COM4805 Assignment 2 Semester 2 2023 (ANSWERS)
The topic of this assignment is the strategic role of communication in the organisation.
The assignment question is:
Strategic communication, which originated from programmes used in the governmental and military domain (Farwell 2012:2), is es...
, The topic of this assignment is the strategic role of communication in the
organisation.
The assignment question is:
Strategic communication, which originated from programmes used in the governmental
and military domain (Farwell 2012:2), is essentially applied to emphasise objective-driven
communication in various areas such as public relations, health communication,
marketing, and financial communication (Holtzhausen & Zerfass 2015:3). This modernistic
definition of strategic communication as a communication process that sprouts from an
organisation’s strategic plan and is focused on enabling the organisation’s strategic
objectives, served as a platform for two-way communication models, such as Shannon
and Weaver’s (1949) transmission model, which eventually evolved in discussions of two-
way symmetrical and two-way a-symmetrical communication in public relations literature
(Holtzhausen & Zerfass 2015:4).
The field of communication currently “faces a challenge in coordinating and integrating the
communication activities of organisations and in creating a multidisciplinary but unified
body of knowledge that better serves communication entities in a society consisting of
fragmented audiences and message delivery platforms” (Tindall & Holtzhausen
2011:75). Such changes stimulated a shift towards postmodern thought in strategic
communication. This implies a proposed call for a broader acceptance of strategic
communication as “the practice of deliberate and purposive communication that a
communication agent enacts in the public sphere on behalf of a communicative entity to
reach set goals” (Holtzhausen & Zerfass 2013:74).
This changing landscape of strategic communication caused the communication
professional to step down as the only organisational spokesperson. The communication
professional should fulfil a coaching and advisory role to other organisational members to
enable and empower them with skills to engage organisational stakeholders.
Various elements such as interactive communication technologies and globalisation have
led to the replacement of the functional understanding of strategic communication as “one-
to-many” communication with rather “many-to-many” communication (Zerfass & Schneider
2018). This has resulted in a reconfiguration of the strategic communication function
(Verwey, Benecke & Muir 2017).
Considering the above statements, critically discuss the changing landscape of strategic
communication in the following terms:
The relevance of a postmodern perspective to strategic communication in the
current multi-voiced organisational context.
The changing role of the strategic communication professional, with specific
reference to the shift from roles as technician and manger to coach, advisor and
manager of social capital.
Content: 90
Technical presentation: 10
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