Public relations via Twitter : an analysis of South African commercial organisations

Background: As more people are using mobile phones to receive and read news, Twitter has become a popular communication tool, particularly for commercial brands in South Africa. This thesis investigates twelve South African organisations’ use of Twitter. It portrays Twitter as an informational netwo...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Moyo, Lungile
Other Authors: Bosch, Tanja E
Format: Dissertation
Language:English
Published: University of Cape Town 2015
Subjects:
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/11427/13768
Description
Summary:Background: As more people are using mobile phones to receive and read news, Twitter has become a popular communication tool, particularly for commercial brands in South Africa. This thesis investigates twelve South African organisations’ use of Twitter. It portrays Twitter as an informational network that allows conversational communication. It seeks to identify how commercial brands in South Africa use Twitter as a public relations/communication tool. Aim and Objective: In attempt to learn whether current South African tweets among certain organisations follow Western practices of public relations, the study aims to understand and identify how commercial brands in South Africa communicate with their publics through Twitter. Revealing the content of these organisations’ tweets facilitated the fulfilment of this objective.