management Review, 22(4), pp. 853-886.

@Jim @ Brian Agreed, just thinking about communicating to people using different approaches other than an audience form invokes growth.

@Tom Yikes, the old man comments on one of my blog posts! LOL. Great to have you, and good insights on McCluhan. For those that don’t know my background, my folks are long time newspaper veterans. TL was former managing editor of the Philadelphia Daily News, and Jacqueline Bigar (mom) is one of the nation’s premier astrology columnists.

MMcL saw radio as a hot medium because it engages the imagination to fill in missing information, as opposed to cool TV, which engenders a more passive taking-in of info. McLuhan thought that Hitler and to a large degree, FDR, were creature of radio. To many Germans, Hitler’s booming voice sounded compelling. They imagined him as a wise, powerful leader. On TV, McLuhan speculates, Hitler would have failed. His appearance was hardly imposing, and his bombast would have made him a caricature of himself.

The point is that each medium — and you’re certainly pondering the effect of all sorts of new media amalgams — engages people differently. The hot and cool metaphor can be helpful in understanding the new tools for delivery of “the message.” I love McLuhan, though he had a self-promoting streak that made many fellow academics think of him as a charlatan.
Dad