Strategic Communication

Informed by decades’ worth of agency experience, Bernard Gauthier prepares aspiring public relations professionals to think strategically about communication and to plan and implement effective campaigns. Strategic Communication in Canada is grounded upon a simple yet comprehensive framework called the CARE model, which teaches readers how to strategically select goals and objectives that bring about change, identify and engage key audiences, determine their strongest resources as well as those needing improvement, and scan the external environment for opportunities and threats. Brimming with examples from the Canadian context, this highly accessible text demonstrates how to develop a communication strategy, from building an action plan and amassing content, to implementing the campaign and evaluating the results. Easy to follow, this step-by-step guide to strategic planning features practical advice and study tools such as learning objectives, key terms and concepts, questions for critical reflection, and an original, detailed case study of a successful campaign. This insightful read is essential for students in public relations, marketing communication, and business strategy.

What tactics can effective science communicators use to reach a wide audience and achieve their goals? Effective science communication—the type that can drive behavior change while boosting the likelihood that people will turn to science when faced with challenges—is not simply a matter of utilizing social media or employing innovative tactics like nudges. Even more important for success is building long-term strategic paths to achieve well-articulated goals. Smart science communicators also want to create communication opportunities to improve their own thinking and behavior. In this guidebook, John C. Besley and Anthony Dudo encapsulate their practical expertise in 11 evidence-based principles of strategic science communication. Among other things, science communicators, they argue, should strive to seem competent, warm, honest, and willing to listen. Their work should also convey a desire to make the world a better place. Highlighting time-tested methods for building rapport with an audience through several modes of communication, Besley and Dudo explain how to achieve each strategic objective. All scientific communication is goal-oriented, and Besley and Dudo discuss the importance of recognizing the right goals, then employing strategic and tactical communication in order to achieve them. Finally, they offer specific suggestions for how practitioners can evaluate the effectiveness of their communications (and in fact, build evaluation into their plans from the beginning). Strategic Science Communication is the first book to use social science to help scientists and professional science communicators become more evidence-based. Besley and Dudo draw on insightful research into the science of science communication to provide readers with an opportunity to think more deeply about how to make communication choices. This guidebook is essential reading for all professionals in the field.

This book examines the state of strategic communication as a discipline and how it has emerged as a unique area of scholarship in the beginning of the 21st century. Strategic communication encompasses all communication that is substantial for the survival and sustained success of entities like corporations, governments, non-profits, social movements, and celebrities. A major aspect of the field is the purposeful use of communication by an organization to engage in conversations of strategic significance to its goals. The contributions in this book provide unique insights, make compelling arguments, and highlight promising areas of scholarship in strategic communication. Presented in four parts, the chapters explore the emergence of strategic communication, its conceptual foundations, its expanding body of knowledge, and the foundation for further development and new directions in the field. Of interest to those studying communication from the perspectives of communication science, management theory, organizational studies, or business administration, this volume will also be useful for readers who are new to strategic communication, and who are interested in the field for its new avenues of research. This book was originally published as a special issue of the International Journal of Strategic Communication.

The focus of this book is Strategic Communication. Communication can be defined as strategic if its development and/or dissemination is driven by an expected outcome. These outcomes can be attitudinal, behavioral, persuasive or knowledge-related; they can lead to change or engagement, or they can miss their mark entirely. In looking at strategic communication, one is not limited to a specific context or discipline. Many of the scholars in the volume are generating research that covers strategic communication in ways that are meaningful across fields. This volume collects the work and idea of scholars who cover the spectrum of strategic communication from source to message to audience to channel to effects. Strategic Communication offers news perspectives across contexts and is rooted firmly in the rich research traditions of persuasion and media effects. Spanning multiple disciplines and written to appeal to a large audience, this book will be found in the hands of researchers, graduate students, and students doing interdisciplinary coursework.

The Routledge Handbook of Strategic Communication provides a comprehensive review of research in the strategic communication domain and offers educators and graduate-level students a compilation of approaches to and studies of varying aspects of the field. The volume provides insights into ongoing discussions that build an emerging body of knowledge. Focusing on the metatheoretical, philosophical, and applied aspects of strategic communication, the parts of the volume cover: • Conceptual foundations, • Institutional and organizational dimensions, • Implementing strategic communication, and • Domains of practice An international set of authors contributes to this volume, illustrating the broad arena in which this work is taking place. A timely volume surveying the current state of scholarship, this Handbook is essential reading for scholars in strategic communication at all levels of experience.

Communication in the public sphere as well as within organizational contexts has attracted the interest of researchers over the past century. Current forms of citizen engagement and community development, partly enabled through digital communication, have further enhanced the visibility and relevance of non-profit communication. These are performed by the civil society, which is 'the organized expression of the values and interests of society' (Castells, 2008) in the public sphere. Non-profit communication feeds the public sphere as 'the discursive processes in a complex network of persons, institutionalized associations and organizations,' whereas those 'discourses are a civilized way of disagreeing openly about essential matters of common concern' (Jensen, 2002). Despite the relevance in the public sphere, non-profit communication was never properly defined within communication research. The aim of the present book is to offer an overview and report on Strategic Communication for Non-Profit-Organisations and the Challenges and Alternative Approaches. Considering the assumption that a key principle of strategic communication is the achievement of organisational goals, the majority of research developed in the field has used business environments to develop theories, models, empirical insights and case studies. Here, we take a step towards new approaches centred on the concept of non-profit in various dimensions and from various perspectives, showing the diversity and complexity around this subject and at the same time the need of further theoretical and empirical work that provides frameworks and also tools for further understanding of the phenomena.

This volume in the Contemporary Military, Strategic, and Security Issues series presents a concise introduction to the evolution, key concepts, discourse, and future options for improved strategic communication in today's U.S. government. Strategic Communication: Origins, Concepts, and Current Debates is a groundbreaking study, the first book explicitly focused on strategic communication as it is currently used and discussed in the U.S. government. Written specifically for those who are new to strategic communication, this incisive book clarifies the definitional debate, explores the history of the term and its practice, and embraces a broad, practical definition. But that is only the beginning. Moving to the realities of the issue, author Christopher Paul reviews dozens of government reports on strategic communication and public diplomacy released since 2000, examining specific proposals related to improving strategic communication in the U.S. government and explaining the disagreements. Most important, he offers consensus and clarity for the way ahead, discussing how disparate elements of the government can be coordinated to master—and win—the "war of ideas" through fully integrated and synchronized communications and actions.

Designed to support the paradigm shift in media and communication, this book presents the basic tenets of strategic communication and its foundational disciplines of advertising, public relations, and marketing communications. Drawing on the latest research in the field, the text introduces students to the theories of strategic communication while at the same time outlining how to apply them to everyday practice. To facilitate learning and tie concepts to practice, each chapter includes introductory focus questions, a contemporary global case study, a career profile of a current practitioner, end-of-chapter discussion questions, and features that highlight how research methods can be applied to strategic communication practice. Principles of Strategic Communication is ideal as a core text for undergraduate students in strategic communication courses within media, communication, marketing, and advertising programs. The accompanying online support material features chapter summaries, useful links to examples of strategic communication in action, suggested further reading, and practice test questions. Instructors will find an instructor’s resource manual that includes sample syllabi, class activities, lecture topics, and a test bank. Please visit www.routledge.com/9780367426316.