Group Communication
Web sites are not just effective for public communication. Group communication or semipublic sites are growing in popularity. Communicators might wish to use Web browsers and Web sites to communicate with specific individuals or groups while keeping the public out. Some public relations managers prefer to keep media communication from the public (although in my mind the policy is questionable because knowing the information is also available to the public helps reporters treat the information carefully). Group Web sites are appropriate for associations, private communities, or internal communication. Communicators need to not only be able to launch and completely control the content of all of these sites without technical assistance; they also need to be able to determine whether or not they want these sites to be public, private, or semipublic. The communication management technology available does allow communication managers with the highest levels of security to determine if each site they control is to be public, available to a limited group, or kept private for authorized users only.