SCoO Notes, 2
018
LM1 - What’s Corporate Communication?
Van Ruler (2018)
The communication process is not necessarily two-way but omnidirectional
diachronic, with an emphasis on the external and internal a renas of
continuous meaning presentations, negotiations, and constructions.
SC has evolved overtime, big concept and interdisciplinary, multiple lenses,
so Van Ruler proposes a ‘right way’ to understand and interpret it.
● Because theories are abstractions, every theory is partial. This is the reason
why there is much disagreement about what constitutes an adequate theory
of communication.
● In classical Latin, communicare meant “to share with,” “to share out,” “to
make generally accessible” or “to discuss together”; Rosengren suggests that
communication, above all, is the process of meaning creation; questions
concerning how people create meaning psychologically, socially, and
culturally; how messages are understood intellectually; and how ambiguity
arises and is resolved.
● Three lenses; one-way, two-way & omnidirectional diachronic
● Carey’s ritual model; a ritual model sees communication as a symbolic
process, whereby reality is produced, maintained, repaired, and transformed,
over and over again, in a very dynamic and uncontrolled way.
● We should be talking about plural meanings creations, instead of meaning
creation, and as an ongoing process that develops as it occurs and cannot
be predicted.
● Reflective perspective; reflecting yourself from the perspective of your
stakeholders. Reflexivity or r eflectivity, which I prefer to use, is the
counterpart of causality: it is an ongoing, interactive process, and not a
discrete, linear one. Along these lines of thinking, reflectivity must be seen as
the core concept of societal interaction because it provides a better
explanation of what happens than causality. Human beings reflect upon
themselves in relation to individual others and the social group as a whole,
and as a result their knowledge is reflective.
● Strategic communication is seen as strategic when it integrates all those
communications that are associated with organizational goals and strategies.
for some, strategy precedes strategic communication; for others, strategic
communication also constitutes strategy.
● I consider communication as the constituting pillar of strategic
communication, and strategy is the context in which strategic
communication takes place.
1
,● We should no longer focus on strategic communication as a one-way process
from the organization to audiences that presents, promotes and realizes
organizational goals and strategy. I would prefer to focus on the amalgam of
ongoing communication processes in the context of strategy building,
presenting, realizing, negotiating and rebuilding. We have to embrace the
idea that communication is a process that is interactive by nature and
participatory at all levels. I proposed here that strategic communication
should be conceptualized as an agile management process in which the
focus is on feeding the arenas in which meanings are presented, negotiated,
constructed, or reconstructed for strategy.
● Emergent vs deliberate strategy; responding to the situation, more relevant
today vs planning ahead, top down strategy
● CCO; C ommunicative processes basically constitute the organization
(ongoing helix)
● Canvas Questions;
a. What is the difference between one-way and two-way
communication? One way communication is the sender-receiver model
with no interaction, where in the two way model there is some interaction
(e.g. feedback)
b. What is meant by “communication as an omnidirectional diachronic
process of meaning development”? T hrough a lens of communication as
omnidirectional diachronic process of meaning development itself,
interaction is seen as a d ynamic interplay between actors in their roles as
senders and receivers, which influences the consequences of the
communicative transactions at a fundamental level. interaction is focused
on the social acts of all those engaged in a relationship with the
communicative process itself and not so much focused on their
relationship with each other. This is to be seen as a virtual process
occurring at the level of the interpretations made by senders and
receivers, which influence the meanings they give to a message and
consequently the effects of the message. Seen through this lens, actors
are not necessarily related or in proximity to each other.
c. What does the term “strategic communication” mean? strategic
communication is seen as strategic when it integrates all those
communications that are associated with organizational goals and
strategies. For some, strategic communication is focused on presenting
and promoting goals and strategies; for others, it is also focused on driving
its development. In other words, for some, strategy precedes strategic
communication; for others, strategic communication also constitutes
strategy. For some, organization comes before strategic communication;
for others, communication is the thing that itself constitutes the dynamics
of an organization (CCO perspective). we may conclude that strategic
communication scholars have very different ideas of the role
communication plays in the context of strategic communication and how
it works. Some see it as a controlled one-way process of a sender, who is
2
, attempting to gain approval from the audience; for others, it is a
constituting process in which decisions are made. This leads to a different
approach to strategic communication as well: for some, strategic
communication is there to help the organization to gain approval for its
strategic choices; for others, the focus is on the constituting process by
which strategy is built. Are we looking at two completely different schools
of thought; do we have to choose one of them? Considering the context in
which strategic communication works (organizational strategy), I do not
believe so. This makes it important to have a closer look at strategy theory
and the role of communication within it.
d. Why is communication theory important to our understanding of
communication management? By looking through the stages of the
field, we understand which
●
●
Morsing &
Cornelissen (2016)
1. Metaphors make it easier to grasp abstract & practical matters
2. New metaphor for CC; ‘spider’, ‘machine’, ‘beehive’
3. Holism (seeing a big organization as one entity) & synergy (working
together)
4. Canvas questions;
3
, a. What distinguishes corporate communication from other
management-oriented disciplines?
b. What is meant by “the metaphor of holism”?
c. Could you think of any other metaphors to describe corporate
communication (aside from the ones that are already mentioned in the
text)?
d. What do you think are the advantages and disadvantages of using
metaphors that you listed?
e.
Christensen & Cornelissen (2011)
Corporate communication functions as a specific way of thinking that
pervades and shapes many different types of organizations and corporate
communication, as a consequence, is highly relevant to the field of
organizational communication, even though it is often driven by other
disciplinary concerns.
● The vision of contemporary corporate communication, in other words, is to
manage all communications under one banner, as corporate messages
speak to many audiences at once in the hope of establishing and
maintaining favorable and c
oherent corporate reputations across different
stakeholder groups. In practice, the vision of wholeness unfolds into a goal of
projecting a consistent and unambiguous image of what the organization “is”
and stands for.
● Corporate communication, accordingly, defines a whole range of new
managerial activities focused on the integration, c
oordination, and
orchestration of an organization’s communications (the alignment of
symbols, messages, and so on, is necessary for organizations to optimize their
4
018
LM1 - What’s Corporate Communication?
Van Ruler (2018)
The communication process is not necessarily two-way but omnidirectional
diachronic, with an emphasis on the external and internal a renas of
continuous meaning presentations, negotiations, and constructions.
SC has evolved overtime, big concept and interdisciplinary, multiple lenses,
so Van Ruler proposes a ‘right way’ to understand and interpret it.
● Because theories are abstractions, every theory is partial. This is the reason
why there is much disagreement about what constitutes an adequate theory
of communication.
● In classical Latin, communicare meant “to share with,” “to share out,” “to
make generally accessible” or “to discuss together”; Rosengren suggests that
communication, above all, is the process of meaning creation; questions
concerning how people create meaning psychologically, socially, and
culturally; how messages are understood intellectually; and how ambiguity
arises and is resolved.
● Three lenses; one-way, two-way & omnidirectional diachronic
● Carey’s ritual model; a ritual model sees communication as a symbolic
process, whereby reality is produced, maintained, repaired, and transformed,
over and over again, in a very dynamic and uncontrolled way.
● We should be talking about plural meanings creations, instead of meaning
creation, and as an ongoing process that develops as it occurs and cannot
be predicted.
● Reflective perspective; reflecting yourself from the perspective of your
stakeholders. Reflexivity or r eflectivity, which I prefer to use, is the
counterpart of causality: it is an ongoing, interactive process, and not a
discrete, linear one. Along these lines of thinking, reflectivity must be seen as
the core concept of societal interaction because it provides a better
explanation of what happens than causality. Human beings reflect upon
themselves in relation to individual others and the social group as a whole,
and as a result their knowledge is reflective.
● Strategic communication is seen as strategic when it integrates all those
communications that are associated with organizational goals and strategies.
for some, strategy precedes strategic communication; for others, strategic
communication also constitutes strategy.
● I consider communication as the constituting pillar of strategic
communication, and strategy is the context in which strategic
communication takes place.
1
,● We should no longer focus on strategic communication as a one-way process
from the organization to audiences that presents, promotes and realizes
organizational goals and strategy. I would prefer to focus on the amalgam of
ongoing communication processes in the context of strategy building,
presenting, realizing, negotiating and rebuilding. We have to embrace the
idea that communication is a process that is interactive by nature and
participatory at all levels. I proposed here that strategic communication
should be conceptualized as an agile management process in which the
focus is on feeding the arenas in which meanings are presented, negotiated,
constructed, or reconstructed for strategy.
● Emergent vs deliberate strategy; responding to the situation, more relevant
today vs planning ahead, top down strategy
● CCO; C ommunicative processes basically constitute the organization
(ongoing helix)
● Canvas Questions;
a. What is the difference between one-way and two-way
communication? One way communication is the sender-receiver model
with no interaction, where in the two way model there is some interaction
(e.g. feedback)
b. What is meant by “communication as an omnidirectional diachronic
process of meaning development”? T hrough a lens of communication as
omnidirectional diachronic process of meaning development itself,
interaction is seen as a d ynamic interplay between actors in their roles as
senders and receivers, which influences the consequences of the
communicative transactions at a fundamental level. interaction is focused
on the social acts of all those engaged in a relationship with the
communicative process itself and not so much focused on their
relationship with each other. This is to be seen as a virtual process
occurring at the level of the interpretations made by senders and
receivers, which influence the meanings they give to a message and
consequently the effects of the message. Seen through this lens, actors
are not necessarily related or in proximity to each other.
c. What does the term “strategic communication” mean? strategic
communication is seen as strategic when it integrates all those
communications that are associated with organizational goals and
strategies. For some, strategic communication is focused on presenting
and promoting goals and strategies; for others, it is also focused on driving
its development. In other words, for some, strategy precedes strategic
communication; for others, strategic communication also constitutes
strategy. For some, organization comes before strategic communication;
for others, communication is the thing that itself constitutes the dynamics
of an organization (CCO perspective). we may conclude that strategic
communication scholars have very different ideas of the role
communication plays in the context of strategic communication and how
it works. Some see it as a controlled one-way process of a sender, who is
2
, attempting to gain approval from the audience; for others, it is a
constituting process in which decisions are made. This leads to a different
approach to strategic communication as well: for some, strategic
communication is there to help the organization to gain approval for its
strategic choices; for others, the focus is on the constituting process by
which strategy is built. Are we looking at two completely different schools
of thought; do we have to choose one of them? Considering the context in
which strategic communication works (organizational strategy), I do not
believe so. This makes it important to have a closer look at strategy theory
and the role of communication within it.
d. Why is communication theory important to our understanding of
communication management? By looking through the stages of the
field, we understand which
●
●
Morsing &
Cornelissen (2016)
1. Metaphors make it easier to grasp abstract & practical matters
2. New metaphor for CC; ‘spider’, ‘machine’, ‘beehive’
3. Holism (seeing a big organization as one entity) & synergy (working
together)
4. Canvas questions;
3
, a. What distinguishes corporate communication from other
management-oriented disciplines?
b. What is meant by “the metaphor of holism”?
c. Could you think of any other metaphors to describe corporate
communication (aside from the ones that are already mentioned in the
text)?
d. What do you think are the advantages and disadvantages of using
metaphors that you listed?
e.
Christensen & Cornelissen (2011)
Corporate communication functions as a specific way of thinking that
pervades and shapes many different types of organizations and corporate
communication, as a consequence, is highly relevant to the field of
organizational communication, even though it is often driven by other
disciplinary concerns.
● The vision of contemporary corporate communication, in other words, is to
manage all communications under one banner, as corporate messages
speak to many audiences at once in the hope of establishing and
maintaining favorable and c
oherent corporate reputations across different
stakeholder groups. In practice, the vision of wholeness unfolds into a goal of
projecting a consistent and unambiguous image of what the organization “is”
and stands for.
● Corporate communication, accordingly, defines a whole range of new
managerial activities focused on the integration, c
oordination, and
orchestration of an organization’s communications (the alignment of
symbols, messages, and so on, is necessary for organizations to optimize their
4
