Towards an emerging paradigm of strategic communication: Core driving forces

Abstract

Major forces such as globalisation, the digital network revolution and the empowerment of myriad new stakeholders have resulted in a blurring of communication genres such as marketing and corporate communications, and are redefining the role of the communications professional within business and society. Such fundamental changes require that both scholars and practitioners challenge their own assumptions and consider the implications of these paradigm shifts. The values of the modernist age, resulting in linear, top-down, consensus-seeking decision-making behaviour, must be revisited to make way for emerging values such as activism, dialogue, communal values and dissent, which allow for co-creation and a multiplicity of viewpoints. This article reflects on paradigmatic debates and identifies shifts from modern to postmodern organisational practice, and how these impact on communication practices and integrated communication. Consideration is given to some theoretical, practical, research and educational implications of these shifts as core driving forces towards the new emerging paradigm of strategic communication, which can best be conceptualised as purposeful communication to realise the organisational mission.     

The case for ‘face-time’ in a computer-mediated global economy

Abstract

The structuring of marketing and communication management within key organisations in South Africa is changing. These changes are affecting the relationship between marketing and communication practitioners, as well as the key tasks they are responsible for within the organisation. Globally, companies are downsizing, restructuring and eliminating hierarchy. This article investigates how key South African companies have responded to these changes, by looking at how the marketing and communication functions are structured within the organisation. Marketing and communication managers from top South African companies were interviewed telephonically. Findings from the study indicate that the two functions are progressively moving towards an integrated approach. However, a commonly agreed organisational structure is still not pervasive. Each organisation structured the marketing and communication functions differently, and various perspectives existed on the key tasks of both marketing and communication managers. From these findings, it is evident that the relationship between marketing and communication, as well as the role and tasks of marketing and communication managers, is still very diverse in the South African context.     

Alessandro Orsini. Anatomy of the Red Brigades: The Religious Mind-Set of Modern Terrorists

ABSTRACT

Those who study terrorism are familiar with the claim that suicide attacks are the most lethal form of terrorism today. Suicide attacks kill more people on average than non-suicide attacks, thereby justifying why terrorist organizations use this costly method of attack and explaining in part why suicide tactics have proliferated. However, extant empirical support for this claim is largely insufficient, focusing only on macro-level analysis of lethality data. Using data from the Global Terrorism Database, this study examines variation in lethality among suicide and non-suicide attacks based on geographic location, attack type, and target/victim type. It also introduces a new metric—the lethality ratio—to measure costs and benefits of attacks in terms of lives lost. It finds that, although suicide tactics are generally more lethal than non-suicide tactics, they also come at greater costs to the organization. This analysis also finds behavior that is inconsistent with the premise that terrorist groups are focused on maximizing lethality while reducing costs in all cases; that despite certain advantages, suicide attacks may remain a suboptimal tactic from the perspective of the terrorist group; and that additional criteria may help explain why suicide tactics are used.     

广西建设生态省的战略对策思考

当前,生态省建设的概念已经超出了原来生态区域的狭义的生态保护和生态平衡含义,目标是朝着生态效益型经济的方向发展,目的是应对入世后的国际化竞争新形势,配合工业化、信息化和城市化,抢占生态经济制高点,实现不同于其它地区的持续快速发展。广西建设生态省是立足区情,适应国际国内经济社会发展新形势,实现全面小康社会目标的一项重要战略,其意义重大。     

Is experimentalist governance self-limiting or self-reinforcing? Strategic uncertainty and recursive rulemaking in European Union electricity regulation

Is experimentalist governance (XG) self-limiting or self-reinforcing by virtue of its relationship to strategic uncertainty as an essential scope condition? This article tackles this important but understudied question by elaborating a series of idealtypical pathways for the temporal evolution of XG in specific policy domains, ranging from reversion to hierarchical governance through endogenous reduction of strategic uncertainty at one extreme to institutionalization of experimentalism as a multipurpose governance architecture at the other. It then goes on to test the empirical validity of these contrasting theoretical expectations about the long-term relationship between XG and strategic uncertainty through a process-tracing analysis of electricity regulation in the European Union over a series of policy cycles since the 1990s. Building on and extending previous research in this domain, this article's findings strengthen empirical confidence in the theoretical expectation that XG is self-reinforcing, while diminishing confidence in the claim that it is self-limiting.     

美国对华拒止性威慑战略论析

拒止性威慑的思想源远流长,作为一种军事战略的拒止性威慑具有广泛性、实时性和受挑战性三个主要特点。拒止性威慑的思路相比惩罚性威慑更具操作性,在信息化战争时代也更具优势。美国战略学界认为,在西太平洋地区中美实力日渐接近的情况下,对华拒止性威慑战略是较优选项。美国对华拒止性威慑战略兴于特朗普政府时期,其主要特点是加强军事系统弹性能力建设与发展新战区导弹防御体系。拜登政府则在“一体化威慑”框架下应用对华拒止性威慑,发展深度防御能力。美国对拒止性威慑战略的理解与应用已经突破了传统意义上偏重防御的拒止性威慑模式。该战略的目标是联合盟友阻止中国在西太平洋地区的快速军事行动,维持和巩固在该地区的军事主导权。虽然美国对华拒止性威慑战略的实践受到了诸多内外因素制约,但其给中美带来的负面影响仍在不断加深,并对地区安全构成巨大挑战。中国需要主动培塑有利于军力发展的良好环境,发展新技术装备,应对美国对华拒止性威慑战略实践造成的军事胁迫,降低各类战略风险。     

"战略时间差"与中国的战略安全

国际关系中的时间包括时间点、时间段和时间过程。从国际博弈的时间长度来看,既有宏观时间的博弈,也有微观时间的博弈,二者都有可能产生战略性的影响。纵观古今中外历史,把握“战略时间差”虽然不一定能做到“不战而屈人之兵”,但能够做到以更小的代价获得博弈的优势地位。中国的战略安全是与战略机遇期联系在一起的,过去四十多年中国发展和大国成长战略机遇的获得主要由于技术革命、权力转移和西方的战略失误三个因素,但中国在新时代需要主动通过把握和运用“战略时间差”来塑造战略机遇。从总体战略来看,中国仍然需要争取和平的国际环境,以彰显中国在走向世界舞台中央时的世界担当;要尽力争取所有的国际博弈尤其中美博弈为正和博弈,以化解既有主导国对正在崛起的中国的担心和不信任;关键还要着力中国的内部发展,这是获得战略机遇期的实质性内容。把握所有“战略时间差”的最终目标是实现中华民族的伟大复兴,在世界舞台上和平崛起。     

New media and strategic narratives: the Dutch referendum on Ukraine – EU Association Agreement in Ukrainian and Russian Internet blogs

ABSTRACT

This article analyses two confronting narratives authored by Ukrainian and Russian bloggers who reported the Dutch referendum held on 6 March 2016, and discussed Dutch citizens’ referendum vote on the Ukraine–EU Association Agreement. The considered narratives, addressed to the Ukrainian and Russian audiences respectively, are viewed as strategic because they specifically portray political actors of the referendum “drama” – the Netherlands, the European Union (EU), Ukraine and Russia. These actors are significant participants of European international relations, and their perceptions of one another are important for European security at the present time of critical diplomacy. In this paper, information about the DUTCH REFERENDUM obtained from the new media texts is regarded as a narrative-based political concept (NBPC). It is argued that this concept has different versions, or images that reflect the narrators’ biased perceptions imposed upon the public. Identification and comparison of such images require a particular methodology. Therefore, the objective of this paper is two-fold: to expose the two confronting versions of a strategically relevant political image, and to develop an authentic, interdisciplinary methodology for its analysis. The proposed methodology is informed by the ontology theory employed in cognitive science and cognitive linguistics.     

Normative power Europe and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict: the EU’s peacebuilding narrative meets local narratives

ABSTRACT

This article conceives the EU’s normative power in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as a narrative that projects views of the international system, the EU’s identity as a peacebuilder, and its positions on specific conflict issues. Highlighting the importance of local narratives as cultural filters, this article argues that a high degree of alignment of local narratives with key elements of the EU’s normative power narrative facilitates positive images of the EU as a normative power in peacebuilding, whilst diverging local narratives tend to give rise to more critical views. Yet, the case of Palestine also shows that strong narrative alignment with the EU may encourage high expectations, resulting in critical views about inconsistencies between the EU’s normative aspirations and its actual foreign policy conduct.     

知识产权管理和保障的政府职能研究——以陕西省产业技术创新战略联盟为例

产业技术创新战略联盟的良性发展,有赖于规范高效的知识产权管理和保障机制。从一定意义上讲,以政策立法为依据的政府知识产权激励、保障、服务和监督规范四大职能构成了联盟知识产权外部管理和保障机制的核心要素。健全产业技术创新战略联盟政府知识产权管理保障职能,应建立更为完整细致的知识产权规范体系,改进知识产权激励职能,优化知识产权服务职能,健全知识产权保障职能,明确知识产权监督规范职能。