strategic communication Archives - Page 5 of 5

Articles Tagged with: strategic communication

23 October 2017

New book: How Strategic Communication Shapes Value and Innovation in Society

The EUPRERA book series Advances in Public Relations and Communication Management (APCRM), published by Emerald, continues with its 2nd volume: How Strategic Communication Shapes Value and Innovation in Society, edited by Betteke van Ruler, Iekje Smit, Øyvind Ihlen, Stefania Romenti.
Let’s Talk Society – and the society we’re talking about is in transition to a green and sustainable society, to an inclusive society, to an innovative and reflective society. What is our role as communication professionals in all of this? How can we foster public debate? This book addresses these challenges and offers some answers.

Book and e-book now available

70% OFF for EUPRERA MEMBERS
(ask your code to dpra@euprera.org)

The series was launched in 2012: totally, EUPRERA published 5 books from the annual congress’ best contributions. A selection of best papers is also published in a yearly special issue of the Journal of Communication Management.

13 July 2017

Communication Management Forum brings research results on crisis management

Bernays’ international scientific conference on “Living in crisis mode: Time to reconsider definition, meaning and practice” was attended by 200 participants this year.
Communication Management Forum 2017 was opened by Bernays’ President of Board of Governors Mario Petrović, who pointed out that Bernays in 2015, organizing its first international scientific conference, has positioned itself as the educational vertical in public relations and communication management and that it is now time to move the boundaries into new branches of science. This year’s Forum was also supported by Assistant Minister of Science, Assistant Professor Tomislav Sokol and Assistant Director of the Agency for Science and Higher Education MSc Sandra Bezjak, who welcomed the holding of scientific conferences of this kind and Bernays’ contribution to information and communication sciences. Bernays’ Dean, Damir Jugo, PhD stressed in his speech the responsibility that Bernays has at this moment, not only as a higher education institution educating future communication experts, but also as a scientific institution.
The first day of Communication Management Forum 2017 was marked by the presentations of experienced experts from public relations and crisis communication, Associate Professor Piet Verhoeven and Full Professor Ana Tkalac Verčič, the round table on the topic of “Reflection of a Crisis Situation on the Image of a Tourist Destination”. Assoc. Prof. Verhoeven emphasized in his presentation that, in crisis situations, media interest grows rapidly, however, a crisis, depending on how an organization approaches it, can also be an opportunity at the same time. Full Prof. Tkalac Verčič pointed out that crises in the time in which we live has become a “normal phenomenon”, and this claim has been supported by examples of recent events in Croatia. She noted that, in Croatia, information is often provided by spokespersons in times of crisis, when it should actually be given by the head of the organization.
In addition to the keynote speakers, the round table was attended by Katarina Miličević, PhD and G.L.A. Van der Meer, PhD, and the discussion was moderated by Romana Lekić, PhD and Ivan Pakozdi, MA. Ms Miličević, from the Institute for Tourism, emphasized that Croatia has the image of a safe country, and the great influence of social networks and the adequacy of choice of different channels opens the possibility of communication of “everything we want”. Speaking about Croatia’s image, Ms Miličević, also mentioned the research she carried out with her team, where they analysed 28,000 articles, in which they found that Scandinavian countries continue to associate us with the war period. Van der Meer, PhD pointed out in the example of the flood in the Netherlands that countries in the crisis should act as organizations and that it is always advisable to emphasize positive aspects in country-related crises.
As the only college in Croatia that provides full-fledged public relations education and communication management, with the organization of its, now, traditional scientific gathering, Bernays seeks to contribute to the further development of information and communication sciences. With the latest public relations and communication management research, Communication Management Forum 2017 also brings the results of interesting research in marketing, media, politics and related disciplines, and the value of the project has been recognized and supported by Atlantic Grupa, Lider, Zagreb Tourist Board, Blitz -CineStar, Croatian National Tourist Board, Millenium promocija (MPR +), Magis tim and Catering Kvatrić.
Visit the Communication Management Forum website

29 June 2017

European Communication Monitor 2017 results presented today

World’s largest survey in strategic communication demonstrates increasing influence of the communication profession in organisations and societal debates.

Professionals working in communications are fully aware of the trend towards increased visualisation in society, however every second professional has limited visual competencies
Social bots are seen largely as a threat for society and organisations – an explanation why only a few organisations already use social bots
A cultural turn towards hyper-modernism changes the way organisations communicate with their stakeholders

Brussels, June 29^th 2017 – The European Communication Monitor has been surveying trends in strategic communication for more than a decade. This year’s edition is based on a record number of 3,387 respondents from every European country, ensuring it makes once more an outstanding contribution in the area of strategic communication and providing valuable insights for professionals working in public relations, business or political communication. Moreover, this year’s Monitor deals with the cultural transformation towards hypermodernity and offers detailed insights for everybody working as communication managers for small, medium or large organisations in the public or private sector. Comparable global data for the Latin American and Asia-Pacific regions make the Monitor even more relevant.
Visual trend offers huge potential for strategic communication
The fact that we live in a visual society and social media and mobile communication boost all types of visuals is clearly observable and broadly recognised by European communication managers. However, 53.3 per cent of the surveyed professionals have low visual communication skills – compared to 12.1 per cent with high visual competencies. That is also true at the organisational level. More than 80 per cent of the professionals have implemented standard guidelines for their visual communication. However, only 36.7 per cent have developed advanced guidelines and less than five per cent have advanced management processes for visual communication.
ECM17-Graphic02
Personal competencies of communication professionals are low in nearly all fields
of visual communication – also in the areas of online videos and infographics
Source: European Communication Monitor 2017

Social (ro-)bots are largely neglected in Europe
Despite the growing commercial and political application of social bots findings from the ECM 2017 data demonstrate that this phenomenon is largely neglected by many communication professionals in Europe. Only one third follow the debate about social bots and 15.9 per cent have no idea about the topic at all. In this context social bots are mainly seen as a threat for public debates and organisational reputation alike, although four out of ten respondents do also see opportunities arising from them. 73.2 per cent of all respondents agree that social bots present ethical challenges for the profession.
ECM17-Graphic03
Communication practitioners in the German speaking countries are more attentive to the debate about social bots
Source: European Communication Monitor 2017

Hypermodernity challenges old paradigms in strategic communication and for organisations
A hypermodern society is a society in overdrive, characterised by a culture of hyper consumption, hyper change, and hyper individualism. A large majority of 71.5 per cent of the European communication professionals witness the cultural transformation towards a hyper modern culture in their country. The transition from a postmodern to hypermodern culture is the strongest in consultancies (57.2 per cent) and private companies (51.8 per cent). Organisations with postmodern and hypermodern characteristics are ahead in sensing the trend towards an overarching consumer mentality. Most of them think that it has already changed communication with stakeholders and a large majority thinks that it will change their communication in the next three years.
Quality management and Benchmarking
Quality management and continuous improvement is less common in communication departments and marketing, compared to other organisational functions. If communication departments assess their activities at all, they focus predominantly on the performance or impact of messaging activities. Holistic benchmarking approaches against externally validated standards seem to be less relevant.
ECM17-Graphic05
Quality management and continuous improvement is less common in communication departments, compared to other organisational functions
Source: European Communication Monitor 2017

Statements from the EUPRERA lead researcher and the president of the EACD
Zerfass Professor Ansgar Zerfass, lead researcher of the survey, explained: “During the last 12 months we have experienced significant events on the world geo-political stage with impact and implications for strategic communication. While the European Communication Monitor continues to track the specifics of the communicator’s role we are also interested in mapping and monitoring the influence of wider societal issues, from economic and cultural developments to technological change, and understand their implications on practice.”
“What stands out most of all from this year’s Monitor is the recognition of the important operational and strategic contribution that communications makes to an organisation’s success, with more than 70% approval rates, with the communications function emerging as a key supporter for daily management and the operations of other departments,” said Herbert Heitmann, president of the European Association of Communication Directors (EACD). He added: “However, top management is not aware of the full range of contributions that communications can deliver. More efforts are necessary to close this expectation gap.”
A joint study by academia and practice, the ECM is organised by the European Public Relations Education and Research Association (EUPRERA) and the European Association of Communication Directors (EACD), supported by partner PRIME Research, a global leader for media insights, and media partner Communication Director magazine. The communication monitor series is known as the most comprehensive research in the field worldwide covering more than 80 countries – the European survey is complemented by bi-annual surveys in other regions like Asia-Pacific and Latin America.

A PDF report with full results as well as a video featuring highlights
from the study is available at http://www.communicationmonitor.eu/

Press contact for interviews and more information

Professor Dr. Ansgar Zerfass, Lead Researcher, EUPRERA, zerfass@uni-leipzig.de
Dr. Herbert Heitmann, President, EACD, herbert.heitmann@eacd-online.eu

6 June 2017

From the ICA pre-conference on Strategic Communication

The International Communication Association (ICA) conference in San Diego at the end of May was also the venue for a popular pre-conference focusing on the Future Direction of Strategic Communication. This well-attended pre-conference grouped together a significant number of international presenters and conference attendees, with high-profile representation by EUPRERA scholars. Far away from being a discipline on strict epistemological terms, strategic communication continues to be a useful umbrella paradigm to approach the diverse strategic communications of organizations and was conceptualized for the foundational paper of the IJSC (International Journal of Strategic Communication), over a decade ago.
During the pre-conference diverse definitions were provided underling some of the main delimitations of the field: communicative (as different from relational) and strategic (as different from just integrate and purposeful). Far away from a closed concept and approach, diverse challenges where richly discussed: delimitation of the object of study (the parts and the whole, interchange with PR research); focusing or surpassing the functionalist approach; integrating (or not) critical studies; or including ethical prescriptive definitions. Future points to providing an empirical based corpus of common knowledge, but inevitably show up the scarcity of resources and publication opportunities for longitudinal and replication studies in a field where the effects’ factors and variables are increasing, changing and difficult to isolate.
The pre-conference was rich in content and some diversity of views, which made for a lively and engaging day. It also demonstrated the value and importance of isolating and discussing the concept of strategic communication to provide a further focus for future research and understanding by interested academics. A future special issue of the ISJC was also discussed where some of the richness of the debates and future research interests and opportunities will be shared.
Ángeles Moreno, University Rey Juan Carlos
Ralph Tench, Leeds Beckett University

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