Social media has helped the public back into public relations: two way conversations and content sharing have replaced one-‐way publicity driven communications and media manipulation. Against: Social media has improved the style of our lives and played an important role in our daily life. The benefits social media brings to us are far more than our expectations. However, that does not mean the two-‐way conversations and content sharing has replaced one-‐way publicity and media manipulation. We absolutely cannot deny the fact that the two-‐way conversations and content sharing are becoming a trend in our daily life communication, and we cannot deny the benefits, which two-‐way conversations and content sharing bring to us. But, the function of one-‐way publicity and media manipulation still exists and cannot be replaced. Social media is regarded as a platform, which people can present themselves. Laura Matthews (2010) claimed “social media has revolutionized corporate communications, rapidly changing the way that public relations campaigns or programs are distributed and measured. Rather than the traditional method of pure output, social media has forced corporate communications to shift to a dialogue in which the stakeholders, and not just the companies, have power over the message”. However, The nature and the effect of a communication depend on how the organisation will use the social media as a tool but not the nature of communication tool itself. Grunig used to state that some PR practitioners are use the new media as well as traditional media, which implicates that they post the exactly same thing but just move from one place to another different area. Meanwhile, Gregory also pointed out that some organisations are trying to engage in the social media environment utilising the control paradigm. For instance, some companies’ official website is just a place for them to post articles and pictures of their products or services, but never open to customers to provid their advice and recommendations. Moreover, Turner (2010) claimed ‘The fact that the enthusiasm for the emancipatory potential of the Internet is only enabled by normalising western affluence, and that it too easily ignores the very different conditions prevailing for most of the rest of the world’.
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