Key terms in public communication: a systemic reflection on journalism, politics, and social movements

Key terms are dynamic, powerful elements in public communication, shaping media messages, redefining social meanings, and impacting decision-making. While their strategic, identity-forming, and transformative roles are critical, their application in contemporary politics, journalism, and social movements presents complex challenges, from polarization to declining information quality. This paper analyzes these dynamics through a systemic literature review, synthesizing interdisciplinary perspectives from rhetoric, semiotics, neuroscience, and the linguistic turn. Using this foundation, the study applies systems thinking to develop conceptual models of these dynamics. The main results are the identification of two key systemic archetypes: (1) A ‘Success to the Successful’ model in journalism, which reveals how the pursuit of immediate, algorithm-driven virality systematically undermines long-term informational quality. (2) An ‘Escalate’ model in politics, which illustrates how reciprocal aggression and polarization create a detrimental feedback loop that erodes dialogue and transparency. The study concludes by proposing specific corrective models for these archetypes, advocating for synergistic approaches in journalism that balance quality with digital tools and for dialogue-based frameworks in politics that foster shared commitments over hostility. This work provides a novel systems-based methodology for analyzing and fostering more transparent and constructive public communication.