Pub Date : 2022-12-28DOI: 10.24434/j.scoms.2022.03.4033
Silke Fürst, D. Vogler, Isabel Sörensen, Mike S. Schäfer
Higher education institutions (HEIs) are pivotal organizations in modern societies. Over the past decades, the higher education sector has expanded considerably in countries across the world, with many newly founded colleges and universities and rapid increases in student enrollment and research output. In addition, new public management reforms and a growing need for societal legitimation have led many HEIs to establish or enlarge their communication departments, pursue branding and reputation management, and professionalize their communication efforts across various channels. Although a growing body of literature has shed light on how HEIs engage in public relations (PR) and science communication, we know little about how their communication has developed over time and in relation to the fundamental transformations in higher education systems and the media landscape in recent years, decades, and even centuries. Most existing sketches of such historical developments have focused on one country – as is typical for histories of PR in general – and have been dedicated to the second half of the 20th century. In contrast, the early beginnings of university communication since the late 19th century and recent trends in the past decade have been little researched. This guest editorial and the contributions of this Thematic Section on Changing Communication of Higher Education Institutions address these gaps in research and together shed light on developments in different European countries, as well as in the U. S.
{"title":"Communication of higher education institutions: Historical developments and changes over the past decade","authors":"Silke Fürst, D. Vogler, Isabel Sörensen, Mike S. Schäfer","doi":"10.24434/j.scoms.2022.03.4033","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.24434/j.scoms.2022.03.4033","url":null,"abstract":"Higher education institutions (HEIs) are pivotal organizations in modern societies. Over the past decades, the higher education sector has expanded considerably in countries across the world, with many newly founded colleges and universities and rapid increases in student enrollment and research output. In addition, new public management reforms and a growing need for societal legitimation have led many HEIs to establish or enlarge their communication departments, pursue branding and reputation management, and professionalize their communication efforts across various channels. Although a growing body of literature has shed light on how HEIs engage in public relations (PR) and science communication, we know little about how their communication has developed over time and in relation to the fundamental transformations in higher education systems and the media landscape in recent years, decades, and even centuries. Most existing sketches of such historical developments have focused on one country – as is typical for histories of PR in general – and have been dedicated to the second half of the 20th century. In contrast, the early beginnings of university communication since the late 19th century and recent trends in the past decade have been little researched. This guest editorial and the contributions of this Thematic Section on Changing Communication of Higher Education Institutions address these gaps in research and together shed light on developments in different European countries, as well as in the U. S.","PeriodicalId":38434,"journal":{"name":"Studies in Communication Sciences","volume":"29 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-12-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"83846466","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-11-01DOI: 10.24434/j.scoms.2023.01.3433
J. Wilke
Organisations are – as communication studies know – constituted through communication. Against this theoretical background, the International Labour Organisation (ILO), which was founded in 1919 after the end of the First World War as a sub-organisation of the League of Nations, is examined here. It came into being in the course of the Versailles peace negotiations with the aim of harmonising the rules and standards of labour internationally and creating common standards for this purpose. The primary function of the ILO was to collect and disseminate information and communication on labour conditions in the world in order to adopt conventions and make recommendations on the basis of this information (e.g., on daily working hours, night work, women’s and children’s work, etc.). The external constitution and the internal structure of the organisation were designed for this. The prevalence of the ILO’s communication is also confirmed by the considerable communication costs and the wide range of communication instruments it used. Methodologically, this is a hermeneutic examination of the sources produced by the ILO in the process of its foundation and establishment. The organisation documented and archived its activities extensively from the beginning.
{"title":"The prevalence of communication. A case study in the communication history of the International Labour Organisation (ILO)","authors":"J. Wilke","doi":"10.24434/j.scoms.2023.01.3433","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.24434/j.scoms.2023.01.3433","url":null,"abstract":"Organisations are – as communication studies know – constituted through communication. Against this theoretical background, the International Labour Organisation (ILO), which was founded in 1919 after the end of the First World War as a sub-organisation of the League of Nations, is examined here. It came into being in the course of the Versailles peace negotiations with the aim of harmonising the rules and standards of labour internationally and creating common standards for this purpose. The primary function of the ILO was to collect and disseminate information and communication on labour conditions in the world in order to adopt conventions and make recommendations on the basis of this information (e.g., on daily working hours, night work, women’s and children’s work, etc.). The external constitution and the internal structure of the organisation were designed for this. The prevalence of the ILO’s communication is also confirmed by the considerable communication costs and the wide range of communication instruments it used. Methodologically, this is a hermeneutic examination of the sources produced by the ILO in the process of its foundation and establishment. The organisation documented and archived its activities extensively from the beginning.","PeriodicalId":38434,"journal":{"name":"Studies in Communication Sciences","volume":"22 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"78047242","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-10-27DOI: 10.24434/j.scoms.2022.03.3340
Jonathan Gruber, E. Hargittai, M. Nguyen
Face-to-face communication is important for building and maintaining relationships. The COVID-19 pandemic led to severe limitations in people’s face-to-face interactions, resulting in most people relying more heavily on digital communication for social connection. Existing research has contributed to the understanding of how face-to-face communication is used alongside digital communication. However, we know little about what elements of face-to-face interactions people miss especially when in-person meetings are heavily reduced, and how this is related to their use of digital communication for social connection. In this study, we draw upon survey data that we collected in spring 2020 from a national sample of U. S. adults to answer these questions. We find that most people missed elements of face-to-face interactions and particularly valued spontaneous interactions, physical closeness, and independence from technology about in-person interactions. More frequent and increasing use of popular digital modes such as voice calls, video calls, text messages, and social media were all positively related to missing face-to-face communication. Our results contribute to the understanding of the role and value of in-person interactions in a digital world.
{"title":"The value of face-to-face communication in the digital world: What people miss about in-person interactions when those are limited","authors":"Jonathan Gruber, E. Hargittai, M. Nguyen","doi":"10.24434/j.scoms.2022.03.3340","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.24434/j.scoms.2022.03.3340","url":null,"abstract":"Face-to-face communication is important for building and maintaining relationships. The COVID-19 pandemic led to severe limitations in people’s face-to-face interactions, resulting in most people relying more heavily on digital communication for social connection. Existing research has contributed to the understanding of how face-to-face communication is used alongside digital communication. However, we know little about what elements of face-to-face interactions people miss especially when in-person meetings are heavily reduced, and how this is related to their use of digital communication for social connection. In this study, we draw upon survey data that we collected in spring 2020 from a national sample of U. S. adults to answer these questions. We find that most people missed elements of face-to-face interactions and particularly valued spontaneous interactions, physical closeness, and independence from technology about in-person interactions. More frequent and increasing use of popular digital modes such as voice calls, video calls, text messages, and social media were all positively related to missing face-to-face communication. Our results contribute to the understanding of the role and value of in-person interactions in a digital world.","PeriodicalId":38434,"journal":{"name":"Studies in Communication Sciences","volume":"56 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-10-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"84510376","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-10-25DOI: 10.24434/j.scoms.2023.01.2728
M. Potthoff
Individual studies in the empirical social sciences have limited explanatory power, as they focus on particular aspects of the overarching objects of research. To explain complex communicative phenomena or describe multistep processes, individual findings need to be combined. Often, however, such an integration does not occur, and opportunities to expand the explanatory power of existing results beyond their immediate scope remain unexploited. Drawing from examples in practical research, this paper describes six metatheoretical, methodological, and context factors that explain why a higher degree of co-creation and integration remains unrealized. A good understanding of these factors can easily be translated into measures that can achieve more integration and make our results more impactful. Furthermore, the illustration of the six factors indicates where integrable findings can be found in this fragmented research landscape. The resulting recommendations are made in the hope that integrative work will be upgraded and further established as a methodological niche in the generation of insights.
{"title":"How can we strengthen the integration of findings in communication sciences?","authors":"M. Potthoff","doi":"10.24434/j.scoms.2023.01.2728","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.24434/j.scoms.2023.01.2728","url":null,"abstract":"Individual studies in the empirical social sciences have limited explanatory power, as they focus on particular aspects of the overarching objects of research. To explain complex communicative phenomena or describe multistep processes, individual findings need to be combined. Often, however, such an integration does not occur, and opportunities to expand the explanatory power of existing results beyond their immediate scope remain unexploited. Drawing from examples in practical research, this paper describes six metatheoretical, methodological, and context factors that explain why a higher degree of co-creation and integration remains unrealized. A good understanding of these factors can easily be translated into measures that can achieve more integration and make our results more impactful. Furthermore, the illustration of the six factors indicates where integrable findings can be found in this fragmented research landscape. The resulting recommendations are made in the hope that integrative work will be upgraded and further established as a methodological niche in the generation of insights.","PeriodicalId":38434,"journal":{"name":"Studies in Communication Sciences","volume":"13 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-10-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"73168355","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-10-12DOI: 10.24434/j.scoms.2022.03.3285
Esa Väliverronen, Tanja Sihvonen, Salla-Maaria Laaksonen, M. Koskela
This article examines the branding of the new Tampere University in Finland and the reactions it evoked in Finnish social media and news media between 2018–2020. The merger of the University of Tampere and Tampere University of Technology into a new foundation-based university provoked considerable public debate and sparked uproar over the communication style and practices of the university’s new management. The main reason for the outcry was that the new governance model of the university ignored the traditional democratic way of running a university. Our article contributes to the growing literature on public relations communication in higher education by focusing on promotional culture and the role of the changing media landscape in university branding. We analyze how and why the brand messages were contested and transformed into memes and satirical commentaries on social media. When the university’s management tried to restrain this subversive play with legal sanctions, the issue escalated into the news media. Our qualitative analysis demonstrates the possible repercussions of a quasi-corporate style of communication on the credibility of the university as a higher education institution in a hybrid media environment.
{"title":"Branding the “wow-academy”: The risks of promotional culture and quasi-corporate communication in higher education","authors":"Esa Väliverronen, Tanja Sihvonen, Salla-Maaria Laaksonen, M. Koskela","doi":"10.24434/j.scoms.2022.03.3285","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.24434/j.scoms.2022.03.3285","url":null,"abstract":"This article examines the branding of the new Tampere University in Finland and the reactions it evoked in Finnish social media and news media between 2018–2020. The merger of the University of Tampere and Tampere University of Technology into a new foundation-based university provoked considerable public debate and sparked uproar over the communication style and practices of the university’s new management. The main reason for the outcry was that the new governance model of the university ignored the traditional democratic way of running a university. Our article contributes to the growing literature on public relations communication in higher education by focusing on promotional culture and the role of the changing media landscape in university branding. We analyze how and why the brand messages were contested and transformed into memes and satirical commentaries on social media. When the university’s management tried to restrain this subversive play with legal sanctions, the issue escalated into the news media. Our qualitative analysis demonstrates the possible repercussions of a quasi-corporate style of communication on the credibility of the university as a higher education institution in a hybrid media environment.","PeriodicalId":38434,"journal":{"name":"Studies in Communication Sciences","volume":"170 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-10-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"74870281","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-10-10DOI: 10.24434/j.scoms.2022.03.2928
Regula Hänggli Fricker, Noemi Trucco
In this paper, we investigate framing in the case of an imam in Switzerland. We conducted a qualitative content analysis of 175 articles from Swiss newspapers and public broadcasting websites in German and French to examine how Bekim Alimi, an imam in Wil, Switzerland, was portrayed in the news media from 2015–2019. Powerful and / or prominent actors who made an effort, journalists, as well as the object of the debate, Bekim Alimi, contribute to frame building. We identify two key events (the inauguration of the Gotthard Base Tunnel and Alimi’s naturalization process) as highly crucial for the framing of the debate because they stimulate some frame sponsors to become active. When they speak out, the debates become more intense and broader. In this way, key events hold the possibility to discuss a situation in depth, to create orientation, to offer solutions (prognostic framing), or to motivate people (motivational framing) to become active.
{"title":"Bad guy or good guy? The framing of an imam","authors":"Regula Hänggli Fricker, Noemi Trucco","doi":"10.24434/j.scoms.2022.03.2928","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.24434/j.scoms.2022.03.2928","url":null,"abstract":"In this paper, we investigate framing in the case of an imam in Switzerland. We conducted a qualitative content analysis of 175 articles from Swiss newspapers and public broadcasting websites in German and French to examine how Bekim Alimi, an imam in Wil, Switzerland, was portrayed in the news media from 2015–2019. Powerful and / or prominent actors who made an effort, journalists, as well as the object of the debate, Bekim Alimi, contribute to frame building. We identify two key events (the inauguration of the Gotthard Base Tunnel and Alimi’s naturalization process) as highly crucial for the framing of the debate because they stimulate some frame sponsors to become active. When they speak out, the debates become more intense and broader. In this way, key events hold the possibility to discuss a situation in depth, to create orientation, to offer solutions (prognostic framing), or to motivate people (motivational framing) to become active.","PeriodicalId":38434,"journal":{"name":"Studies in Communication Sciences","volume":"51 2","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-10-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"72487048","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-09-21DOI: 10.24434/j.scoms.2022.02.006
Maija Ozola-Schade
From an intergroup relations perspective, attitudes toward immigration derive from assessments of immigrants’ ethnic proximity to the host society. However, attitudes are embedded not only in the notion of intergroup relations, they are influenced by the information environment in which public discourse about immigration is shaped. This paper investigates whether the quality of the media system contributes to the emergence of a well-informed public that is more likely to reinforce democratic values and thus have more positive attitudes toward immigration. The European Social Survey data (2002–2018) from 19 European countries are combined with media quality indicators from the Varieties of Democracy project and studied in a cross-national comparative perspective. Results confirm that Europeans prefer immigrants that are ethnically more similar to the majority of the host society, regardless of time or given country. Furthermore, attitudes are more positive in countries with stronger public services. Moreover, a higher quality media system that reflects the level of media freedom, opinion plurality, self-governance, and objectivity, fosters pro-immigration attitudes, especially for immigrants who are ethnically different from the host society.
{"title":"Intergroup relations and media: The effects of media system quality in explaining immigration attitudes","authors":"Maija Ozola-Schade","doi":"10.24434/j.scoms.2022.02.006","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.24434/j.scoms.2022.02.006","url":null,"abstract":"From an intergroup relations perspective, attitudes toward immigration derive from assessments of immigrants’ ethnic proximity to the host society. However, attitudes are embedded not only in the notion of intergroup relations, they are influenced by the information environment in which public discourse about immigration is shaped. This paper investigates whether the quality of the media system contributes to the emergence of a well-informed public that is more likely to reinforce democratic values and thus have more positive attitudes toward immigration. The European Social Survey data (2002–2018) from 19 European countries are combined with media quality indicators from the Varieties of Democracy project and studied in a cross-national comparative perspective. Results confirm that Europeans prefer immigrants that are ethnically more similar to the majority of the host society, regardless of time or given country. Furthermore, attitudes are more positive in countries with stronger public services. Moreover, a higher quality media system that reflects the level of media freedom, opinion plurality, self-governance, and objectivity, fosters pro-immigration attitudes, especially for immigrants who are ethnically different from the host society.","PeriodicalId":38434,"journal":{"name":"Studies in Communication Sciences","volume":"9 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-09-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"91241452","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-09-21DOI: 10.24434/j.scoms.2022.02.031
Sophie Mützel
Research Exposed. How Empirical Social Science Gets Done in the Digital Age is an edited volume with 12 chapters that individually and as a collection have the ability to draw the reader in – like the stories of a cook in a kitchen would do, who is narrating how they came to concoct a particular recipe, how approaches failed, what worked, how they found out, and which turn led to the final recipe. Analogously, this edited volume by Eszter Hargittai allows us to look behind the scenes of how empirical social science is being done. Adding to previous edited collections Research Confidential (Hargittai, 2009) and Digital Research Confidential (Hargittai & Sandvig, 2015), this book provides honest insights from researchers who have done the work, with information on lots of trial-and-error processes that are typically hidden behind “Method and Data” sections of finished publications.
{"title":"Eszter Hargittai (Ed.). Research exposed. How empirical social science gets done in the digital age","authors":"Sophie Mützel","doi":"10.24434/j.scoms.2022.02.031","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.24434/j.scoms.2022.02.031","url":null,"abstract":"Research Exposed. How Empirical Social Science Gets Done in the Digital Age is an edited volume with 12 chapters that individually and as a collection have the ability to draw the reader in – like the stories of a cook in a kitchen would do, who is narrating how they came to concoct a particular recipe, how approaches failed, what worked, how they found out, and which turn led to the final recipe. Analogously, this edited volume by Eszter Hargittai allows us to look behind the scenes of how empirical social science is being done. Adding to previous edited collections Research Confidential (Hargittai, 2009) and Digital Research Confidential (Hargittai & Sandvig, 2015), this book provides honest insights from researchers who have done the work, with information on lots of trial-and-error processes that are typically hidden behind “Method and Data” sections of finished publications.","PeriodicalId":38434,"journal":{"name":"Studies in Communication Sciences","volume":"22 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-09-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"81796115","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-09-21DOI: 10.24434/j.scoms.2022.02.007
G. Gurr, Christina Schumann, Julia Metag
A significant amount of political communication research is grounded in the dynamics of the media’s and the public’s attention to public issues, assuming that the news media draw the public’s attention to issues, thereby fostering an informed and participating citizenry. However, there is evidence from several countries that this mechanism is disrupted for issues with high shares of news coverage during a period. Against this background, this article scrutinizes the idea that recipients become fatigued from these issues in the news. Having transferred findings on overexposure from other media stimuli to the news environment, issue fatigue is defined as a negative cognitive and affective state consisting of decreasing issue-specific information processing involvement, perceived information overload, and increasing boredom, annoyance, and anger toward an issue. Issue fatigue can lead to the avoidance of information about the issue, thus serving as a new explanatory approach to avoidance of media information at an issue level. Further consequences, causes, and the development of issue fatigue are discussed.
{"title":"Negative effects of long-lasting media attention to public issues on recipients: Conceptualizing issue fatigue","authors":"G. Gurr, Christina Schumann, Julia Metag","doi":"10.24434/j.scoms.2022.02.007","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.24434/j.scoms.2022.02.007","url":null,"abstract":"A significant amount of political communication research is grounded in the dynamics of the media’s and the public’s attention to public issues, assuming that the news media draw the public’s attention to issues, thereby fostering an informed and participating citizenry. However, there is evidence from several countries that this mechanism is disrupted for issues with high shares of news coverage during a period. Against this background, this article scrutinizes the idea that recipients become fatigued from these issues in the news. Having transferred findings on overexposure from other media stimuli to the news environment, issue fatigue is defined as a negative cognitive and affective state consisting of decreasing issue-specific information processing involvement, perceived information overload, and increasing boredom, annoyance, and anger toward an issue. Issue fatigue can lead to the avoidance of information about the issue, thus serving as a new explanatory approach to avoidance of media information at an issue level. Further consequences, causes, and the development of issue fatigue are discussed.","PeriodicalId":38434,"journal":{"name":"Studies in Communication Sciences","volume":"43 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-09-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"78707667","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-09-05DOI: 10.24434/j.scoms.2022.03.3489
Silke Fürst, Sophia Charlotte Volk, Mike S. Schäfer, D. Vogler, Isabel Sörensen
Over the past decades, higher education institutions (HEIs) across the world have institutionalized communication departments and played an increasingly important role in communicating science to the public. While a growing body of research has analyzed the practices and structures of central communication departments in HEIs, little is known about developments over time. This study examines perceived changes in HEI communication along different analytical dimensions and across HEI types. Conceptually, neo-institutional theory is used to derive the factors that foster this change, specifically the new public management reforms and the accompanying coercive, normative, and mimetic pressures on HEIs. The empirical study is based on a survey of 196 members of HEI leadership in Switzerland. The results show that, according to organizational leaders, HEI communication has diversified and intensified considerably over the last five to ten years. It has also become – albeit to a somewhat lesser extent – more professional and strategic. Multiple linear regression analysis reveals that the strongest predictors of perceived change in HEI communication are the goal to build public reputation, the perceived competition among HEIs for public reputation, and the observation of other Swiss HEIs. The study outlines implications for future research and for HEI communicators.
{"title":"Assessing changes in the public communication of higher education institutions: A survey of leaders of Swiss universities and colleges","authors":"Silke Fürst, Sophia Charlotte Volk, Mike S. Schäfer, D. Vogler, Isabel Sörensen","doi":"10.24434/j.scoms.2022.03.3489","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.24434/j.scoms.2022.03.3489","url":null,"abstract":"Over the past decades, higher education institutions (HEIs) across the world have institutionalized communication departments and played an increasingly important role in communicating science to the public. While a growing body of research has analyzed the practices and structures of central communication departments in HEIs, little is known about developments over time. This study examines perceived changes in HEI communication along different analytical dimensions and across HEI types. Conceptually, neo-institutional theory is used to derive the factors that foster this change, specifically the new public management reforms and the accompanying coercive, normative, and mimetic pressures on HEIs. The empirical study is based on a survey of 196 members of HEI leadership in Switzerland. The results show that, according to organizational leaders, HEI communication has diversified and intensified considerably over the last five to ten years. It has also become – albeit to a somewhat lesser extent – more professional and strategic. Multiple linear regression analysis reveals that the strongest predictors of perceived change in HEI communication are the goal to build public reputation, the perceived competition among HEIs for public reputation, and the observation of other Swiss HEIs. The study outlines implications for future research and for HEI communicators.","PeriodicalId":38434,"journal":{"name":"Studies in Communication Sciences","volume":"74 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-09-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"78989090","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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