Notes

Outline

Negotiating Reputations Organizational Communication and the Arenas of Reputation Representations 5th Global Conference on Corporate Reputation Paris, May 19th 2001 Pekka Aula, professor, University of Helsinki Hanna-Mari Rapo, consultant, PR Agency Pohjoisranta

Reputation as a Cultural Concept Reputation is a social construction Reputation is cultural phenomenon Reputation is produced in culturally bound representations, i.e. in communication Reputation is negotiated in the recursive communicative events that take place in ”arenas of reputation”

The Definition of Reputation Reputation is the production and renewal process of the representations of an object Reputation is a publicly announced, evaluable statement about the object

Theoretical Framework

Arena of Reputation

Reputation as Reality Representation is produced and rotated in society Representation is ”subjective reality” Interpreting representations requires shared set of meanings i.e. common culture Interpretations lead to choice and action

Reputation as Togetherness Reputation is created in recursive communication Reputation is constructed from the common interpretations of the publics Individual interpretations aggregate into collective judgements

Corporate Communications and  Reputation Representations Reputation is primarily a communicational concept Publics use and propagate information they consider important Communication is a series of overlapping interactions Meaning is constructed by negotiation

Process of Meaning-making Based on a model of encoding-decoding of media discourses (Stuart Hall) Decoding depends on the cultural backgroud Meanings change at the connotative level Three codes dominant code oppositional code negotiated code

Reputation Management … is about constructing shared meanings … is about building communities … is about communication Reputation management is a continuous fight for how an organization is defined and re-defined