Year: 2013
Type: other
Abstract: T he quality of government communication matters for human well-being.Governing necessarily involves constant exchanges of information and communication about policies, ideas and decisions between governors and the governed.In a context in which internet technology, with all its possibilities of information processing and targeted communication, is pushing forward what Pfetsch denominates the 'professionalization of government communication' (2008, pp.71-2), government communication is 'a large growth industry in many countries' (Howlett, 2009, p. 23) as governments contract agencies and expand capacity.Having written in 2010 that 'despite its key importance for twentyfirst-century politics, the topic of government communication has been a neglected area of scholarly interest' (Canel & Sanders, 2012, p. 85), a few years on the situation has changed significantly.Government communication (and related concepts such as political public relations, government public relations and government political marketing) has attracted the interest of a growing number of researchers.There is a realization of the need to build bridges between cognate areas and disciplines for the study of government communication (Lee, 2008;Strömbäck, Mitrook & Kiousis, 2010; Liu, Horsley & Levenshus, 2010; Horsley, Liu & Levenshus, 2010;Jackson, 2010;Hong, Park, Lee & Park, 2012).Nevertheless, there is still work to be done since, although there is research examining specific issues, concepts and countries, there is as yet no thorough and systematic interdisciplinary study of the subject.In the United States, for example, authors have explored in depth presidential rhetoric and presidential communication strategies (Denton & Hahn, 1986; Smith & Smith, 1994;
Authors: María José Canel, Karen Sanders
Language: English
Subfield: Communication
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: gold
OpenAlex ID: W2340495642