Characteristics of Public Sectors and Their Consequences for Strategic Communication

ABSTRACT

Research on strategic communication often deals with a general idea of organizations without specifications of what type of organization it sets under investigation. However, it often focuses on markets and perceives “corporations” as its role model. This means that the certain conditions that applies to other sectors—such as the public sector- tends to be overseen. Even though these conditions have extensive consequences for how, when, where, and why organizations can or are expected to communicate. This special issue is an attempt to reduce some of this imbalance and in this short introduction, we point out some of the characteristics that are typical for public sector organizations (PSO) in general; including their political nature, their lack of autonomy, their mission to handle problems rather than take advantage of an opportunities, their inherent conflicts between general principles, professional groups and stakeholder interests as well as an extensive demand for transparency. The articles included in the special issue are also shortly introduced.

Acknowledgments

This special issue is the result of a workshop arranged by Magnus Fredriksson and Josef Pallas sponsored by The Department of Journalism Media and Communication at University of Gothenburg, which was held in Gothenburg, May 2015. We would like to take the opportunity to thank all participants at the workshop and the contributors to this special issue. We also would like to thank the editors of the International Journal of Strategic Communication for their support as well as the reviewers who provided valuable input to throughout our and the authors’ work.

Funding

Magnus Fredriksson’s work with this special issue was made possible by support from Ridderstads stiftelse för historisk grafisk forskning.

Additional information

Funding

Magnus Fredriksson’s work with this special issue was made possible by support from Ridderstads stiftelse för historisk grafisk forskning.