This book is the first of its kind within the African region to combine scholarly perspectives from the fields of Strategic Communication Management and Communication for Development and Social Change. It draws insights from scholars across the African continent by unravelling the complementary nature of scholarship between the two fields, through the lens of prevailing governance and sustainability challenges facing African countries, today. This edited volume covers issues that have adversely affected the achievement of goals related to humanitarian upliftment, development and social change for all African nations. Consequently, citizen participation, which lies at the heart of these challenges when considering the question of sustainable governance and policy development for social change in an African context is addressed. To this end, a reflection is also made on various case studies that exist where local citizens do not inform sustainable development programmes, while the promotion of bottom-up development and social change is largely replaced by top-down instrumental action approaches and hemispheric communication instead of strategic communication. Themes explored include: ● Communication for social change, bottom-up development and social movements in the local government sphere ● Strategic communication in governance, planning and policy reforms ● The role of multi-stakeholder partnerships in achieving development of objectives geared towards good governance in Africa ● Public participation, protests, and resistance from 'below' ● Public sector health communications and development ● Media relations, accountability and contested development narratives with the Fourth Estate ● Social media and eParticipation in government development programs.

This handbook provides a single reference resource for communication for development and social change. Increasingly, one considers communication to be crucial to effectively tackle the major problems of today. Hence, the question being addressed in this handbook is, is there a right communication strategy? Perspectives on sustainability, participation, and culture in communication have changed over time in line with the evolution of development approaches and trends, and in response to the need for effective applications of communication methods and tools to new issues and priorities. Divided into prominent themes comprising relevant chapters written by experts in the field and reviewed by renowned editors, the book addresses topics where communication and social change converge in both theory and praxis. Specific concerns and issues include food security, climate change, poverty reduction, health, equity and gender, sustainable development goals, and information and communication technologies (ICTs). The book shows how communication is essential at all levels of society. It helps readers understand the processes that underlie attitude change and decision-making and the work uses powerful models and methods to explain the processes that lead to sustainable development and social change. This is essential reading for academics and practitioners, students and policy makers alike.

This book examines the central role media and communication play in the activities of Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) around the globe, how NGOs communicate with key publics, engage stakeholders, target political actors, enable input from civil society, and create participatory opportunities. An international line-up of authors first discuss communication practices, strategies, and media uses by NGOs, providing insights into the specifics of NGO programs for social change goals and reveal particular sets of tactics NGOs commonly employ. The book then presents a set of case studies of NGO organizing from all over the world—ranging from Sudan via Brazil to China – to illustrate the particular contexts that make NGO advocacy necessary, while also highlighting successful initiatives to illuminate the important spaces NGOs occupy in civil society. This comprehensive and wide-ranging exploration of global NGO communication will be of great interest to scholars across communication studies, media studies, public relations, organizational studies, political science, and development studies, while offering accessible pieces for practitioners and organizers.

Strategic Social Media is the first textbook to go beyond the marketing plans and how-to guides, and provide an overview of the theories, action plans, and case studies necessary for teaching students and readers about utilizing social media to meet marketing goals. Explores the best marketing practices for reaching business goals, while also providing strategies that students/readers can apply to any past, present or future social media platform Provides comprehensive treatment of social media in five distinct sections: landscape, messages, marketing and business models, social change, and the future Emphasizes social responsibility and ethics, and how this relates to capitalizing on market share Highlights marketing strategies grounded in research that explains how practitioners can influence audience behaviour Each chapter introduces theory, practice, action plans, and case studies to teach students the power and positive possibilities that social media hold

Indigenous Language for Development Communication in the Global South brings together voices from the margins in underrepresented regions of the Global South, within the context of scholarship focusing on indigenous languages and development communication. Contributors present cases as a starting point for further research and discussions about indigenous language and development communication in Latin America, Africa, and Asia. Scholars of communication, sociology, linguistics, and development studies will find this book of particular interest.

Strategic communication is becoming more relevant in communication sciences, though it needs to deepen its reflective practices, especially considering its potential in a VUCA world — volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous. The capillary, holistic and result-oriented nature that portrays this scientific field has led to the imperative of expanding knowledge about the different approaches, methodologies and impacts in all kinds of organisations when strategic communication is applied. Therefore Strategic Communication in Context: Theoretical Debates and Applied Research assembles several studies and essays by renowned authors who explore the topic from different angles, thus testing the elasticity of the concept. Moreover, this group of authors represents various schools of thought and geographies, making this book particularly rich and cross-disciplinary.

This book deals with the processes required to facilitate the sharing of knowledge and effect positive developmental change. It is contextual and based on dialogue. The stakeholders' participation also needs to be promoted. This is essential in order to understand of their perceptions, perspectives, values, attitudes and practices so that these can be incorporated into the design and implementation of development initiatives. The book, for the most part, follows the two-way horizontal model of communication, but also makes use of the...

In this third edition, The Global Public Relations Handbook: Theory, Research, and Practice offers state-of-the-art discussions of the global public relations industry, blending research-based theory with practice, and presented in essays from both academics and practitioners. This edition's 28 essays in three sections take into account changes in the global communication landscape especially in the last ten years. The first section contains essays that provide conceptual linkages between public relations and international political systems, economic systems and levels of development, societal culture, different media systems including digital media, and activism. Essays in the second section discuss the communication of various global actors such as corporations (including family-owned enterprises), non-profits, governments (and public sector enterprises), global public relations agencies, IGOs such as the European Union and NATO and "informal" organizations such as hactivist groups, terrorists, and failed states. The third section discusses key global communication issues such as climate change, character assassination as a communication tool, internal communication, risk and crisis communication, public affairs, and public diplomacy. This will be an essential resource for students and researchers of public relations, strategic communication, and international communication.

Communication in the public sphere as well as within organizational contexts has attracted the interest of researchers over the past century. Current forms of citizen engagement and community development, partly enabled through digital communication, have further enhanced the visibility and relevance of non-profit communication. These are performed by the civil society, which is 'the organized expression of the values and interests of society' (Castells, 2008) in the public sphere. Non-profit communication feeds the public sphere as 'the discursive processes in a complex network of persons, institutionalized associations and organizations,' whereas those 'discourses are a civilized way of disagreeing openly about essential matters of common concern' (Jensen, 2002). Despite the relevance in the public sphere, non-profit communication was never properly defined within communication research. The aim of the present book is to offer an overview and report on Strategic Communication for Non-Profit-Organisations and the Challenges and Alternative Approaches. Considering the assumption that a key principle of strategic communication is the achievement of organisational goals, the majority of research developed in the field has used business environments to develop theories, models, empirical insights and case studies. Here, we take a step towards new approaches centred on the concept of non-profit in various dimensions and from various perspectives, showing the diversity and complexity around this subject and at the same time the need of further theoretical and empirical work that provides frameworks and also tools for further understanding of the phenomena.