Communication is a necessity for human existence. The capacity to communicate effectively among people is key to the effective functioning of any human system in modern society. This is more so for corporate organizations, governments, and institutions that have set goals to achieve, which require the engagement of stakeholders or target audiences.
Over the years, a wide range of communication activities such as public relations, advertising, and corporate communication have been employed by private and public organizations, as well as the government, to gain the attention, admiration, and support of their target audiences to influence patronage and the actualization of set goals. While these conventional communication approaches are necessary, they are limited on their own, considering the complexity of human beings in the current Information Age.
Influencing the target audience to support a given course or policy, or patronize a product or service, is today a herculean task that goes beyond the mere pushing out of information or establishing and maintaining mutually satisfying relationships, as characterized by the conventional communication approaches. Therefore, there has been a growing understanding that for any organization to achieve its goals, it must not just communicate, but strategically communicate.
Although the term Strategic Communication is not new, it is under research, especially in developing nations. Until recently, authorities had not shown adequate interest in exploring and building the concept of Strategic Communication into a unified independent body of knowledge, discipline, and practice. As an emerging field, there is a need for more studies.
It is in this light that this Chapter examines the meaning and emergence of Strategic Communication, its relationship and differences with other communication disciplines, and how it is applied in modern society.
1.1. Meaning of Strategic Communication
The concept of Strategic Communication is composed of two significant terms – ‘Strategic’ and ‘Communication’. The term ‘strategic’ is often associated with tactics used to implement a strategy (Mintzberg, 1990). It also has to do with careful reasoning regarding the best approach to achieve a goal (Agbasimelo, 2020).
Communication, on the other hand, is often described as an act of sharing messages and ideas. Despite the above explanation, it is not easy and it is not adequate to understand the meaning of Strategic Communication by simply combining the literal meaning of the two root words. This is because the term ‘Strategic Communication’, as observed by Hallahan, Holtzhausen, van Ruler, Verčič & Sriramesh (2007) is rich and multi-dimensional.
This is coupled with the fact that the concept has received a plethora of definitions and explanations from scholars in different fields such as communication, corporate management, military, and health amongst others. Hence, care must be taken to avoid narrowing the meaning to a single field; rather efforts should be geared toward building a more generic meaning or explanation of the concept.
One of the most popular definitions of Strategic Communication is by Hallahan et al. (2007). According to them, Strategic Communication is “The purposeful use of communication by an organization to fulfill its mission….”.
In the same vein, Lindley-French (2011) elaborates on the definition, by saying that Strategic Communication is a purposeful and coordinated series of communication initiatives aimed at influencing an organized group’s attitudes, conduct, and perception toward the goal or cause which an organization stands for.
Simplifying this further, Gelders and Ihlen (2010) define Strategic Communication as the deliberate delivery of messages using the most appropriate media to the targeted audience at the proper time in a way that contributes to and achieves the anticipated long-term effect.
