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Affordances and aesthetics of digital media platforms have given politicians new ways to connect with potential voters and actively manage their own self-image. Digital political communication is also often influenced by current trends in PR or commercial marketing; for example, the tools and tactics of social media influencers. Based on qualitative case studies of YouTube channels belonging to two Swedish party leaders, this article examines the adaptation of influencer practices in the politicians’ online presence, and what impact it has on the presentation of themselves and their politics. It analyses how different genres of beauty and lifestyle influencers are embraced and adapted to a political context, as well as the ways in which specific audio-visual elements are used to construct the mediated performance of political authenticity, giving viewers ‘behind-the-scenes’ access to the politicians’ personal as well as professional life. The analysis shows how the adaption of videos in confessional genres such as story time, Q&A, and vlog, which feature personal expressions of emotions and experiences, is illustrative of an increased personalisation of political communication, where the dimension if intimacy is emphasised.

This paper addresses one large university initiative for educational development aimed at further developing educations and teacher competence with a focus on technology-enhanced and lifelong learning. The aim of the paper is to describe and problematize the design of an ongoing project for educational development, Higher Education and Digitalisation (HEaD). It focuses on identifying key components of an educational development project for technology enhanced learning as well as how such a project can be organized to sustain in regular university operations. The article discusses how a project for educational development can create over-time durable infrastructures, organization, policy and motivation for maintaining a continual educational development. In the first phase of the project, a model was developed for how competence development can be conducted sustainably. This model contains two perspectives: (1) an organizational perspective that focuses on the key partners to be involved; and (2) a process perspective that focuses on activities and aims in strategic competence development projects. The tentative model with its two perspectives is described and discussed in this article as a preliminary result. The model includes four identified key entities and their roles in pedagogical digital competence development; academic departments and their faculty, educational developers, infrastructure and IT-department and the pedagogical research unit. Further, a process model based on existing support structures, complemented with activities that can be sustained after the HEaD project ends is presented., HEaD

Intresseorganisationer eller non-governmental organizations(NGOs) som de kallas i engelsktalande länder är den organisationsform som både nationellt och internationellt har vuxit sig till en av de starkaste samhällsaktörerna. I kort kan vi definiera dessa organisationer som aktörer som agerar på mandat från sina medlemmar och som har till syfte att samla, utveckla och sprida sina medlemmars intressen och önskemål till andra aktörer i samhället –främst men inte uteslutande till politiken. Dessa organisationer står idag för en betydande del av både nationelltoch internationellt utvecklings-,reglerings-och styrningsarbeteinom de flesta samhällsområden som ekonomi, ekologi, kultur, idrott, utbildning, forskning m.m. (Djelic & Sahlin-Andersson, 2006). I många avseenden är intresseorganisationer en nödvändig komponent för en fungerande samhällsordning då dessa organisationer genom sina medlemmar representerar intressen, behov och önskemål som inte alltid uppmärksammas, förstås eller prioriteras av den politiska och offentliga sektorn. Samtidigt har framväxten och betydelsen av dessa organisationer gjort att de traditionella institutionernahar kommit att utmanas och på en del områden även ersättas av organiserade intressen. Eftersom intresseorganisationer inte har mandat att påverka olika samhällsområden genom direktreglering och styrning (som de folkvalda institutionernakan) pratar vi vanligen om intresseorganisationers arbete i termer av soft governance–dvs. arbete som kommer till uttryck genom att ta fram och sprida kunskap, värderingar, normer och standarder inom de områden inom vilka de är verksamma (Mörth, 2004).

This study employed a constitutive (CCO) communication approach to advance the dynamic concept of communication maturity for the purpose of theorizing, analyzing, and developing communication value on an organizational level. A literature review resulted in six theoretical areas related to communication maturity: understanding, function, organization, prerequisites, competence and practices including assessments of communication. These were analyzed in a qualitative comparative case study including 85 key stakeholders from eleven organizations. Findings illustrated the relevance of the theoretical areas to stakeholders’ perceptions of their respective organizations’ communication maturity. A first version of a Communication Maturity Index including four levels of maturity; immature, emerging, established, and mature is proposed. Based on the qualitative analysis, organizations’ communication maturity levels varied from emerging to mature. Findings of this study are limited to participating organizations and interviewed stakeholders. The CMI can be further developed in quantitative studies to investigate the constitutive role of communication in organizations and to be used in practice to develop higher levels of communication maturity.

This paper posits the notion of digital political labour (DPL) as a rewarding concept for the analysis of political communication and social media. Numerous studies conclude that the engagement, dialogic and social affordances of social media have not yet been realised. But despite the lack of direct interaction, active audiences are, by their own actions in social media, taking part in DPL since audiences do not only receive political messages but contribute significantly with their own user-generated content. The empirical data in this study are from the official Facebook pages of Swedish political parties during the 2014 national election campaign. The results show that most of the communications work is actually performed by the audiences, and not by the parties themselves. This study highlight two important dimensions of DPL where users constitute targets and carriers of advertising as well as audiences whose free labour generates political campaign content.

This article is a critical exploration of the professionalization of public relations as a struggle or contest over the meaning of work, and it engages with a question about the driving forces behind the long-standing professional project of public relations. The article will use the concepts of ‘dirty work’ and ‘occupational branding’ to address the relation between the role actually performed, normative ideals, and the image of the occupation. The article analyzes op-eds authored by public relations practitioners, scholars, and representatives from professional organizations in newspapers and trade media in order to explore the ways in which the meaning of public relations work is described, contested, and framed, and, consequently, the occupational brand of public relations is formed.

This paper posits the notion of digital political labour (DPL) as a rewarding concept for the analysis of political public relations and social media. Numerous studies conclude that the engagement, dialogic and social affordances of social media have not yet been realized. But despite the lack of direct interaction, active audiences are, by their own actions in social media, taking part in DPL since audiences do not only receive political messages but contribute significantly with their own user-generated content. This empirical data in this study is from the official Facebook pages of Swedish political parties during the 2014 national election campaign. The results show that most of the communications work is actually performed by the audiences, and not by the parties themselves. This study highlight two important dimensions of DPL where users constitute targets and carriers of advertising as well as audiences whose free labour generates political campaign content.

The ways in which election campaigns are planned, organized, and conducted have changed considerably during recent decades, and political parties constantly employ new ideas and practices in order to communicate as strategically and effectively as possible. The concept of strategic political communication refers to an organization's purposeful management of information and communication to achieve certain political goals. In this article, we focus on the role of the individual political party in developing election campaigning. The empirical material covers the 2002, 2006, and 2010 Swedish national election campaigns and illustrates how political parties lead and follow each other in the development of strategic political communication. By exploring party agency, this article contributes to the understanding of how ideas and practices of strategic political communication emerge and develop over time in election campaigning., First published: 13 September 2016

This article explores the institutionalization of strategic communication as a dynamic interplay between macro- and mesolevel discourses. The change processes in the two cases of this study involved both a reorientation of the purpose of the communication function and a physical relocation of the professionals to a centralized department. In both organizations, the transformation toward a strategic management function failed and the communication professionals are now working in ways similar to those before the change was initiated. The analysis illustrates that the institutionalization of strategic communication is effected by organizational-level processes and mechanisms that are not always controlled by communication professionals. The institutionalization of strategic communication is bound by organizational discourses as well as by the actions of communication practitioners and general managers. The study also shows that macro- and mesolevel discourses influence the ways in which change initiatives are translated and strategic communication effected on an organizational level. Hence, institutionalization processes of strategic communication will comply with management trends but can change direction when these trends are challenged. Our results expose that new ideas or practices of strategic communication are translated discursively within organizations in processes of recontextualization, reinterpretation, and reframing. Consequently, new ideas and practices of strategic communication are adjusted to organizational discourses and organizational settings. The translation of a new idea or practice will therefore change the initial meaning of that same idea or practice. For that reason, institutionalization of strategic communication should not be reduced to a unidirectional process but conceptualized as a dynamic interplay between discourses on different levels that moves institutionalization in multiple directions.

Recent research focus on the constitutive role of communication in shaping organizing processes within the research field of organizational communication. We present results from a project undertaken in a Swedish municipality, which highlights the role of communication, and key communication factors for sustainable organizing. We provide our conclusions on how organizational leaders and members communicate when shaping creative and healthy organizations.

The different ways in which political parties handle environmental changes and challenges they are faced with is often analyzed as a process of adaption where political parties are under the pressure to adapt in order to keep up with developments because it can render strategic advantages. However, political parties do not operate in a vacuum and have to relate to meso and micro environmental factors as well. Nevertheless, there is little research that focuses on if and how party level and inter-party level factors influence the development of strategic political communication. The purpose of this paper is to explore the importance of party agency and inter-party influence for the development of strategic political communication in election campaigning. The empirical material of this study covers the 2002, 2006, 2010 and 2014 Swedish national election campaigns.

Book Chapter

In research on political campaign communication, it is often assumed that campaign strategies and tactics are highly important for explaining election outcomes. In contrast, most research in political science tends to emphasize the importance of political substance, long-term factors such as party identification, and real-world conditions for explaining election outcomes. Although political parties in practice treat election campaigns as highly important and consequential, there is virtually no research on how party elites perceive the importance of campaign strategies and tactics when explaining election outcomes. Hence, drawing on a survey among Swedish members of parliament, this study investigates party elite perceptions of what matters when people decide which party to vote for and of what matters when explaining election outcomes. In brief, the results show that members of parliament perceive campaign strategies and tactics as significantly less important than the substance of politics. In the concluding analysis, the implications of the results are analyzed.

Development and expansion of the communication management function in organizations has resulted in the incorporation of responsibility for the strategic planning and management of employee communications and change communication. However, the role of communication managers and executives in organizational change management varies between organizations, and there seems to be a relationship between the overall role of the communication executive in the organization and the role in change management. In this paper we develop a conceptual framework, which includes important theories and factors that influence and explain the process of institutionalization of communication management in organizational change. The theoretical framework includes three main areas; social capital, organizational structure and perceptions of the profession and four levels of analysis: the societal, the organizational field, the organizational and the individual levels. It provides a comprehensive conceptual basis for the development of empirical research investigating the role and practice of communication management in strategic management of change.