A survey of readers to determine ethical guidelines regarding ghost blogging (2012)

Ghost blogging occurs when a communications professional writes a blog that is attributed to someone else, such as a CEO, politician, or executive director. There has been considerable debate on PR professionals’ blogs about whether undisclosed ghost blogging is ethical (Gallicano, Brett, & Hopp, 2013). In a recent survey of public relations professionals, most respondents expressed approval of undisclosed ghost blogging, provided that the stated author provides the content ideas and gives content approval (Gallicano et al., 2013). To assess the ethicality of undisclosed ghost blogging, however, a survey of readers is needed to identify whether readers are being deceived.