The book challenges the notion that public relations in Europe is no more than a copy of the Anglo-American approach. It presents a nation-by-nation introduction to historical public relations ...developments and current topics in European countries, written by noted national experts in public relations research and well-known professionals who are able to oversee the situation in their own countries. The contributions take an "insider" point of view and combine researched facts and figures with qualitative observations and personal reviews. In addition, the book provides conceptual statements that offer an insight into theoretical approaches.
The purpose of this conceptual article is to explore what agility means for communication planning. Agility is focused on adaptation to change. A review of current communication planning models shows ...that most models are focused on long-term detailed planning with little room to fully adapt to change. In contrast, agility encourages to focus on choices to be tested, not only at the output or tactic levels but for every choice in the strategy. This implies that we should alter our idea of evaluation as the final step in our planning models and focus much more on goal-based and goal-free formative evaluation, in order to test choices over and over again and show that strategy is not a product but a process of adaptation. The design of an agile communication strategy must be short and simple and show the coherence of the choices made. Based on the literature in business and marketing strategy modeling, a framework for an agile communication strategy with eight building blocks is presented. The intention of this model is to introduce a framework that helps to see strategy building as a narrative that ensures coherence in the choices made and offers room for fully adapting to change.
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to analyze what the concept of agility means for communication evaluation and measurement and to challenge assumptions of goal-oriented and organization-centric ...approaches to evaluation and measurement.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper is a development debate based on a literature review, regarding agility, evaluation theory, communication evaluation approaches and what agility means for communication measurement.
Findings
Agility teaches that what works is more important than what was agreed upon in advance, so it is with more emphasis on needs rather than objectives. Regarding evaluation, the findings show that in today’s communication evaluation theory, evaluation is equated with summative evaluation of smart designed and fixed objectives. In agility, evaluation is always formative, to foster development and improvement within an ongoing activity. Consequently smart objectives are no longer valid as fixed benchmarks and ex ante and ex post evaluations do not exist; instead evaluation is an on-going and forward looking activity during action. Regarding measurement, the basic focus in agility on user needs implies that qualitative methods are more obvious than quantitative. The classic Weberian idea of “Verstehen” is helpful to understand how to focus on needs rather than objectives. This paper finally explores the merits of action research and sense-making methodology as applicable measurements in which “Verstehen” is the basis.
Research limitations/implications
Agility is a very radical concept. The practical and theoretical implications of agile evaluation and measurement mean a total change for practice as well as for communication measurement and evaluation theory building.
Originality/value
The value of this paper is that it is the first to include agility into communication evaluation and measurement and that it, consequently, moves beyond organization-centric concepts of evaluation and measurement by bringing the often overlooked user needs into the game.
Let's Talk Society - and the society we´re talking about is in transition to a green and sustainable society, an inclusive society, and an innovative and reflective society. What is our role as ...communication professionals in all of this? How can we foster public debate? This book addresses these challenges and offers some answers.
This article addresses the concept of "communication" in strategic communication, and proposes a new lens through which to view communication in order to deepen knowledge of strategic communication, ...as well as to significantly improve the alignment of strategic communication with the demands of today's strategy development process. Looking at modern strategy theory, this article focuses on communication theory as an ongoing process of meaning construction. It posits that communication is a process that is interactive by nature and participatory at all levels. This process is not necessarily two-way but omnidirectional diachronic, with an emphasis on the external and internal arenas of continuous meaning presentations, negotiations, and constructions. Strategic communication, therefore, needs to be conceptualized as an agile management process in which the focus is on feeding these arenas for strategy building and implementation, and on testing strategic decisions by presenting and negotiating these in a continuous loop.
This ebook analyses the role of public relations in a society characterised by huge technological and economic changes, political movements, environmental issues. The articles included in this ebook ...deal with the situated meanings of these societal issues and the influence of public relations in this regard. The volume contains some of the best contributions among 45 presented papers during the 2016 Congress of EUPRERA (European Public Relations Education and Research Association) held in Groningen, The Netherlands. The title of the Congress was Let's talk society. How strategic communication shapes value and innovation in society . Within the time span of three days, over 200 participants from 25 countries and 71 institutions gathered to discuss on this topic.
•Today, organizations live in a public arena of ongoing constructions of meanings.•To cope with this arena, public relations planning needs to be agile and adaptive.•Existing public relations ...planning methods see change as an obstacle for delivering predefined results.•This urges for a view of communication as a multi-way diachronic process of ongoing meaning constructions.•Scrum is a strong instrument to become a reflective practitioner, able to adapt to change.
In this paper a new, agile, method will be introduced for public relations planning. Existing planning methods all suggest that research and analysis should be the first phase, followed by strategy, smart goals and a detailed action plan, and ending with an evaluation of the results. These models provide an undesirable illusion of control. That is why this approach is no longer suitable in a digitalized society in which organizations must function in a public arena of ongoing constructions of meanings done by (self-invented) stakeholders. Consequently, the context of modern public relations is much more complex than the rusted notion of two-way communication with relevant publics implicates. That is why preference should be given to the view that communication is not so much communication between two or more actors but is a multi-way diachronic process of ongoing constructions of meanings in which one cannot foresee who is – or will be – involved, in what way, and what the results will be. To be successful, a more flexible planning method is needed in which change is a defining part during the process. Scrum is such a method. To make it applicable in public relations, this agile method, well-known in IT, needed to be expanded by supplementing theory on communication, change and reflectivity, and by enrichment of the common notion of evaluation.
PDF
