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Today, more and more companies tend to position themselves with public statements on socio-political issues such as racism or discrimination against the LGBTQIA+ community represented through popular movements like Black Lives Matter or the Pride Month. According to surveys, most consumers expect companies to take a stand on such polarizing topics. Despite this apparent relevance in society, there is only little research on companies taking public stances, yet. Moreover, the existing studies addressing the topic predominantly focus on the influence of corporate positioning on customer attitudes and only a few studies examine the impact of companies speaking out on socio-political issues, their communication and decision-making processes, and their attitudes. In order to close this research gap, 19 semistructured interviews with communicators of internationally operating German B2C companies were conducted. As the results show, the interviewed companies are all perceiving societal pressure, but up to different degrees. Equally different is the associated impact of positioning on external communications and strategic planning. In general, three initial patterns can be identified on how companies deal with positioning pressure: The skeptics, who do none or almost no positioning, the adapters, who speak out on specific issues and closely observe the current debates, and the pioneers, who feel less pressure and are the first companies to speak out and even initiate debates themselves. It remains to be seen if these patterns will be established in future research and if uniform strategies in corporate communications will develop when it comes to the topic of socio-political positioning.

In the last couple of years, our world has undergone rapid and far-reaching transformations. Digitalization is changing society through the adoption of new technologies, and influences our ways of living and working. Furthermore, a seemingly never-ending pandemic, an increasingly polarized public, the rise of political conflicts, the threats of the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine, and climate change are fundamentally changing our way of life and changing the way we communicate. This dynamic, complex and uncertain new environment disrupts familiar workflows. Because communication is always strongly embedded in the environment in which it takes place, the latest changes inevitably bring obstacles for communication professionals as well. But instead of feeling intimidated by these developments, why not confront them head on and grow through them? This publication aims to give impulses on how to master and overcome the multifaceted challenges of an ever faster changing, globalized world. The six studies - developed over the course of a yearlong research seminar at Leipzig University - focus on current trends in the fields of journalism and strategic communication and examine what is currently occupying practice and science: digital sustainability storytelling as contributor to corporate success and the potential of corporate podcasts in branding, the use of remote work for employer branding, the pressure companies face to take a stance on socio-political issues, how German political parties use new campaign tactics on social media, and the effects of the increasing threat of violence against journalists. The results show how professionals are dealing with these challenging times, formulate implications for the practical field, and open the pathway for future research.

Like in other areas, the importance of social media in the German political communication landscape has rapidly grown in recent years. The purpose of this study is to examine how the communication professionals of the different parties of the German Bundestag describe and characterize the role of social media in their political communication, especially in the last federal election in 2021. This research fills a critical gap by investigating 13 semiopen qualitative interviews with both political and strategic officials of the eight parties represented in the German Bundestag. By doing so, it provides insights into current and future social media practices and their level of professionalization in the German political sphere. Both the sample and focus of this study are, to our knowledge, unique in their nature. The results indicate that, while social media is seen as one of the most important channels to both inform and communicate with potential voters, the professionalization in the field seems to be on a relatively low level. Namely, both strategic and political professionals criticize a lack of human, time, and financial resources. Therefore, the parties lack behind in their practices, particularly considering the newest trends and possibilities of social media like big data, algorithms, or monitoring practices. These results suggest that previous assumptions regarding social media as a cheap and resource-efficient practice are outdated. However, the communicators voice future efforts to catch up on these topics. Further research is needed to investigate how the parties meet these intents.

This research project examined the role of remote work as part of familyoriented employer branding. The literature review indicates that there is no underlying research connecting the topics of remote work with strategic family-oriented employer branding. To gain insights into this rather unexplored topic, this project conducted 17 semi-structured guided interviews with interviewees from both Communication and Human Resource Departments representing different industries and companies of various sizes. The analysis and evaluation showed that there is no strategic connection between the use of remote work in employer branding and family issues within the companies yet. The usage of family-oriented measures depends on multiple factors and puts companies through a serious stress test. Over the last years, the demand for remote work increased significantly. This trend leads to new challenges and issues companies need to tackle. In summary, remote work can be viewed as an important part in a set of family-oriented employer branding measures. The future direction of this topic is uncertain and requires further research.

In recent years, reported violence, both physical and psychological, against journalists in Germany and the United States has increased threateningly. This development needs to be reviewed in more detail, since freedom of speech and freedom of the press in journalism particularly serve the public interest by fulfilling fundamental democratic tasks. The so-called chilling effect describes how pressure and threats of violence can influence journalists' work and cause changes in content and style of reporting. This development is especially problematic, as it interferes with the most basic societal functions of journalism. To explore these developments, a qualitative study of the situation in Germany and the United States was conducted to determine whether editorial work in news reporting is already influenced by violence against journalists. Data for this study was collected in guided qualitative interviews with 22 journalists from Germany and the United States. The study reveals that the most common consequence of increasing violence is the implementation of a wide range of security measures by journalists and news organizations. Nevertheless, effects on reporting are mostly denied. The research unfolds that there is a wide range of individual experiences with violence and consequences for journalistic work. This demonstrates the relevance of further research in this area in order not to endanger the press and freedom of expression in democracies.

As an increasingly popular on-demand medium, podcasts have become more professional and commercialized in recent times. This is also evident from a look at corporate communications, where many companies add podcasts into their communication mix. To align these corporate podcasts with other communication channels, the concept of corporate branding can be helpful. This approach has not been considered by empirical studies so far. Our qualitative interview study wants to investigate the role of corporate podcasts in corporate branding and examines their integration into the communication strategy of nationally and internationally operating companies. 13 experts from large companies responsible for the respective podcast have been interviewed. The research results show that podcasts are mostly integrated into the company's overarching communications strategy and incorporate company-specific branding aspects to varying degrees. Corporate podcasts are primarily used to highlight innovative and modern aspects of the brands, especially through the tone of voice. The intended impact of corporate podcasts is often a personal and emotional connection, interaction, and resonance with listeners. Increasing reputation, visibility, and conveying authenticity is also targeted. As a branding tool, podcasts are evaluated rather implicitly. The general evaluation is perceived as challenging and tends to focus on qualitative performance measurement. This study underscores the high need for research on corporate podcasts as a branding tool as well as for key performance indicators (KPIs) of podcasts.

Sustainability is one of the most urgent and relevant topics today, permeating social and economic spheres alike. Especially corporations are faced with high stakeholder expectations, not least to be economically sustainable. To communicate a firms' efforts on ESG issues, a well-known but still underrated way is storytelling - nowadays mostly digital. Answers to the question how digital storytelling in sustainability communication of profit corporations influences their strategic success are provided within this study by the analysis of qualitative data from 14 semi-structured interviews across different communication practitioners of globally operating companies in Germany. As the study found out, digital storytelling in sustainability communication mainly contributes to intangible success factors, fulfilling its goal to foster an improvement of corporate reputation. The study provides evidence that this could further lead to a significant influence on the creation of tangible values, since even the outflow as the highest level of value creation could be traced back to communicative efforts. The findings contribute to the research on value creation through digital storytelling as a method in sustainability communication. They are the first of their kind that combine those three aspects empirically and stimulate the debate on communicative value creation providing an adaption of the DPRG/ICV Framework. Furthermore, the study gives practical implications for corporate communication professionals on the emerging format of storytelling.