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Summary Corporate Communication Notes for Exam
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Samenvatting Corporate Communication (825051-B-6)
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WEEK 1Chapter 1 - Defining Corporate Communication
Objective of building, maintaining and protecting the company's reputation = the core task
of corporate communication practitioners.
Until the 1970s, communication with stakeholders had been defined as "public relations"
(largely consisted of communication with the press).
When other stakeholders started to demand more information from the company,
practitioners looked at communication as more than just public relations.
The new corporate communication function was to focus on organization as a whole and on
the important task of how an organization presents itself to all its key stakeholders (both
internal and external).
The word "corporate" must be understood in two ways:
1. Referring to the business setting in which corporate communication emerged as a
separate function.
2. Referring to the origins of the word from the Latin (corpus = body and corporare =
forming into a body) which emphasize a unified way of looking at internal and
external communication disciplines.
In other words:
Corporate communication is a management function that offers a
framework for the effective coordination of all internal and external
communication with the overall purpose of establishing and maintaining
favourable reputations with stakeholder groups upon which the
organization is dependent.
Corporate communication demands an integrated approach to
managing communication.
To harness the strategic interests of the organization at large.
The general idea is that the sustainability and success of a company
depends on how it is viewed by key stakeholders, and communication is a
critical part of building, maintaining and protecting such reputations.
Because of favourable images and reputations, customers and prospects
will purchase products and services, members of the community will
appreciate the organization in its environment, investors will grant
financial resources, and so on.
Trends in corporate communication.
1900s-1980s = not strategically integrated in the organization, one-way
communication (spin, publicity, promotion, information)
, 1980s-2000s = more strategic. Strong focus on reputational positioning: getting the
right image in the minds of stakeholders.
2000s-present = Focus on stakeholder interaction: two-way and one-way; at the
back of a fast changing media landscape.
Current challenge = how to balance strategic 'one-to-many' vs. 'many-to-one' and
'many-to-many' communication?
1980s = period of powerful restructuring trend in many organizations
where every function was assessed based on its accountability and
contribution to the organization.
Communication disciplines were consolidated into one or a few
departments.
Many organizations developed procedures and implemented
coordination mechanisms to overcome this kind of fragmentation
and coordinate their communication on an organization-wide basis.
To integrate communication at the organizational level, the realization
that comm had to be used more strategically to 'position' the
organization in the minds of stakeholder groups. Concerned with ideas
such as 'corporate identity', 'corporate reputation' and 'corporate
branding', which emphasize the importance of positioning.
The assumption is that corporate communicators can strategically plan
and design their messaging in order to, in effect, ‘take up’ a reputational
‘position’ in the minds of stakeholders.
This assumption also effectively starts with the communicator’s intentions
and their skill in framing a message but it neglects stakeholders as active
agents. Instead they are cast as a passive agent.
It suggests a linear (/conduit) model of communication.
However, stakeholders have become more active in voicing their
expectations towards organizations and have started to expect more
interactive and dialogue-based forms of communication.
New media technologies are the enabling factor in this process. This
situation offers challenges but also opportunities to organizations in terms
of word-of-mouth and peer-to-peer influence when individuals self-
organize and may become advocates for the organization.
,A break with the positioning model lies in the principle that organizations
need to 'engage' individual stakeholders through different platforms, in
addition to addressing broader audiences and publics.
The organization need to be also 'transparent'.
Any discrepancies in the organization not thinking like or performing like
its character, or overall identity, could be pointed out by the media and
individual stakeholders as lack of 'authenticity'.
CHAPTER 2 - Corporate communication in a changing
media environment
Use of 'new' media in society including social media, blogs and wikis, is both seen as a
challenge and as an opportunity.
From a corporate communication perspective, these developments in new media are seen
as a challenge when practitioners make news gathering and dissemination increasingly
fragmented for themselves and for the stakeholder.
They are seen as an opportunity because they may create new ways of reaching and
engaging with stakeholders.
The New media landscape
Social media and Web 2.0 technologies foster more interactive and free-
flowing conversations between members of an organization or between
corporate communication practitioners and external stakeholders. These
media are generally less about control and more about proactive
engagement within web-based communities.
These technologies are driving a shift in how people engage with one
another and with organizations. This shift is quickly changing how
dialogues occur, how news about organizations is generated and
disseminated, and how stakeholder perceptions are shaped and
relationships forged.
Often the terms social media and web 2.0 are used interchangeably, but a
distinction exists:
, Social media = become established particularly after the creation
of social networking sites such as Facebook; involve all kinds of
online or digital technologies through which people create, share
and exchange information and ideas.
Web 2.0 = describes a general ideological and technological shift in
the use of online technologies. (blogs, wikis and collaborative
projects…). Web 2.0 provides the platform for the evolution of social
media and their use within corporate communication.
Distinction between new media environment and traditional media.
Traditional media involve one-way messaging techniques through which
organizations speak to an audience.
Underlying model of these media = "broadcasting" - a model of mass
communication whereby an organization informs or tries to persuade
many members of a particular stakeholder audience at once.
The process of communication is largely initiated and determined by the
sending organization.
Social media in comparison enable stakeholders to self-organize as a
"crowd" (crowd-casting) in order to produce content about an
organization. Stakeholders are no longer passive audiences but active
participants in the communication process.
Social media necessitate a shift from the controlled and planned release
of corporate messages (corporate positioning) to the community-wide
generation of content about organizations. Content generation defines
corporate communication as a joint activity between an organization and
its stakeholders.
With social media, stakeholders can produce and disseminate various
forms of content with often unpredictable consequences as to whether
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