Emergent Communication Strategies

Abstract

Communication strategy is often defined as planned actions to achieve desired results; however, strategies emerge regardless of writer/speaker intent. This paper defines an emergent communication strategy as a communication construct derived from the interaction between reader/hearer response, situated context, and discursive patterns. The definition is based on the work of Mintzberg (1988 Mintzberg, H. 1988. “Five Ps for strategy”. In Readings in the strategy process, Edited by: Quinn, J. B., Mintzberg, H. and James, R. 10–18. New Jersey: Prentice Hall. [Google Scholar]) on emergent business strategies, Jeffrey Goldstein (1999 Goldstein, J. 1999. Emergence as a construct: History and issues. Emergence, 1(1): 49–72. [Taylor & Francis Online] , [Google Scholar]) on emergence in organizational complexity theory, and other communication theorists (e.g., Boden, 1994 Boden, D. 1994. The business of talk: Organizations in action, Cambridge: Polity Press. [Google Scholar]; Taylor & Van Every, 2000 Taylor, J. R. and Van Every, E. J. 2000. The emergent organization: Communication as its site and structure, Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. [Google Scholar]), who take a constructionist view of organizations. Additionally, the paper draws from Burke (1945 Burke, K. 1945. A grammar of motives, Berkeley: University of California Press. [Google Scholar], 1955 Burke, K. 1955. A rhetoric of motives, Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall. [Google Scholar], 1968 Burke, K. 1968. Language as symbolic action: Essays on life, literature, and method, Berkeley: University of California Press. [Google Scholar]) to examine reader response, Burke (1955 Burke, K. 1955. A rhetoric of motives, Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall. [Google Scholar]) and ethnography of communication (Carbaugh, 2008 Carbaugh, D. (2008). Ethnography of communication. International Encyclopedia of Communication. Blackwell Reference OnlineRetrieved . http://www.blackwellreference.com/public/ICA_ethnographyofcommunication (Accessed: 23 October 2008). [Google Scholar]; Gumperz & Hymes, 1972 Gumperz, J. and Hymes, D., eds. 1972. Directions in sociolinguistics: The ethnography of communication, New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston. [Google Scholar]; Hymes, 1962 Hymes, D. 1962. “The ethnography of speaking”. In Anthropology and human behavior, Edited by: Gladwin, T. and Sturtevant, W. 13–53. Washington, DC: Anthropological Society of Washington. [Google Scholar]; Philipsen, 1992 Philipsen, G. 1992. Speaking culturally, Albany, NY: SUNY Press. [Google Scholar]) to explicate situated context, and discourse analysis to derive discursive patterns. To illustrate emergent communication strategies, a sample analysis of a letter issued in response to TA unionization at University of Washington is provided.