ABSTRACT
Strategic ambiguity is an application of silence as discursive strategy. As a mode of being, silence is ambivalent. Public communication is largely between strangers. 'Silence can render the strange understandable'. Silence is also polyvalent. Polyvalence is more than duality – double meaning, binary or opposition. It opens up signs and messages to a multitude of interpretations by various publics, each of which is occupying a plurality of positions. From a 'socialised' public relation (PR) perspective, ambiguity can be productive and positive. It all depends on the circumstances, context and purpose of communication. Strategies that make the speakers listen and the listeners speak. Strategies that let influencers and publics make sense of the message on their own terms and, ideally, take ownership of it. Strategic communication is concerned with ambiguity not as a state but rather as a process. Strategic silence realises the dovetailing of both processes – ambiguation and disambiguation.
