ABSTRACT
Strategic communication is often associated with media relations and publicity issues. The efforts of communication professionals to position strategic communication as a management function or process rather than support function may have led people to believe that media relations are no longer as important as they were. Strategic communication is only partly geared towards media relations; for the most part, strategic communication is aimed at relations with other stakeholders or groups, such as employees, citizens, customers, investors, local communities, or politicians. The first platform is media and journalism research, which is often based on the idea that the development of strategic communication affects and threatens independent journalists. Journalism is connected to freedom of speech and in democratic countries considered a societal institution of major importance. Still, laws, rules, and regulations for journalism and media institutions differ all over the world. The changing conditions of journalism and the digitalization and professionalization of strategic communication challenges traditional journalism.
