Finding publics within the blogosphere: the blogger public segmentation model

Abstract

Although bloggers serve a critical role in the public relations world, research to identify bloggers as a target for organizations remains neglected. This study addresses the limitations of a traditional public segmentation model (Grunig’s situational theory) for bloggers in order to propose and verify a new blogger public segmentation model. Results from an analysis of 889 online surveys submitted by Korean bloggers confirm that the proposed model has good model fit indices in Structural Equation Modeling analyses. All of the model hypotheses are supported by statistically significant coefficients. The results show the proposed model effectively typologizes bloggers as active, constrained, latent, and routine publics.