Communication as engaging community for social change: a multidisciplinary integrative literature review

Purpose This multidisciplinary integrative literature review explores communication as engaging community for social change, to generate new ways of thinking about a topic and stimulate directions for future research. Design/methodology/approach Two communication researchers draw on the work of Kent (2022) who emphasised the need to distinguish between using dialogue strategically by cultivating long-term relationships, over a tactical focus of generating transactional strategic dialogue for persuading or manipulating publics into organisational objectives. Our review process utilises a two-stage approach: (1) data collection (2) critical analysis and creative synthesis of findings that are discerned and evaluated according to a nuanced understanding of organisation public-engagement – where network structure and discourse are co-created by organisations and the communities that they engage (Yang and Taylor, 2021). Findings Inquiry reveals five major categories for understanding communication as engaging community for social change: Actioning; Change capability; Interrelating; Involvement Infrastructure; Becoming together. Further analysis shows while there was a growing awareness of actioning social media for dialogic engagement to foster social change, there is little evidence of this being embraced by practice. Emotion is the least visible category. Traditional organisational structures are not a good fit for complex contemporary change contexts which are demanding engagement with culture and interrelation factors, such as how the individual is relating to the collective. Originality/value Conclusions highlight how change participants can engage with new interpretations and understandings by carefully crafting spaces that cultivate feelings of closeness and bring belonging to living story experiences. Diverse 21st century social discourses offer innovative opportunities as dynamic supporting enterprises that make room for people to access sustainable conversations around what is being known as social progress.