Rhetorically Constructing an Identity at Multiple Levels: A Case Study of Social Entrepreneurship Umbrella Organizations

To gain support for their programs, mission, and aims, organizations engage in identity work to establish and communicate who and what an organization is. We argue that identity work is a core strategic communication effort, and furthermore that rhetoric is central to the process. To better understand such identity work, we engage in a case study of an emerging organizational form, social entrepreneurship (SE), by analyzing the identity rhetoric of three large SE umbrella organizations (Ashoka, The Skoll Foundation, Echoing Green). We find that SE identity work is constructed at both the organizational level and at the level of SE as a whole field or sector. Our contributions highlight the tensions brought about in communicatively constructing identity at multiple levels, and the need for further strategic communication scholarship that critiques identity work as arguments for a vision for social change agendas.     

Kommunikation und andere Weltbezüge

The essay presents a largely new theoretical perspective for communication science (and beyond that for the overall social sciences). Starting point of the development was the observation that communication science deals carelessly with issues on a theoretical and methodological level. Most content analyses show one-dimensional and never clear-cut lists of issues without any theoretical background. This ignorance regarding issues is astonishing because issues as the units of the subject matter of communication are of central importance for analyzing processes of communication.The reason can be found in the communication models developed by the discipline in the last century. In the beginning, the reality communicating actors refer to was still present: the “X” in the models of Newcomb und Westley/MacLean. Most of the later models present communication as symbolic interaction between actors where the world references of the symbols are no longer addressed.The new approach is centrally based on works of Sartre and Habermas and can in a nutshell be summarized as following:1. The human existence can completely be described by its cognitive, emotional, conative and communicative references to (more or less) real, virtual and fictitious worlds. This includes self-references where we become world for ourselves in a way.2. Content of human communication are the world references either of the communicator or of the actors presented by the medium. When we communicate, we communicate about what we or others perceive, know, think, feel, do or communicate. The last case marks the possible reflexivity of communication, up to communication about communication about communication (…) about X. The possible increase of such higher levels of reflexivity might be a useful indicator of mediatization.3. Effects of medial and interpersonal communication on human beings must be effects on their world references. This directly results from 1.: If we expect effects of communication on humans whose existence totally consists of world references, these effects must be recordable as world references.4. Insofar intentions of communicating actors target effects on the recipients, the intentions of actors participating in communication must be their own world references or those of their partners.The relevant units of analysis are a) the communicating actors (media and actors in the media), b) their world references, and c) the sections of real or fictitious worlds these references refer to. Here, reflexive structures are omnipresent when actors refer to other actors (and in doing so to their communication again).Effects of communication now can be found in the recipients’ references to these three units: to media and media persons (e.?g., their images), to the communicated world references (e.?g., learning), and to the particular world sections (e.?g., cultivation, agenda setting).The approach might be of a paradigmatic character because it integrates communicator, content and effects research in a systematic way and offers a homogeneous instrument for empirical analysis of all steps of the communication process. At the same time, it offers possibilities of differentiating existing approaches. Agenda setting for example can be reformulated as the question of the effect medially communicated references on an issue have on how important own and other references on the issue are from the recipient’s view. In some cases even negative effects are possible: if media report about problem solving actions in an extensive way, this may have the effect of recipients not thinking that own action is necessary (free riding problem).Finally, new areas of research can be identified in a systematic way, especially regarding the parallel carrying out of communicative and other world references. In times of nearly permanent references to media communication we have to face the question of how important the cognitive, emotional and conative processes are which are carried out parallel to media use. On the one hand regarding the importance for the quality of the communicative processes (classical communication science). On the other hand regarding the importance for a holistic understanding of human existence (on the way to a science of world references).     

Using Social Media to Engage Employees: Insights from Internal Communication Managers

The growth of social media in organizations is reshaping internal communication strategy. This article explores the value of internal social media with a focus on employee engagement, which is defined as employees who are connected to the values and mission of the company, feel empowered, bring energy, passion, and discretionary effort to their jobs, and serve as advocates. Interviews were conducted with 27 senior-level internal communication practitioners working for global companies. Practitioners said they use a variety of communication channels, including social media, to drive employee engagement. The findings revealed best practices in using internal social media to engage employees, including providing clear social media policies and employee training; empowering employee social advocates; involving leadership and securing endorsement; social media listening; sharable, relevant, and practical content strategies; and, authenticity and consistency. Future trends and evolvement of internal communication around social media are also discussed.     

Dialogue and Relationship Building in Online Financial Communications

The use of social media in investor communications is a fairly new phenomenon. The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in the United States announced that corporations may use social media to disclose mandatory key information required by law. With that ruling, social media communications leaves the sometimes fancy world of creativity and image creation and enters the core of strategic communication linked to corporate viability and success. Investor relations in general are essentially about engaging in dialogues with shareholders. Whereas disseminating information online is quite established, online dialogues offer a greater challenge. Dialogue-oriented and dialogic communication processes are not the same according to speech philosophy; and dialogic communication serves only as one possibility for corporations to build relationships with stakeholders. The research presented here analyzes how listed corporations deal with the highly participatory and fragmented communication environment on the web. The prevalence and intensity of social media dialogues was analyzed in an empirical study that focused on the 150 largest global corporations listed on DJIA (United States), FTSE (United Kingdom), CAC (France), DAX (Germany), and NIKKEI (Japan). A framework has been constructed to analyze dialogue-oriented and dialogic financial communications on the Internet and social web.     

Strategy and Tactics in Strategic Communication: Examining their Intersection with Social Media Use

While public relations industry leaders have proposed a strategic approach to social media, industry research has found that social media practices may be more tactical than strategic. Likewise, scholarly research has focused more on specific parts of strategic planning, such as message—and channel-level communication in social media, but little research has been done to understand program-level communication planning. The purpose of this study was to examine the confluence of current trends in social media use with strategic communication processes through in-depth interviews and a national survey of public relations practitioners. The in-depth interviews revealed two overarching themes: (1) social media use should be guided by strategic planning and (2) social media tactics should revolve around conversations. The survey results showed that practitioners are involved in social media strategy development and tactical implementation, yet see their involvement as linked mostly to their organizations’ strategic rather than tactical social media activities. In addition, practitioners delineate social media strategies and tactics differently than theoretical conceptualizations.     

Virality of Social Change Messages on Facebook: A Study of Advocacy and Relationship Building Strategies of LGBTQ Advocacy Organizations

ABSTRACT

The communicative affordances of Facebook transformed the way nonprofit organizations communicate with publics. However, the connection between advocacy and virality received limited scholarly scrutiny. This study extends our knowledge of advocacy by examining the relationships between advocacy strategies, tactics, and virality. For this study, Facebook posts of LGBTQ advocacy organizations from January 2016 to December 2018 were collected. Content analysis of 1,500 Facebook posts revealed advocacy and relationship building strategies of LGBTQ nonprofit organizations. MANOVA analyses signaled that advocacy strategies and tactics are significant predictors for virality. Furthermore, LGBTQ advocacy organizations predominately utilized affective and cohesive social presence strategies on Facebook to build relationships with publics.     

Social Media as a Communication Strategy: Content Analysis of Top Nonprofit Foundations’ Micro-blogs in China

As Web 2.0 has become a trend, an increasing number of nonprofit foundations in China have started to utilize social media for strategic communication. Based on a quantitative content analysis, this study examines how social media, more specifically Sina Weibo, was used by the top 300 nonprofit public-fundraising foundations in China to advance their missions. Message strategy and dialogic communication strategy used to build and maintain organization-public relationships were identified. The result shows that top nonprofit foundations in China mainly relied on Sina Weibo to disseminate information, promoting issues and activities as well as calling for help. Two-way communication process and dialogic loops between foundations and audience were revealed. Audio, video, emotional appeals, dialogic, and interactive features have not been fully utilized, although micro-blog posts with certain multimedia and dialogic/interactive features were significantly more likely to be commented, shared, and liked. The implications of the findings are discussed.     

Qualität im Journalismus – ein integratives Konzept

To determine the various performance criteria concerning journalism it is reasonable to develop a broad concept, which integrates the different theoretical approaches. In a functional and system-oriented perspective, fundamental performance criteria can be based on the social function and the specific code of journalism, which emerged in an historical process of mutual observation of journalists and audiences. In a normative-democratic perspective, performance criteria can be derived from societal and human values codified in diverse regulations. However, in this regard it has to be taken into account that specific claims of the political subsystem also play an important role. Finally from an audience and action oriented viewpoint, it is important to keep in mind that journalistic communication must be useful and applicable in the world the audience lives in.     

Die Kritik der Politischen Ökonomie der Medien/Kommunikation: ein hochaktueller Ansatz

This debate article discusses how topical the approach of the Critique of the Political Economy of Media/Communication is today. The paper analyses the status of this field. At the international level, there is a longer tradition in the Critical Political Economy of Media/Communication, especially in the United Kingdom and North America. Since the start of the new crisis of capitalism in 2008, the interest in Marx’s works has generally increased. At the same time communicative and ideological features of societal changes’ unpredictable turbulences have become evident. This contribution introduces some specific approaches. It also discusses 14 aspects of why the complex, multidimensional, open and dynamic research approach of the critique of capitalism and society that goes back Marx’s theory remains relevant today.After an introduction (sect. 1), the article’s second section provides a brief introduction to the critique of the political economy of media/communication by presenting the understandings of this field advanced by Peter Golding/Graham Murdock and Vincent Mosco. It also points out that there have been single representatives of the Critique of the Political Economy of Media/Communication in the German-speaking world, but that this approach is largely forgotten in German media and communication studies. The article provides a brief introduction to Horst Holzer’s version of the critique of the political economy of media/communication: Holzer combined critical social theory and empirical social research in order to critically theorise and understand communication(s). He was critical of both systems theories of communication (e.?g. Niklas Luhmann) and theories of communicative action (Jürgen Habermas) and worked out foundations of an alternative approach that are grounded in Marx’s theory.The third section argues that Karl Marx is not just a critic of capitalism, but that his approach can also help us to ground a critical theory of communication. It stresses that there are many elements in Marx’s works that can help us to critically understand communication: critical journalism, limits on the freedom of the press, the analysis of the commodity form, the analysis of labour, exploitation, class, surplus-value, globalisation, crisis, modern technology, the General Intellect, communication, the means of communication, the contradiction between the productive forces and the relations of production, dialectics, ideologies, social struggles, and democratic alternatives.Sect. 4 provides an example of how to use the approach of the Critique of Political Economy for analysing concrete communication phenomena. After the 2011 Arab Spring, there were many discussions about the role of digital and social media in protests. Some observers claimed that we had experienced Facebook and Twitter revolutions. Others argued that such claims are technologically deterministic and that protests would not be a matter of communications, but of crowds gathering in the streets and occupying squares. Using the critique of the Political Economy of Media/Communication as framework, the OccupyMedia!-study analysed how activists used social media and how capitalist power and state power limited protest communication. It also explored the potential of alternative digital media in protest and the challenges that political economy posed for the establishment and use of such communications.The article concludes that the Critique of the Political Economy of Media/Communication is a fruitful, praxis-oriented approach for the empirical and theoretical analysis of contemporary communication(s). In the German-speaking world and in German media and communication studies, there has been unjustified fear of Marx. In addition, examples from the 1970s until today show that representatives of the Critique of the Political Economy of Media/Communication in the German-speaking world have had justified fears over being considered as Marxists.The future will show if new developments and attempts to advance the Critique of the Political Economy of Media/Communication in the German-speaking world will make a difference that makes a difference or not.     

Social Media Influencers in Strategic Communication: A Conceptual Framework for Strategic Social Media Influencer Communication

ABSTRACT

Strategic social media influencer communication has become a major topic in strategic communication. However, despite the growing relevance of this new strategic communication instrument, research has paid only limited attention to elaborating its basic concepts. In this article, we adopt a strategic communication perspective to develop a conceptual framework for strategic social media influencer communication. Particularly, we draw on research findings that identify the external resources social media influencers contribute to organization-influencer cooperation. We use these findings to systematically develop functional definitions of social media influencers and of strategic social media influencer communication. We define social media influencers as third-party actors who have established a significant number of relevant relationships with a specific quality to and influence on organizational stakeholders through content production, content distribution, interaction, and personal appearance on the social web. Subsequently, we define strategic social media communication as the purposeful use of communication by organizations or social media influencers in which social media influencers are addressed or perform activities with strategic significance to organizational goals. We then situate these definitions within the broader framework of strategic communication by discussing related concepts and by describing the strategic action field that has emerged around strategic social media influencer communication.     

Ko-Evolution von Public Relations und Journalismus: Ein erster Beitrag zu ihrer systematischen Aufarbeitung

There are many research findings and some theoretical models in regard of the interaction between journalism and public relations (PR). But hardly any research has so far looked at this relationship from an historical perspective, an endeavor also called the ‘co-evolution’ of PR and journalism. The aim of this article is to make a first step into the analysis of this co-evolution with a focus on the emergence of PR and based on literature about the history of PR. The analysis shows that the rise of PR in the second half of the 19th century was a reaction to the development of journalism, which had become increasingly polemic. Thus for many social protagonists and organizations the barriers to enter the public arena were raised. At the same time the importance of the mass media and furthermore the pressure on social protagonists and organizations to legitimize their interests in a changing society were growing. These results support a theoretical concept that describes the development of mass communication as processes of rationalization of societal communication, which can be linked with theories of social systems.     

Struggling with New Media and Old Expertise: Reconstructing the Professional Role of Communication Consultancy

This study investigates how communication consultants struggle to reconstruct their professional role in the digital media landscape. The extant literature on professional roles in public relations has a tendency to render roles as static pregivens. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to contribute conceptually and empirically to role research by focusing on the process of “role-making” and how role actors purposefully engage in role construction in order to maintain legitimacy. The qualitative study of Scandinavian communication consultants reveals how these actors effectively refashion their role as expert advisors by describing the client and her problems, the competitors, their own knowledge and values. The role construct is supported by a narrative strategy and an epic storyline, where social media serves as a vehicle for self-definition and the consultancy role is framed and reinforced by social media. However, the jurisdictional claims of professional expertise and values that constitute the core of a consultant’s role construct are becoming increasingly difficult to sustain in a digital society. A critical reading of the consultants’ narrative thus implies that social media may in fact constitute a professional identity crisis rather than a consolidation of the expert role.     

In the Wake of New Media: Connecting the Who with the How of Strategizing Communication

In this article we argue that although there has been an intensified exploration of how organizations strategize within the field of strategic communication, there seems to be a key component missing, namely questioning who these organizations are and become in the process of strategizing. Strategic communication implicitly, perhaps even unintentionally, continues to rely on a classical understanding of organizations as “social units (or human groupings) deliberately constructed and reconstructed to seek specific goals” (Etzioni, 1964, p. 3). Assuming rather than exploring who the organization is, we argue, hinders a full explanation of how strategic communication works. Aiming to tackle this issue, we first present three ways in which the classical understanding of organizations is being theoretically challenged by organization studies and empirically challenged by new media, arguing that organizations are networked, sociomaterial, and contingent processes of meaning formation. Then we examine how the reconceptualization of the organization influences the concept of strategic communication, advocating that strategies should be seen as collaborative and networked flows (the how) of shared decision making by both human and nonhuman actors (the who). Finally, we discuss how this affects the notion of strategic action, and hence, strategic communication, asking what strategic action is and who performs it.     

Organizing and Disorganizing Strategic Communication: Discursive Institutional Change Dynamics in Two Communication Departments

This article explores the institutionalization of strategic communication as a dynamic interplay between macro- and mesolevel discourses. The change processes in the two cases of this study involved both a reorientation of the purpose of the communication function and a physical relocation of the professionals to a centralized department. In both organizations, the transformation toward a strategic management function failed and the communication professionals are now working in ways similar to those before the change was initiated. The analysis illustrates that the institutionalization of strategic communication is effected by organizational-level processes and mechanisms that are not always controlled by communication professionals. The institutionalization of strategic communication is bound by organizational discourses as well as by the actions of communication practitioners and general managers. The study also shows that macro- and mesolevel discourses influence the ways in which change initiatives are translated and strategic communication effected on an organizational level. Hence, institutionalization processes of strategic communication will comply with management trends but can change direction when these trends are challenged. Our results expose that new ideas or practices of strategic communication are translated discursively within organizations in processes of recontextualization, reinterpretation, and reframing. Consequently, new ideas and practices of strategic communication are adjusted to organizational discourses and organizational settings. The translation of a new idea or practice will therefore change the initial meaning of that same idea or practice. For that reason, institutionalization of strategic communication should not be reduced to a unidirectional process but conceptualized as a dynamic interplay between discourses on different levels that moves institutionalization in multiple directions.     

Examining the Impact of Public Engagement and Presidential Leadership Communication on Social Media in China: Implications for Government-Public Relationship Cultivation

This study examined how public positive and negative social media (i.e., WeChat) discussion about President Xi Jinping in China, along with Xi’s leadership communication styles of assertiveness, responsiveness, and authenticity on social media influence publics’ evaluation of his leadership effectiveness, which in turn, influences public trust and satisfaction with the government. Through a quantitative online survey of 396 WeChat users in China, randomly selected via an international sampling firm and a structural equation modeling analysis, the results show that publics’ political discussion about Xi on social media in China significantly influences the perceived leadership effectiveness of the president. Specifically, the more the publics engage in positive discussion about the president on social media, the more they perceive him to be a better political leader, and vice-versa. The president’s leadership communication attributes of responsiveness and authenticity strongly and positively influenced perceived leadership effectiveness and the quality of government-public relationships. Publics’ evaluation of the president’s leadership effectiveness directly contributed to public trust and satisfaction toward the government. The theoretical and practical implications of the study are discussed.     

Empowering Engagement: Understanding Social Media User Sense of Influence

For all the hope and hype hailing the democratizing effect of social media, few studies have explained public influence as an element of social media engagement. Insight into how and why individuals attempt to exert influence over organizations online is particularly underdeveloped. This study takes the first step in understanding sense of influence online through in-depth interviews with social media users. Findings call into question assumptions in research about the motives and meanings underlying individual efforts to exert influence via social media. The data from 19 in-depth interviews with active social media users suggest that sense of influence is enacted for social relationships rather than to influence organizations or society, and information is the driving force of that effort. Findings also place the imperative on strategic communication to emphasize the value of the organization’s role on social interaction toward a fully functioning society.     

Strategic Leadership Communication for Crisis Network Coordination

In large-scale societal crises, organizations involved in saving lives and protecting the public need to collaborate and coordinate their crisis communication to minimize damage and increase resilience. This study analyzed strategic leadership communication fostering such coordination in a network consisting of 24 members representing a variety of authorities, organizations and units established during a large forest fire in Sweden. As the crisis unfolded over a two-week period, 10 network meetings were observed and audio recorded. Discourse analysis was employed to analyze network leaders’ and members’ communication during the meetings. Findings illustrate that leadership communication strategies that fostered networked coordination of organizations’ crisis communication differ in significant ways from leadership communication in noncrisis and team contexts. Salient leadership communication strategies of directing/structuring and encouraging/facilitating were employed during crisis network meetings and functioned to coordinate involved organizations’ crisis communication efforts during time pressure. The study contributes with new knowledge of strategic leadership communication for crisis network coordination, which is important to crisis management and can be used in crisis preparation to enhance resilience.     

Self-censorship on Internal Social Media: A Case Study of Coworker Communication Behavior in a Danish Bank

Internal social media (ISM) or social intranets provide organizations with a communication arena in which coworkers can actively contribute to organizational communication. Coworkers are, however, far from impulsive and spontaneous when they communicate on ISM. A case study in a Danish bank found that coworkers considered carefully the consequences of their posts or comments before publishing them. These coworkers perceived four different risks associated with ISM communication, and they used seven self-censorship strategies to ensure that both the content and the formulation of their communication were relevant and appropriate. Coworkers not only censor themselves by withdrawing, as previous studies have suggested, but they also postpone publishing content, phrase or frame content differently, imagine responses from organizational members, ask others for a second opinion, choose another channel, or write only positive comments. Through these seven self-censorship strategies, coworkers retain the quality of communication on ISM and prevent conflict or relational damage. Future research should explore the self-regulation strategies underlying self-censorship in order to improve understanding of the circumstances that increase the likelihood of responsible use of ISM. The potential dark side of self-censorship also requires exploration: when can self-censorship threaten coworkers’ freedom of expression, and develop into organizational silence?     

Social Media Activities of Political Communication Practitioners: The Impact of Strategic Orientation and In-Group Orientation

The question of why political communication practitioners use social media for strategic political communication activities has rarely been investigated. By using well-established theoretical approaches of communication research, such as the influence of presumed influence approach, this study sought to determine the extent to which the subjective perceptions of German political communication practitioners explain their professional social media activities. The results of a survey (N = 1,067) indicate that the more political communication practitioners perceived that other political communication practitioners used and were influenced by Facebook and Twitter, the more often they used social media themselves. In contrast, the presumed reach of Facebook and Twitter among politicians, journalists, and citizens, as well as the presumed influence of both media on these groups, were not related to the practitioners’ social media activities. These findings suggest that the practitioners’ social media activities are driven more by an in-group orientation toward their colleagues and less by a strategic orientation toward external stakeholders.