Notes From the Editors: Spotlight on Social Media

Abstract

This issue of the International Journal of Business Communication brings a new feature to the journal—spotlight issues. Spotlight issues present articles on topics of interest among business communication researchers (based on the number of submissions the journal has received) and stuck a chord with the wider academic community (based on the number of citations these articles have received after online publication). Spotlight issues differ from our special issues in that they emerge from articles accepted by the journal through the standard submission process; special issue articles come to the journal through specific calls for manuscripts on a given topic. Both types of issues have their place in promoting ideas in the field, and we hope to use spotlight issues to bring together manuscripts on both emerging and established topics in business communication. For our first spotlight issue, we present manuscripts on social media and its role in business communication. Social media has made enormous changes in how businesses communicate—with their employees, customers, and the public. These changes have required organizations to rethink communication strategies for dealing with a communication method that has democratized voice (Barry & Wilkinson, 2016; Mayfield & Mayfield, 2019). Social media has also given individuals a platform for positive or negative communications about the organization. In addition, social media has increased the availability and speed of information about organizations to the general public (Cardon & Marshall, 2015; Madsen, 2016). Finally, social media also presents us with ethical issues that we are only beginning to understand and grapple with. Articles in this issue explore how organizations and people have dealt with this new reality. In our first article, Men et al. (2020) examined how organizations can encourage workers to participate in an internal social media platform. Their findings showed that organizations could foster greater employee communication through strategic information use and increased transparency. In turn, these organizational actions have the reward of improving quality relationships among workers. Next, looking at social