Recruiting millennials: how official admission blogs depict colleges and universities from a public relations perspective

The purpose of this exploratory study was to uncover the way student bloggers depicted their colleges and universities through the use of frames on official university sanctioned blogs. Using content analysis, this study analyzed blog posts (n = 2,471) from 92 institutions, representing 349 individual bloggers. Of special interest were the specific attributes and tone used by bloggers to describe their institutions and the use of framing mechanisms and dialogic features. The study discovered that bloggers overwhelmingly used the social life and academics frames when posting and were mostly positive in tone. About one-third of posts included pictures, most which showed images of interest to prospective students. The study also revealed that institutions did not take full advantage of the potential for two-way communication through recruitment blogs. Implications for public relations practitioners are discussed.