| dc.description.abstract | Engagement has emerged as an important concept in public relations, especially in the context of organizations' increasing social media presence. Through social media, organizations rely on engaging users to interact and communicate with them, to further build and cultivate relationships with individuals, or groups they depend on. However, the concept of engagement has so far suffered from a lack of research, a clear theoretical definition and conceptualization. This master thesis seeks to explore the so far ambiguous concept of engagement in the field of public relations, through a qualitative study of NetCom and Altibox's communication. Drawing on Maureen Taylor and Michael Kent (2014), I follow their conceptualization of engagement, where they argue that engagement is a part of dialogue and that it is through engagement and dialogue one can build and maintain mutual and beneficial relationships with publics. Based on this framework, I have analyzed how NetCom and Altibox communicate to create engagement on Facebook. The analysis shows that NetCom and Altibox apply four strategies to create engagement on their Facebook pages: they facilitate interaction, they aspire for participation, they commit to conversations, and they use attentive and personal communication. It is further argued that Netcom and Altibox seem to have established Facebook pages as communities where publics at a high level interact with the companies, but that they however do not appear to achieve dialogic engagement to its full extent. An interesting question is if it is even possible to achieve engagement as Taylor and Kent conceptualizes it (2014). Social media has created a paradigm shift in how organizations communicate, and appears to offer both opportunities and challenges for organizations that want to create engagement. Therefore, I hope that this thesis can provide an understanding of, or insight to, engagement as a concept in social media and public relations. | eng |