The Dark Side of Communication

Abstract

The expression “the dark side” seems to have become a portmanteau term for all things opaque, unwanted or even unlawful. There is a plethora of examples to that fact – from popular culture, where the unfortunate ones may ‘turn to the dark side of the force’, to the natural sciences, where dark matter is matter that does not absorb, reflect or emit electromagnetic radiation and therefore difficult to come to terms with. Somewhat closer to home, disciplinarily speaking, in, say, strategic communication “the dark side” pertains to (corporate) communication perceived as intentionally ambiguous – and maybe unlawfully so. In organization studies, “the dark side” encompasses deviant or even harmful organizational behavior. In interpersonal communication, “the dark side” deals with immoral, dysfunctional or malicious communication. In sum, by calling forth “the dark side” of communication we intuitively seem to evoke a sort of Manichean discourse of light vs. dark, in casu: of good vs. evil communication. If we look at communication activities in organizational and/or professional contexts in lieu of this, it seems to be a question of whether communication is seen as manipulatory, i.e. as “dark”/evil, or emancipatory, i.e. as “light”/good. This, in turn, effectively stigmatizes dark side communication activities as vehicles for the (organizational or corporate) propagation of suppression of unwanted ethical, political, and ideological voices and discourses. While this is probably not altogether wrong, it is probably also not altogether always the case. With The Dark Side of Communication as the theme of the 2019 conference of the research group Communicating Organizations at Aalborg University, Denmark (https://www.en.culture.aau.dk/research/researchgroups/ComOrg/), the research group wished to explore and substantially deepen our understanding of what dark side communication activities ‘are’ and what they ‘do’ in or with reference to organizational contexts. For this conference, the Communicating Organizations research group therefore invited fellow scholars to engage in exploring and problematizing issues such as, but not limited to: