This thesis approaches the topic of communication strategies that can influence and improve peace negotiations and conflict resolutions. The aim of this thesis is to highlight ways in which the use of communication can possibly pave the way towards a world with less conflicts by researching two communication approaches called nonviolent communication and strategic communication. To achieve a greater understanding of the two communication models, they will be applied to the case study of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Consequently, this thesis will also include a comparative analysis which will highlight differences and similarities between the two approaches where, as a result, the core of communication will be discussed.Overall, this thesis will highlight the importance of communication. Communication is a topic that affects all areas of life, the area of religion included. This thesis argues that both nonviolent communication and strategic communication are essential approaches in realising what the core of communication entails. To conclude, this thesis states that both of the two chosen communication models are useful, and can possibly pave the way towards a world with less conflicts, but in different ways. This thesis demonstrates that communication can build bridges, make connections, and restore faith in humanity.

This study examines the relevance of an established public relations theory, relationship management, to investor relations. Having emerged during the 1950s, investor relations is a relatively new field that integrates the disciplines of communication, marketing, finance, and securities laws compliance. Through qualitative interviews focused on six publicly traded companies on the West Coast, the study provides insight into the relationship management function of investor relations from the perspectives of those whom investors ultimately hold accountable for a public company's performance - CEOs. The dominant theme emerging from the study is the constant challenge CEOs of public companies face as they engage in relationships with investors, primarily due to the constraining effects of regulatory requirements. While the study confirmed that the interviewees value L. C. Hon and J. E. Grunig's qualities of trust, satisfaction, control mutuality and commitment in relationships with investors, CEOs' most frequently discussed relationship quality that they work to achieve is trust.

This study examines how LGBT activists and LGBT youth make meaning of a strategic advocacy campaign. By examining activist and advocacy efforts aimed at youth, this research brings to light how LGBT organizations use campaigns to articulate identity and, conversely, how LGBT youth articulate notions of identity. Through the lens of the It Gets Better Project, a nonprofit activist organization, this dissertation uses in-depth interviews with organizational members and chat-based interviews with LGBT youth to study the meanings participants brought to the campaign. Strategic communication has been instrumental in construction of LGBT as a cohesive collective identity and has played a vital role in the early stages of the gay rights movement. This research demonstrates how contemporary LGBT advocacy, through strategic communication, works to shape understandings of LGBT youth. Instead of focusing on the Internet as a democratic space that equalizes power differentials between an organization and its publics, this study shows that the construction of identity is the result of a dynamic process between producers and consumers in which power is localized and does not simply belong to an organization or its public. This research challenges the Internet as a democratic space and demonstrates that identity is a discursive struggle over meaning that is bound up in the intimate dance between producers and consumers of a campaign. In contrast to functionalist understandings of public relations that privileges the organization, this dissertation contends that a cultural-economic approach focuses on the processes of communication. A cultural-economic approach gives voice to the diverse audiences of a communication campaign and addresses the role communication plays as a discursive force that influences the construction of identities.

The difficulties faced by the United Kingdom in realising its stabilisation objectives in the War in Afghanistan (2001-2014) have precipitated a change in rhetorical approach by successive British Governments, from one based on liberal normative principles to one that emphasises traditional, rationalist precepts of ‘national security interests’. This transformation of ‘narrative’ is identified in this work as chronologically analogous with the institutionalisation of ‘strategic communication’ practices and doctrine emanating from the defence establishment of the British state. In this work, I argue that changes in narrative approach and the emergence of strategic communication can be understood as a consequence of an overburdened British state attempting to free itself from a ‘transnational dilemma’ (King 2010): that is, to find a means of appealing coherently and succinctly to the benefits of participation in collective security whilst avoiding threatening the viability of collective security membership by acknowledging its costs. This transnational dilemma has been exacerbated by intra-state competition over the material and ideational aspects of British strategy in Helmand, and is traceable by close empirical analysis of three competing ‘policy narratives’ for Afghanistan: stabilisation, counter-narcotics, and counter-terrorism, respectively. Intra-state competition can, in turn, be conceptualised as the result of embedded inter-state relationships of political obligation and military cooperation referred to by Edmunds (2010) as the ‘transnationalisation’ of defence policy. UK policy in Afghanistan has been guided by transnational issues, specifically the maintenance of NATO as a collective security apparatus and of the ‘special relationship’ with the United States, through which Britain secures and projects its national interest. I argue that the UK’s grand strategic commitment to transnationalisation underscores an ‘unstatable’ ultimate policy of meeting the expectations of the United States and NATO, and that the development of various policies and narratives for Afghanistan can be understood primarily in such terms. In Afghanistan, transnationalisation and the concordant pursuit of satisfying American and NATO expectations has come at the cost of a significant divestment of strategic autonomy, which has uprooted traditional, nationally-based concepts of strategy and policy to the transnational level and resulted in a strategic vacuum wherein intra-state competition has flourished. This, I argue, has compromised the ability for Britain to link policy to operations (to ‘do’ strategy)d in Afghanistan, a point which can be empirically measured by reference to the discordant and contradictory aspects of aforementioned policy narratives, which have been rooted in the institutional interests of various elements of the state. Strategic communication has arisen out of this situation as a means for the state to overcome the transnational dilemma by promoting a unified ‘strategic narrative’ for Afghanistan that has reconfigured the narrative for the conflict to one that emphasises the conflict not in terms of collective security but in ‘national’ terms. This work concludes by arguing that, in sidestepping rather than confronting the core dilemmas of British strategy, the emergence of strategic communication can be seen as posing as many problems as solutions for the UK state.

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This dissertation focuses on the use of strategic communication in the context of contemporary environmental activism. It examines the case of Bold Nebraska, a grassroots advocacy group opposing the construction of TransCanada’s Keystone XL oil pipeline in the state of Nebraska. Such an analysis of activist communication informs several areas of research, including public relations theory and practice, social movement theory, and environmental communication. To understand the construction of strategic communication within such activism, this study employs a movement framing analysis, a media framing analysis, and a rhetorical analysis. A quantitative framing analysis of Bold Nebraska’s website communication against the pipeline during the five-year period of 2011 to 2015 assesses how activists craft and project strategic messages. A framing analysis of Bold Nebraska’s national media coverage during the same timeframe highlights the relationship between activist framing and mainstream news coverage. Finally, a rhetorical analysis of Bold Nebraska’s 2014 Harvest the Hope concert is provided to understand the role of rhetorical appeals in building an environmental activism metanarrative or master frame. Taken together, these three approaches provide both a more holistic means to considering environmental activism campaigns in the context of strategic communication, and fill in the gaps for understanding the interplay of social movement organizations, public relations, and persuasion. This study brings a framework of strategic advocacy framing to the realm of environmental politics, and builds upon this framework by considering the dynamic of populism in activism. It also explores the role of strategic communication in evolving a movement organization’s metanarrative as it toggles between short- and long-term goals. Finally, it identifies a civic environmental persuasion built upon the attributes of narrative, hyperlocalization, engagement, and bipartisanship in order to build broad support and influence public policy.

The purpose of our study is to see how an organization, and also a administrative authority, communicates by using social media. The organization in this case is the Swedish Police, because of their paradoxical problem with confidentiality versus openness and transparency. The Police has over a hundred Facebook-accounts, where they try to have a open dialogue with their publics without breaking the law of secrecy. Our general purpose of the study is also to see what the pros and cons are of having a own media channel, instead of the traditional media and their often anticipation twists. The result of the study showed that the three different police precincts, which we investigated in our essay, are working in three different ways. The gap may affect their overall reputation and trust gained by their publics. Both traditional media and social media often occur to the administrative authorities, and the police are working hard on maintaining the truth, before the publics create their own trueness. So far they’re not using Facebooks fully potential as a network of dialogues, and the gap between different police precincts are way to deep for them to fully functional as one authority. But on the positive side, all of them are working in the same direction, which may help them to become more alike in their communication.

Title: Do we have a common interest? - Cultivating relationships or spreading information; a study of Strategic Political Communication on Facebook. Authors: Amanda Gibbs Sjödin & Sean Rembe Mc Hugh Course: Medie- och Kommunikationsvetenskap C, Bachelor Thesis Paper, 15hp, HT 2014. Words: 16 027 This essay aims to examine the level of relationship cultivation strategies in Swedish campaign communication. The progress in political communication emphasizes aspects of public relations such as relationship marketing . We will combine theories regarding relationship marketing with the new possibilities created for campaign communication by the emergence of web 2.0. The popular social media platforms which exist within web 2.0 give campaigns well suited means to easily facilitate input, inspire dialogue and cultivate relationships. We aim to answer the following question; Which strategic components do the parties apply in their Facebook communication? Do the parties differ in their use of communicative tools? In order to answer this question we have operationalized theories in political communication, reputation management and relationship marketing. This operationalizing resulted in eight variables. We conducted a quantitative content analysis by measuring the presence of our variables in each Facebook post made by each party on their Facebook page during the final month of the 2014 election.. The results show that both parties utilize these strategies and in a similar way but that there is a difference in how much. The Feminist Initiative had a higher overall usage but the strategy common interest was used to a high level by both parties, this shows that the parties mainly stress shared values and ideology in their communication.

The increasing competition is making increasing demands of today's businesses to be changeable. Change projects have therefore become increasingly common in order to satisfy market expectations. These projects have often proved difficult to implement and fail rather than succeed. There are many people who reflect on why this is and theorists are increasingly reasoning about the importance of communication in the change process. This is something that has given rise to a new area of expertise called change management. For the most part, it is about developing strategies for management to communicate change to employees and working together with these to reach the intended goals. In the relationship between a third party such as IT consultants and their customers the communicative challenge gets a bit different. The purpose of this study has been to identify important factor that makes communicating change a challenge in this relationship. This has occurred in the context of an IT consulting company and their interactions with the customer in the implementation process of a new web solution. The aim has been to seek greater understanding for the role of communication in the relationship. The study has resulted in a number of factors identified to be important when understanding how communication becomes a challenge in these change projects.

abstract: More than a decade after the events of September 11, the kinetic conflict between U.S. forces and Islamist extremist groups continues, albeit in a more limited fashion. In the post 9/11 decade there has been increased recognition that factors such as globalization, economic insecurity, regional political unrest, and the rapid advancement and diffusion of communication technologies will continue to influence the nature of international warfare for the foreseeable future. Industrial, interstate wars between sanctioned armies (Kilcullen, 2007; Tatham, 2008) is giving way to asymmetric forms of conflict exemplified by the conflict between the U.S. and its allies, and al Qaeda and ideological affiliates like al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (Kilcullen, 2004; Potomac Institute for Policy Studies, 2007). This shift has brought counterinsurgency (Petraeus, 2008) tactics to the forefront of policy discussion. A result of this focus on counterinsurgency efforts is increased interest in strategic communication (stratcom) (Nagl, Amos, Sewall, & Petraeus, 2008; Paul, 2009) and the function of narrative (Roberts, 2007) in kinetic conflict (Zalman, 2010). The U.S. has been said to be "losing the battle of narrative" to the extent that the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs has spoken of the need to "supplant the extremist narrative" (Mullen, 2009). Understanding how narrative functions in ideologically driven organizing (IDO) remains under developed, however. Little empirical research has examined how al Qaeda's use of narrative contributes to organizational success. Drawing on the tradition of narrative in organizational communication scholarship (Alvesson & Willmott, 2002; Ashcraft & Mumby, 2004) this project interrogates al Qaeda's use of narrative from an identity perspective, exploring the ways in which narrative is constitutive of identity at individual and organizational levels. The analysis focuses on public communication produced by al Qaeda, intended for various stakeholder audiences including potential recruits, the broader Muslim community, and adversaries such as the United States and its allies. This project makes practical contributions to U.S. public policy and countering violent extremism (CVE) efforts, offering rigorous empirical examination of the ways in which al Qaeda uses narrative to construct individual and organizational identity. Theoretical contributions are made by extending existing organizational scholarship into a currently under-developed area: ideologically driven conflict. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Communication 2017