Introduction to the Handbook on Digital Corporate Communication

As masses of digitally savvy stakeholders master the means of 24/7 communication technology, so must communication professionals. This chapter introduces digital corporate communication (DCC) as an important and emerging field of research and practice. Despite the growing yet disparate body of research examining how digital technologies are shaping ways in which organizations and stakeholders communicate with each other, this chapter identifies the need for a more unified body of scholarly knowledge about DCC. It also systematically builds on existing DCC research to offer conceptual clarity of terms such as digital, digitalisation and digital infrastructure, as well as corporate communicationitself, to propose a definition of DCC. It subsequently introduces this handbook’s four over-arching sections that cover: (1) digitally-influenced changes to legacy corporate communication functions, (2) digitally-influenced issues that corporate communication must address, (3) corporate communication’s adoption of digital technologies, and (4) corporate communication’s role in managing digitalization’s effects in society.