Is Britney Spears actually responding to all those Facebook, blog, and Twitter posts? It's increasingly apparent that many of the social media sites occupied by famous brand names, such as celebs, or famous products, services, or companies, that state that one is talking to a certain someone, such as the CEO, or the movie star...aren't really being truthful. In fact, the use of ghostwriters in increasing for huge brands that can't possible individually respond to all this social network interaction. Is is ethical to state that a certain individual is interacting on a social media site, when it's not actually that person? We're not really talking directly to Ellen DeGeneres or Michael Jordan? Or the CEO of Coca-Cola? Or our favorite state senator?
We'r talking to people HIRED to be the interacters on their behalf. There are now job searches being conducted looking for social networking professionals to interact on behalf of the brand or on behalf of numerous brand clients. It's actually becoming a profession. Should we know exactly who is on the other end of that interaction? Shouldn't brands be truthful with us?
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23 comments:
In the August of 2004 issue of Wired magazine, Clay Shirky wrote an interesting essay about this phenomenon...Why Oprah Will Never Talk to You. Ever. His point is that celebrities with large followings are unable to reciprocate the attention they receive. So even if they would choose to spend every waking minute responding to fans, they could only respond to a fraction of the inbound communications. So, as you've clearly articulated, the question remains...should they then feel free to hire communicators to act on their behalf?
i dont think that it is appropriate to have "ghost writers". I would much rather not have a response from a social network site knowing that it is just a representative speaking. obviously a celebrity will never be able to personnally reply to all of their fans, thats just a fact. It is wrong to impersonate this person when in all reality in the longrun it turns out to just be a lie.
I agree with Bryon. I don't think it's right for others to submit a reply on behalf of the celebrity. The celebrity doesn't know what the representative will respond with, and the celebrity may not agree with the response. I wouldn't want to read a response that is not from the celebrity I am addressing. If I were in the celebrity's position, I wouldn't want someone answering for me. Followers have to understand that they are posting to the community of followers and not directly to the celebrity. It's unreasonable for followers to expect a reply from the celebrity, but this does not mean that someone should reply for the celebrity just to respond to the followers.
I know that these people are doing what they think they have to do. however, I think they should let their fans know that they are doing this. I look at them as they are misrepresenting themselves. It's not fair to let people think that the responses and or messages are coming from them
I don't agree with celebs or CEOs or anybody famous having "Ghost Writers" on Facebook, Twitter, Myspace, etc. I know that they're too busy to actually maintain their accounts and what not, but why waste money on hiring somebody to act like you on these programs when you can save your money and be real with it? That's fake! TOO FAKE!!
The fact that celebrities/coorperations higher "ghost writers" isn't surprising one bit. Celebrities run like companies. They want you to buy their product, so if you write them and never write back they will disappointed and may countinue to follow. However if you write back or atleast give the illusion you are writing back then that person is more likely to follow you more and talk about how awesome of a person you are to someone and they to someone else. The old five Kevin Bacon game. I'm not saying it's right. I think you should be able to trust the people you look up to. But that's the world today its a buisness that never fades away.
I think that ghosts writers are acceptable for celebrities to have with these kind of websites. A celebrity or big company are very busy people and probably do not have time to sit there and personally repsond to comments, questions, or other things fans may expect them to do. I think as long as the person or company of the website however should make it known that it is not actually that person you are communicating with, but as long as they repsond accurately on the persons behalf, i think it is ok.
"Ghost Writers", get paid a lot of money for doing a minimal amount of work. The celebrities that hire them could do the same amount of work that the rest of the normal society can do. They have the time when traveling or what not. They shouldn't have ghost writers doing all that they do.
In this case it is the responsibility of the user to apply common sense and realize they are not talking to famous people, brands, or whatever. If someone is naive enough to believe Michael Jordan has responded to a MySpace comment they left then being disappointed is the least of their concerns.Put yourself in the celebs shoes, if you constantly had people messaging you and bugging you all day, every day would you hire someone to reply for you or would you leave your fans in the dark by not responding? For this reason it's a waste of time to try and contact a celeb via social network and i put the blame on the gullible users.
Ghost writers are a type of advertising by taking advantage of technology to do so. Fans want to feel connected with their favorite celebrity and this is just a way for people to update themselves about the person. It does not have to be the person directly talking about themselves; someone who is with them is just as capable of keeping the American people updates. It should not be looked at anything other than an advertising tool and technique that people are trapping trapped into it. Celebrities are busy and if the public really wants to know what is happening with them does it matter who posts it?
Celebrities having "Ghost Writers" is something to be expected. We can't really expect someone famous to respond to all the mail and everything they get on their social websites being that they are famous and do lead busy lives. I don't necessarily think it is right; however I feel as though the person writing to the celebrities should already know that it is not that actual person they are getting responses from, it is a pretty obvious fact.
Ghost Writers get paid a lot of money for doing a little amount of work. The celebrities that hire them could do the same amount of work that the rest of the normal society can do. They just have the time when traveling all the time. They shouldn't have ghost writers doing all that they do. But I guess when you have that much money you can do whatever you want right?
I think that they should just be honest about it already. Yeah no one would write to these fake questions or writing blogs, but it would be truthful. I mean come on we all know that Brittany Spears is not going to sit around her computer and talk to people all day that she don't even know. If someone famous really wants to talk to people then that is great, but hiring someone else to think and write for you is ridiculous. In reality it isn;t even really there own thoughts.
I don't see a problem with ghost writing, but the celebrity should. If a person found out that they were not actually getting response from their "idol," then it could hurt their credibility. So no, I don't see it ethical wrong to do this and sometimes, these people have to because of their busy schedules. Just be ready to face the consequences
Brands don't owe us anything in my opinion, if they do not want to talk to us they do not have to. I think if they can convice you that you aare actually speaking to them then more power to them because we are obviosly not smart enough to realize it is not them so why not pounce on our stupidity?
It would be nice to live in a world where people did not have to lie to keep you interested in their brand, but it just isn't that simple. There are an increasing number of brands that are much smaller than the major brands, but appear major competitors due to the increase of available technology online. Companies create scams to make them feel more grass roots and understand that people would rather buy from a person then a cold faceless machine. I would love to think that we as a society were smart enough to tell who we are talking to , but if the internet doesn't know you are a dog then why would it know you weren't a CEO or a celebrity.
Responding to fan mail and questions from the public is an issue of public relations. If a person or company is big enough to afford ghost writers, then that is most likely just part of the PR budget. A celebrity or CEO doesn't have the time to respond to an onslaught of messages, let alone channel their responses through their PR department to maintain a consistent public image. A fan of a celebrity is really a fan of that celebrity's public image. As long as the people who ask questions recognize that they are speaking to an idea, a public image, then ghost writing seems like an acceptable way of interacting.
Being a Professional Athlete myself, I know for a fact that celebrities hire people to answer their facebook, myspace, and blog comments. They have these social networks to interact with their fans, to conform to this new technologically advanced sociaety, and to gain higher ratings as a celebrity. I personally have a facebook and blog. I answer my own questions and comments on facebook. However, I have someone who answers the blog posts and comments for me. Celebrities and professional athletes are very busy and simply do not have enough time to get to all the questions that the World has to ask. It may sound bad but its absolutely neccesary. So I side with the celebrities on this topic.
I think you can look at this type of communication in two different ways. In the works of ghost writing for celebrities, I think it is untrustworthy and fake when someone is trying to be someone else. It can create false impressions or accusations about a person we all look into crucially. I don't think Ghost Writing should be acceptable for these stars people look up to.
On the other hand, brands and companies in general can benefit immensly from this. Even though it isn't the owner of the brand themselves communicating with the public, these Ghost Writers can advertise their merchandise just as effectively if it was the owner itself.
Relating to the Promotional Mix, Advertising is a very strong technique used by brands through internet. It is becoming more popular each year with the continuous increase of technology. Ghost Writers can increase the product's branding.
-Janae Heiser
I think that it's rather funny how people want recognition for something but don't want to do it themselves. Celebrities are always willing to talk about and draw attention to themselves, but don't want to do any type of real work for the recognition. I can imagine the ghostwriter sitting next to the celebrity in question asking what they want to say on twitter or facebook. It's really amusing just looking at the extent people are willing to go to in order to get some teenagers and creepy old guys to care about them.
While i think it tricks fans and followers, it is absolutely neccesary for stars to utilize ghostwriters. It is impossible for these people to spend a full day working doing a movie, playing sports, etc. and also have the time to interact with each fan that posts to their twitter or facebook wall. I think either the actors and athletes should use ghostwriters to answer a bulk of the questions asked by fans, or be honest and tell fans they dont have the time to answer as many questions as they would like
Definitely I disagree with, the current common practice by which the stars used to answer their fans. But it is unquestionably the stars have found a way to keep fans engaged. Anyway, the fans are the ones who let the stars deceived or manipulated them, knowing that are not the celebrities who are answering the fans’ comments.
I always knew deep down that it truly wasn't the actual celebrity or CEO actually responding to every fan or every single time they are being notified about something or asked a ridiculous question. Yet, i don't disagree with the idea of "Ghostwriters", a human being can only withstand doing one activity for a certain amount of time so a celebrity doesn't have enough time in their day to respond to all their fan messages then i believe that their "Ghostwriters" shouldn't be judged for it.
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