Universities’ media communication strategies: Theoretical foundations and implementation features

The article examines media communication strategies of universities in the context of implementing their “three missions”: scientific, educational, and social. In this context, a strategic approach is essential for planning and implementing media communication activities at a university. According to this approach, the work of subject matter experts should be aligned with the university’s general concept or strategy for development. A review of literature enables us to pinpoint where the media communication strategy fits within the general communication strategy of a university and identify its essential features: as a rule, it has a delayed effect and aims to develop long- term relationships with target audiences. The author analyzes current media communication practices of relevant university departments using the method of expert interviews with university officials and studies publicly available, documented media communication strategies. There are two approaches to working with media communication strategies in universities: the first one sees the strategy as an undocumented “action plan” not formalized in a document, whereas, according to the second one, the strategy exists as a local regulation. In certain universities, such a formal document not only sets the main goals and objectives of a relevant department but also contains performance indicators and key communication narratives, which makes the strategy more functional in terms of the tactical operation of a communication department. The results of a comprehensive review of the actual practices and vision of what is “proper” in media communication work, as shared by the universities, reveal several dimensions of a media communication strategy, including conceptual, process, organizational, and contextual ones, and target audiences of a university’s media communication strategy. The building blocks of each of these dimensions can be represented as a standardized framework of a university’s media communication strategy, which includes the university development strategy, goal setting, contributing factors, target audience groups, and three stages, i. e. development, implementation, and performance evaluation.