{"id":811,"date":"2005-11-28T08:41:51","date_gmt":"2005-11-28T16:41:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp\/2005\/11\/of_characters_and_authenticity\/"},"modified":"2005-11-28T08:41:51","modified_gmt":"2005-11-28T16:41:51","slug":"of_characters_and_authenticity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/main\/of_characters_and_authenticity.php","title":{"rendered":"Of characters and authenticity"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>As corporate America explores the informal, conversational world of blogging, a new form of the format is coming into controversy: the character blog. These are weblogs written from the perspective and with the narrative style of fictional characters. Some, like the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thecaptainsblog.com\/\">Captain Morgan Blog<\/a>, are built on characters we all know are fake. Others, like Panasonic&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/toshpit.blogs.com\/\">Tosh Bilowski blog<\/a> create a brand new character for a specific purpose (promoting high-definition video, in this case), and aren&#8217;t always clear about the reality of the author. <\/p>\n<p>In the blogosphere, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.micropersuasion.com\/2005\/04\/character_blogs.html\">some pundits hate character blogs outright<\/a>, others are willing to <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.contentious.com\/archives\/2005\/04\/20\/dont-dismiss-character-blogs\">let them evolve in appropriate places<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>All of us in the arts business should be familiar with the benefits of fictional characters. But we should also be cautious about bringing that fiction from the stage or experience space into the business communications of our company. Blogger Amy Gahran puts it rather well <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.contentious.com\/archives\/2005\/10\/28\/who-is-tosh-bilowski-corporate-blogs-authenticity\">in this post<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><i>Character blogs are risky business, since authenticity and transparency are the basis of credibility in this medium&#8230;. In a nutshell, I think that if you\u2019re offering a character blog, you\u2019re asking for trouble if you don\u2019t make its nature clear. Don\u2019t present a character as a person; approach it as a theatrical device. Theater is cool. Deception is not.<br \/>\n<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>So, if you&#8217;re organization is planning to launch blog, stick with a <i>real<\/i> person with <i>real<\/i> perspectives for now. You&#8217;re audience will be watching, and they know the difference.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As corporate America explores the informal, conversational world of blogging, a new form of the format is coming into controversy: the character blog. These are weblogs written from the perspective and with the narrative style of fictional characters. Some, like the Captain Morgan Blog, are built on characters we all know are fake. Others, like [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-811","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-main","7":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/811","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=811"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/811\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=811"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=811"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=811"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}