Concluding Thoughts and Challenges

2011 ◽  
Vol 25 (3) ◽  
pp. 569-575 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael J. Palenchar
Keyword(s):  
Public Relations ◽  
Strategic Communication ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Issues Management ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Organizational Rhetoric ◽  
Management Communication ◽  
Stakeholder Interests ◽  
Self Interest ◽  
Socially Relevant

This special issue of Management Communication Quarterly mines the rhetorical heritage to explore the challenges facing those who engage in and critique external organizational rhetoric, setting its sights on helping organizations make society a better place to live. Toward this end, rhetoric focuses on strategic communication influences that at their best result from or foster collaborative decisions and cocreated meaning that align stakeholder interests. This special issue demonstrates the eclectic and complex theories, applied contexts, and ongoing arguments needed to weave the fabric of external organizational communication. Over the years, Robert Heath and others have been advocates for drawing judiciously on the rhetorical heritage as guiding foundation for issues management and public relations activities. Rather than merely acknowledge the pragmatic or utilitarian role of discourse, this analysis also aspires to understand and champion its application to socially relevant ends. In that quest, several themes stand out: (a) In theory and practice external organizational rhetoric weighs self-interest against others’ enlightened interests and choices; (b) organizations as modern rhetors engage in discourse that is context relevant and judged by the quality of engagement and the ends achieved thereby; and (c) in theory and practice external organizational rhetoric weighs relationship between language that is never neutral and the power advanced for narrow or shared interests.

Finding Good Places to Work and Live: Contemporary Contexts and Ways Forward

2011 ◽  
Vol 25 (3) ◽  
pp. 541-549 ◽  
Author(s):  
David McKie
Keyword(s):  
Public Relations ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Organizational Rhetoric ◽  
Good Society ◽  
Social Agenda ◽  
Foundational Work ◽  
Scholarly Attention

This special issue builds on foundational work to set an enlarged social agenda for external organizational rhetoric. After considering possible limits to the broadening of such rhetoric, it analyzes the redirection of scholarly attention, which is essentially concerned with the good organization’s potential to contribute to the good society. It notes how this has been, out of necessity, accompanied by a territorial extension of contextual, geographical, and temporal frames that expand the approaches of internal rhetoric and mainstream public relations.

scholarly journals Building Social Capital Through Rhetoric and Public Relations

2011 ◽  
Vol 25 (3) ◽  
pp. 436-454 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maureen Taylor
Keyword(s):  
Social Capital ◽  
Public Relations ◽  
Meaning Making ◽  
Local Governance ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Business Organizations ◽  
Organizational Rhetoric ◽  
Good Place ◽  
Community Activists ◽  
Public Relations Theory

When the focus is on meaning making, language, rhetorical argument, and persuasion, there is enormous potential to see how public relations theory and practice in external organizational rhetoric can serve community interests—or not. Rhetoric (as the discourse) and public relations (as the enactment of that discourse) are essential to building and sustaining a society as a good place to live because they create various types of social capital. This article describes the various relationships among international and indigenous NGOs, business organizations, and community activists in facilitating (and, at times, frustrating) dialogue in Jordan. It offers an example of how social capital may be created when rhetors using public relations advocate in ways that enhance the capacity of local governance and make their community a better place to live.

Social issue qua wicked problems

2018 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 79-95 ◽  
Author(s):  
W. Timothy Coombs ◽  
Sherry J. Holladay
Keyword(s):  
Social Issue ◽  
Digital Media ◽  
Social Issues ◽  
Strategic Communication ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Management Model ◽  
Issues Management ◽  
Content Type ◽  
The Social

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to describe the need to theorize firms’ involvement in social issues and propose the social issues management model as a framework for analyzing the communication processes underlying social issues management. An application of the new approach is illustrated through a brief case analysis. Design/methodology/approach The paper is conceptual and emphasizes theory building for firm’s involvement in social issues management. Findings The paper describes modifications to the general issues management model that can be adopted to reflect the social issues management process and contemporary digital media environments. Practical implications The paper can benefit theory and practice of social issues management by describing how specific communication strategies and digital media use may affect social issues management. Social implications Because firms increasingly are motivated or urged by stakeholders to take stands on social issues, understanding how they can perform the role of social issue manager can enhance their potential for contributing to positive social change. Originality/value The paper provides a much needed update to the models of issues management used in strategic communication. The new model accounts for the increasing pressure on firms to address social issues and the role of digital communication channels in that process.

scholarly journals Komunikasi Strategik dalam Pengurusan Komunikasi Organisasi: Definisi, Pendekatan dan Pelaksanaan

2021 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 49-64
Author(s):  
Muhammad Zaiamri bin Zainal Abidin ◽  
Amira Firdaus ◽  
Md Azalanshah Md Syed
Keyword(s):  
Public Relations ◽  
Secondary Data ◽  
Organizational Management ◽  
Strategic Communication ◽  
Communication Research ◽  
Information Communication ◽  
Management Communication ◽  
Communication Practice ◽  
Social Marketing Campaign ◽  
Communication Practices

Strategic communication is an effective communication of information distributions at every level includes individual, group and organization. In terms of organizational management, strategic communication defined as a purposeful communication in order to achieve a specific goal and target. Strategic communication does not only function as a tool of vision and goal interpretation towards targeted audience, but also to achieve both organization’s vision and goal. It act as a centre to ensure a strategy implementation achievement made by the organization. This article will describe and discuss further strategic communication practices based on three focuses; definition, approach and implementation. Based on secondary data and analysis of the findings of previous studies as well as the views of scholars through the field of strategic communication research, It show that strategic communication is a purposeful communication practice managed systematically through planning, implementation and evaluation to achieve organization’s goal and target which is practiced in six forms of approach includes management communication, marketing communication, public relations, technical communication, information communication, information and social marketing campaign in organizational communication

Organizational Rhetoric: A Subject of Interest(s)

2011 ◽  
Vol 25 (3) ◽  
pp. 474-493 ◽  
Author(s):  
Josh Boyd ◽  
Damion Waymer
Keyword(s):  
Public Relations ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Organizational Rhetoric ◽  
Complex Organizations ◽  
Good Place ◽  
Fully Functioning ◽  
Do So

At the heart of this special issue on external organizational rhetoric is the pursuit of unearthing the ways that complex organizations, performing as modern rhetors engaged in discourse, can work to make society a good place to live. One way that this can be achieved is by problematizing organizational rhetoric. To do so requires taking a critical stance that identifies the hidden ideographs and assumptions embedded within them. External organizational rhetoric scholars, aiming to foster a more fully functioning society, need to expose, smooth, and neutralize these assumptions and tacit constraints if there is to be continued progress in the study and application of the ways external organizational rhetoric, including public relations, might further contribute to society at large.

scholarly journals Strategic Communication

Communication ◽  
2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kjerstin Thorson
Keyword(s):  
Public Relations ◽  
Mass Communication ◽  
Strategic Communication ◽  
Communication Management ◽  
Management Communication ◽  
For Profit ◽  
Body Of Knowledge ◽  
Not For Profit ◽  
Activist Groups

Strategic communication is an umbrella term to describe the activities of disciplines including public relations, management communication, and advertising. However, strategic communication is also increasingly recognized as a developing subfield within communication. As such, it explores the capacity of all organizations—not only corporations, but also not-for-profit organizations (including advocacy and activist groups) and government—for engaging in purposeful communication. The strength of the approach is its emphasis on strategy rather than on specific tactics as well as its focus on communications understood holistically. This approach is particularly valuable given the increasing difficulty faced by organizations in differentiating among communication activities (and results) appropriately “owned” by various functional groups. Further, the increasing complexity of a global, digital society has challenged the capacity for organizations to engage in long-term strategic planning. From both scholarly and practitioner standpoints, key questions explore the extent to which professional communicators within organizations are a part of strategy formulations, the degree to which, if any, communications are aligned with organizational strategy, the effectiveness of communication strategies and campaigns, and the role of organizations and stakeholders in society. Research in strategic communication draws on diverse disciplines, including organizational communication, management, military history, mass communication, public relations, advertising, and marketing. Hallahan, et al. 2007 (see Defining Strategic Communication) notes that “although the term strategic communication has been used in the academic literature for many years, scholars are only now in the process of coherently exploring this in terms of a unified body of knowledge” (p. 4). Works chosen for inclusion in this review are, therefore, drawn from various disciplines, with particular attention to those that attempt to synthesize or explicate links across disciplines.

On Barnyard Scrambles: Toward a Rhetoric of Public Relations

2011 ◽  
Vol 25 (3) ◽  
pp. 455-473 ◽  
Author(s):  
Øyvind Ihlen
Keyword(s):  
Public Relations ◽  
Building Blocks ◽  
Critical Discussion ◽  
Rhetorical Situation ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Organizational Rhetoric ◽  
The Public ◽  
Self Defense ◽  
Extensive Analysis ◽  
Epistemological Basis

How can we gain a better understanding of public relations rhetoric? This essay takes stock of the analytical building blocks that can be found in the public relations research and addresses the question raised in the introduction to this special issue: Can external organizational rhetoric help make society a good place to live? It is argued that whereas the literature on crisis communication and the concept of apologia—speech of self-defense—is fairly extensive, analysis of other subfields and types of public relations discourse is needed. Following the modification of its original epistemological basis, the concept of the rhetorical situation helps guide this endeavor. Such analysis can form a basis for a critical discussion of whether organizational rhetoric helps improve society.

Media coverage of the unfolding crisis of domestic terrorism in the United States, 1990–2020

2021 ◽  
pp. 2046147X2199601
Author(s):  
Diana Zulli ◽  
Kevin Coe ◽  
Zachary Isaacs ◽  
Ian Summers
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Public Relations ◽  
Crisis Management ◽  
Media Coverage ◽  
Television News ◽  
News Coverage ◽  
The United States ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Domestic Terrorism ◽  
Definitional Uncertainty

Public relations research has paid considerable attention to foreign terrorist crises but relatively little attention to domestic ones—despite the growing salience of domestic terrorism in the United States. This study content analyzes 30 years of network television news coverage of domestic terrorism to gain insight into four theoretical issues of enduring interest within the literature on news framing and crisis management: sourcing, contextualization, ideological labeling, and definitional uncertainty. Results indicate that the sources called upon to contextualize domestic terrorism have shifted over time, that ideological labels are more often applied on the right than the left, and that definitional uncertainty has increased markedly in recent years. Implications for the theory and practice of public relations and crisis management are discussed.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document