Swedish Universities, Communication, and Social Media
Placing the above-presented challenges into the empirical context of this thesis, the adoption and use of
social media in Swedish universities does not only offer a possibility to study the relations and tensions
of structure (assumptions) and agency (localized interpretations), and inconsistencies of strategic
communication in organizations, but also the role of communication in universities and of social media
within a strategic communication framework. The thesis operates at an intersection of interests, where
communication in and by universities presents a context that is yet to be further explored and where
social media, from the outlook of strategic communication, challenges established ways of
communication. The chosen organizational context is Swedish higher education and, its universities in
particular8 , a context with specific conditions, necessary to address to situate the study.
Universities in Sweden operate as public-sector organizations, which are driven by an institutional logic
of its own that produces a frame for how universities and their communication are to be structured and
performed. The ideas and norms of strategic communication may then be viewed as encountering an
environment with its own legitimized forms for communication. Accordingly, it is possible to consider
the study of strategic communication in universities as a critical case: in other words, the presence of
the strategic communication recipe in universities would underline the pervasive institutional power,
which can also expand to different organizations in the public sector. Yet, as shown below, universities
operate in a changing context, not least one striving towards the development of its intentional
communication to become competitive. It is therefore both a reasonable and relevant case to study.
Likewise, it may be argued that social media produces challenges to strategic communication, especially
dichotomies such as centralizationde centralization.
Based on similar reasoning, social media within a strategic communication framework may be
understood as challenging to strategic communication as an institutionalized concept, one that thus
provides an applicable mode to study strategic communication. However, it is neither social media nor
the universities per se that are of central interest; rather, of central concern is a context that could
provide a fitting empirical case to study strategic communication. Higher education worldwide is in a
constant state of change, moving towards an intensified work with communication (c.f., Wæraas &
Maor, 2014).
In Sweden, a recent surge of research has centered on university governance (Sahlin & Eriksson-
Zetterquist, 2016; Wedlin & Pallas, 2017), university auditing systems (Engwall, 2016), and university
values and role in society (Ahläck Öberg, Bennich-Björkman, Hermansson, & Jarstad, 2016). Closely
related to universities and communication is the process of marketization, also understood as a result of
the changes resulting from the development described as new public management (Engwall, 2007;
Hood, 1991; Wedlin, 2008). The general development has also been described as a struggle between
forces of state, academy, and the market, where the latter is gaining prominence (Clark, 1986). This
struggle is visible in the competition among universities for resources, researchers, students, university
branding, and the ambition for a higher ranking and better reputation. In Sweden, the higher education
reform of 1977 has been described as formative for universities and the growing attention to
competitiveness and activities in creating “unique” profiles (Askling, 2012).
Thus, while traits from the corporate world are making their way into universities, communication has
become a central strategic function (Engwall, 2008). For example, Wæraas and Solbakk (2009) studied
the complex and problematic issues of branding in higher education, but also concepts such as identity,
reputation and uniqueness, visibility, and rankings have been investigated (c.f., Curtis, Abratt, & Minor,
2009; Drori, Delmestri, & Oberg, 2013; Furey, Springer, & Parsons, 2014; Hazelkorn, 2011; Nguyen &
LeBlanc, 2001; Sataøen, 2014; Sataøen & Wæraas, 2016; Steiner, Sundström, & Sammalisto, 2013). This
research reflects a development in which communication is taking a leading role in universities, so that
they become conspicuous and address a perceived increasingly competitive context. In this dissertation
work, the study of universities is viewed as providing a particular case with particular conditions (see for
example Fredriksson & Pallas, 2016a).
A different empirical setting, for example the health care sector, would provide a similarly interesting
and relevant canvas for the topic and this study, hence the results are pertinent to discuss in a broader
organizational context. As pointed out above, universities operate in an institutionalized, albeit
changing, context that provides a critical case, i.e. if strategic communication materializes here, we may
expect similar developments and processes to unfold in other sectors as well. Central to my case is the
assumption that strategic communication, as an institutionalized idea and practice, accommodates to
organizations and sectors in a similar fashion, but how it is made meaningful is dependent on the local
context wherein it is translated.
For this reason, the universities provide a unique setting that needs to be approached and understood in
its own right because of the developing significance of communication in the sector and the established
ways of doing things. Although unrelated to the central inquiry, a further argument to study
communication in universities is its changing role to a central and increasingly important organizational
function with which growing resources are distributed. A discussion on the findings from the empirical
context is therefore warranted and a contribution of the thesis. The decision to center social media as a
case to study strategic communication is based on the growth and use not only among private users but
also as part of its explosive entrance into organizations´ communication.
Arguments to adopt and use social media often comprise their transformative and democratizing
character, including the potential to decentralize control, enable interactivity, transparency, dialogue
and two-way symmetric communication, and eventually egalitarian relations between organizations and
their stakeholders (c.f., Falkheimer & Heide, 2015; Kent, 2013; Macnamara & Zerfass, 2012; Solis &
Breakenridge, 2009). Other activities, ideas, or concepts of strategic communication could have been
made central as cases for this study (e.g., campaigning, Svensson, 2016). However, because social media
both represents new types of communication channel and innovative ideas (posing as potential
challenges to conventional strategic communication, e.g., decentralization), they present a case for
which the “newness” can be seen to further challenge the institutionalized form of strategic
communication. As such, social media provides the study with a useful case for the overall purpose of
the dissertation. In relation to strategic communication, the question of how the “open, uncontrolled
practices of social media” (Macnamara & Zerfass, 2012, p. 287) are translated in organizations is
noteworthy in relation to the efforts to integrate communication and the related notions of
management and control.
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