Strategic communication is the purposeful use of communication by an organization to reach a specific goal. Organizations like governments, corporations, NGOs and militaries seeking to communicate a concept, process, or data to satisfy their organizational or strategic goals will use strategic communication. The modern process features advanced planning, international telecommunications, and dedicated global network assets. Targeted organizational goals can include commercial, non-commercial, military business, combat, political warfare and logistic goals. Strategic communication can either be internal or external to the organization. The interdisciplinary study of strategic communications includes organizational communication, management, military history, mass communication, PR, advertising and marketing.
Definitions Strategic communication refers to policy-making and guidance for consistent information activity within an organization and between organizations. Equivalent business management terms include integrated (marketing) communication, organizational communication, corporate communication, institutional communication, etc. (see paragraph on 'Business and Commercial Application' below). It involves a strategic approach to planning, developing, and eventually executing communication campaigns in order to achieve specific goals and objectives. It also includes analyzing communication needs and overall effectiveness. Strategic communication management could be defined as the systematic planning and realization of flow of information, communication, media development, and image care on a long-term horizon. It conveys deliberate messages through the most suitable media to the designated audiences at the appropriate time to contribute to and achieve the desired long-term effect. Communication management is process creation. It has to bring three factors into balance: the message, the media channel, and the audience.
Academia In academic contexts, strategic communication has been analyzed through various conceptual frameworks, including the "5 Ps" model—plan, pattern, position, perspective, and ploy—adapted from Henry Mintzberg’s work on strategy and further developed in communication research. This perspective is further elaborated in Strategizing Communication: Theory and Practice, where Ib Tunby Gulbrandsen and Sine Just explore how communicative action and reflexive strategy-making are intertwined within the logic of the 5 Ps framework.
Business and commercial application In business and commercial settings, strategic communication is communication aligned with the company's overall strategy to enhance its strategic positioning. Strategic communication, sometimes known as public relations, is a conscious, planned, and ongoing effort made by organizations. The goal is to create a receptive environment for improving cooperation, reducing conflict, and marketing products or services. Stakeholder oriented strategic communication approach It is undisputable that strategic communication is the cornerstone for the achievement of organizational goals. It is also a fact and a well-documented stance that the problems bedeviling most African organizations emanate from heavy reliance on non-African strategic communication theories in order to solve organizational communication problems. Even though the role and impact of theories emanating from Africa is viewed as important, there is a dearth of such tools. Western informed dominant theories are not best suited to solve Sub-Saharan communication problems. In the mode of reconceptualising strategic communications, this chapter introduces a home-grown approach, the stakeholder-oriented strategic communicative control approach (SOSCCA). The approach emanates from the perspective that stakeholders strive to be in control of organisational activities. The aim of the approach is to predict elements impeding effective stakeholder communication with managers and the entire workforce. It also aims to show the importance of stakeholder control communication in ensuring the survival of organisations in stiffer competitive and crisis induced environments. The SOSCCA intends to make managers, researchers and stockholders realise the need to shift focus on managerialism. Qualitatively collected and analysed data from organisations in Sub-Saharan Africa informs this theory. Participants and organisations were conveniently sampled.
Government and Defense application
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