Abstract
Communicators who understand how a coherent multi-methodological approach of
strategic communication can wrestle with naturally multi-paradigmatic and complex
problem situations (Verwey, 2015), require capabilities that incorporate innovative
thinking, resilient interpersonal skills (Dutta, 2018) and ways of fostering dialogue
among heterogenous stakeholders. Competence based appointments in strategic
communication positions seem logical in environments where equal opportunities and
ethical practices rule, especially from a managerial or positivist perspective. Yet, in the
South African socially unequal context, where the projected unemployment rate is
35.6% (WEF, 2023), such a system advantages those candidates who attained
competence through privileged educational systems and hinders the candidates from
previously disadvantaged groups.
Q methodology was used to examine the key capabilities needed by a strategic
communicator in times of uncertainty. The concourse resulted from four open
dialogues (with an award-winning head of strategy and a mid-level strategic
communicator in the industry, a professor, and an honours student in academia), and
a comprehensive review of academic and industry literature. The Q set comprised 48
statements and was derived through Fisher’s block design, reviewed with an external
researcher, verified at a post-grad bootcamp and a complete pilot study incorporating
four participants. The P set is made up of 24 South African strategic communicators
(four honours students, four lecturers, four senior practitioners not from the University
of Johannesburg, four alumni, four executive creative directors, four chief executive
officers). Three factors using principal components factor analysis and varimax
rotation emerged. The low correlation indicated three distinct and diverse viewpoints,
influenced by personal experience, reflective processes, social journeys and
worldview. In-depth post-sorting open-ended interviews and written reflections with
and from each participant, allowed for rich data. The researcher used the crib sheets
method, a process that interrogates the interrelationships of the items within each
factor array and integrates it with the narrative reflection of participants and is thus
driven by the logic of abduction (Watts & Stenner, 2012a). Three viewpoints (stoic
professionals, entrepreneurial activists intend on social change, and cynical yet
creative visionaries) reflect the complexity of a multiparadigmatic and complex South
African industry and context, and a need to allow for the becoming of future-fit strategic
communicators through a rhizomatic and dialogic pedagogy that incorporates
contrapuntal and critical perspectives.
The narratives of participants relating to the development of capabilities that they
deem key to function as strategic communicators in a time of flux, indicated that these
processes are rhizomatic, individual to each person’s journey, but shares the key
quality of reflection and switching on of a meta-cognitive faculty. Therefore, a
framework that can serve as a guide, a map or a companion to rhizomatic thinking and
dialogic learning emerged from the interpretation and discussion of rich data and
theoretical literature reviews. The proposed rhizomatic and dialogic learning
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framework comprises seven phases. Each phase has a theoretical underpinning that
relates to dialogic learning. The model can assist in reforming a pedagogy of strategic
communication, enabling educators and learners to face complexity and flux, and
create and recreate the world we want to see through transformation and rehumanisation
(Roux & Becker, 2016).