Topic Based Strategic Communication and Corporate Newsrooms

The digital transformation has increased demands and pressures on corporate communications, but it has also brought about opportunities. Due to the changing media landscape and the changes in stakeholders’ media use, corporate communications must meet stakeholders’ needs by operating quickly and in a coordinated manner, while simultaneously meeting the requirements for resource efficiency. Opportunities result from news ways of directly communicating with audiences via owned media, which force organizations to think and work like media producers.

In this research project we analyze how organizations address these challenges and opportunities by means of topic-based strategic communication management, which we define as the systematic management of strategically critical narratives, stories, and media content that define the identity of the organization in the eyes of its stakeholders (Seiffert-Brockmann & Einwiller, 2020). To do so effectively, many organizations have changed or are changing their internal structures and processes. This is accompanied by a transformation towards greater agility. Several organizations have also established newsrooms that organize and manage their topic-based communication.

In 2018/19, this project was supported by the Academic Society for Management & Communication as part of a larger research project on „Corporate Communications in Agile Organizations”, a joint effort by researchers at the Universities of Leipzig, Münster and Vienna.

Publications and Presentations:

• Ninova-Solovykh, N., Seiffert-Brockmann, J., Einwiller, S., Wolfgruber, D., & Berger, K. (2019). It's all about content. Strategic Topic Management in agile organizations (Communication Insights, Issue 6). Leipzig, Germany: Academic Society for Management & Communication. Available online at www.academic-society.net
• Seiffert-Brockmann, J., & Einwiller, S. (2020). Content-Strategien in der Unternehmenskommunikation: Themensetzung, Storytelling und Newsrooms. In A. Zerfaß, M. Piwinger, & U. Röttger (Hrsg.), Handbuch Unternehmenskommunikation. Strategie – Management – Wertschöpfung (3. Aufl.). SpringerGabler.
• Seiffert-Brockmann, J., Einwiller, S., & Wolfgruber, D. (2019, May). Agile Content Management.
  Paper presented at the 69th annual conference of the International Communication Association (ICA), 23-29 May, Washington D.C., USA.