Week 1
Strategic Communication as an Emerging Interdisciplinary Paradigm
Werder, K.P., Nothhaft, H., Verčič, D. & Zerfass, A. (2018). Strategic Communication as an Emerging Interdisciplinary Paradigm.
International Journal of Strategic Communication, 12:4, 333-351, DOI: 10.1080/1553118X.2018.1494181
This study explores future directions in strategic communication scholarship by examining
the emergence of strategic communication through the lens of interdisciplinary science.
Results reveal positive trends in research productivity, authorship, and globalization of the
discipline over an 11-year period. However, analysis of the methodological and theoretical
attributes of strategic communication scholarship suggests that more interdisciplinary
research is needed.
The purpose of this content analysis is to produce a descriptive profile of strategic
communication scholarship. The results are divided into sections based on whether the
variables of interest related to the following:
1. Research production
2. Globalization of the discipline
3. Authorship
4. Methodological attributes
5. Theoretical attributes
Strategic communication can be described as a growing discipline. The results of this analysis
indicate positive trends in research productivity, authorship, and globalization of the
discipline during the 11-year study period.
The interdisciplinarity of strategic
1 communication.
,This article argues that strategic communication scholars must embrace an interdisciplinary
worldview for it to evolve and become more widely recognized by other disciplines.
Steps of the interdisciplinary research process as follows:
1. Forming a research team (if team research is appropriate)
2. Solving communication problems
3. Identifying a good research question
4. Identifying and evaluating disciplinary insights
5. Mapping interdisciplinary connections
6. Performing mixed methods research
7. Integrating insights from different disciplines
8. Reflecting, testing, and communicating research results
9. Assessing interdisciplinary research, which is an external step performed by others
Interdisciplinarians integrate the best elements of disciplinary insights in order to generate a
more comprehensive (and often more nuanced) appreciation of the issue at hand. This may
come in the form of a new understanding, product, or meaning.
This article argues that strategic communication will advance through the adoption of an
interdisciplinary worldview among its scholarly and professional communities. It is necessary
to ensure that strategic communication scholarship continues to contribute to and further
understanding of the management of communication in organizations. Strategic
communication scholars must develop concepts and theoretical frameworks that are uniquely
integrated and provide a holistic view of the communication of organizations.
Interdisciplinary integration is the greatest challenge for strategic communication scholarship
in the future.
Defining Strategic Communication. International journal of strategic communication
Hallahan, K., Holtzhausen, D., van Ruler, B., Verčič, D., & Sriramesh, K. (2007). Defining Strategic Communication. International journal
of strategic communication, 1(1), 3-35. Doi: 10.1080/15531180701285244
This article examines the nature of strategic communication, which is defined as the
purposeful use of communication by an organization to fulfill its mission. Six relevant
disciplines are involved in the development, implementation, and assessment of
communications taken up by organizations
2
, 1. Management – To facilitate the orderly operations of the organization, to promote
understanding of an organization’s mission, vision, and goals; and to supply
information needed in day-to-day operations
2. Marketing – To create awareness and promote sales of products and services, to
attract and retain users and customers
3. Public relations – To establish and maintain mutually beneficial relationships with
key constituencies: This includes consumers and customers, as well as investors and
donors, employees and volunteers, community leaders, and government officials
4. Technical communication – To educate employees, customers, and others to improve
their efficiency. It involves reducing errors and promoting the effective and satisfying
use of technology when performing tasks important to organization
5. Political communication – To build political consensus or consent on important issues
involving the exercise of political power and the allocation of resources in society.
This includes efforts to influence voting in elections as well as public policy decisions
by lawmakers or administrators
6. Information/social marketing campaigns – To reduce the incidence of risky behaviors
or to promote social causes important to the betterment of the community
The term strategic communication makes sense as a unifying framework to analyze
communications by organizations for four reasons:
1. The ability of communicators to differentiate between traditional communications
activities and their effects is rapidly disappearing
* In the current era organizations must differentiate themselves and in which
audiences view organizations from multiple perspectives
2. Important changes in public communication are being driven by technology and by
media economics. Digital technologies make it increasingly impossible to differentiate
what is advertising versus publicity, sales promotion, or e-commerce. Technology is
converging communications channels.
3. Organizations use an expanding variety of methods to influence the behaviors of their
constituencies: What people know, how people feel, and the ways people act, relative to
the organization. Thus, audiences’ experiences and impressions of organizations are the
sum total of the people’s experiences
4. Strategic communication recognizes that purposeful influence is the fundamental goal of
communications by organizations
3
, * Differently, certain disciplines are conceptually grounded merely in providing
information (e.g., technical communication)
An emphasis on management
The term strategic may have different interpretations and applications which allow student of
strategic communication to explore the links between culture, communication, and
organizational change. Often, the term is associated with power and decision making. When
used in conjunction with communication, strategic implies that communication practice is a
management function.
An emphasis on action and practice
The term strategic is often associated with practice and the tactics used to implement strategy.
The term strategic has the potential to investigate the importance and contribution of the
tactical level of communication practice and so legitimate the work of communication
practice at all levels.
Academic clusters
Four principal clusters of scholarship from which strategic communication can draw:
1. Corporate communication – applications of the term relates to communication of
whole companies, as communication of whole organizations, as holistic
communication in a corporate environment, and as holistic communication in an
organizational environment
2. Marketing, advertising, and public relations – Traditionally, marketing
communications focused on advertising, but in recent years the discipline has seen a
broader emphasis on marketing communications
3. Business communication skills – Understanding of communication in this line of
thinking extends from learning communication skills as components of organizational
communication competence to prescriptions of the “right communication” for
“linguistic control” over employees
4. Organizational communication – Combines the traditional study of rhetoric with
newly emerging social sciences, speech communication, and communication science.
The mainstream of academic organizational communication today is focused on five
notions: communication media, channels, and networks; organizational climate; and
superior–subordinate communication
4
