Public communication is a critical activity for all organisations, brands and individuals. As the communication landscape is constantly evolving, best practice must be front and centre to ensure communication initiatives are contributing to strategic goals. This subject introduces students to contemporary thinking about the development of strategic communication and the impact it has on individuals, brands, organisations and society. Students explore how key theories and concepts are incorporated into contemporary practice, as well as the increasing requirement for integration of multiple forms of public communication including advertising, public relations, and digital and social media communication. In addition, students examine and critically evaluate how people access and consume information today. Students become familiar with the multiple 'touchpoints' between organisations and their publics and the need for organisations to ensure consistency and complementation in their public communication. Throughout, students are introduced to the knowledge and skills required in contemporary practice for planning and designing integrated strategic communication campaigns involving a range of multimedia and multimodal communication activities.

Within organisations, storytelling can be deployed to be an impactful tool for bringing people together, and importantly, uniting employees or other groups in the task of working towards a shared goal. This subject examines the importance of employee communication for building and supporting organisational culture, maintaining employee loyalty, and facilitating change. Students learn major methods and media used for organisational communication and employee engagement. Students critically analyse key factors that hinder and facilitate positive cultural and organisational changes. Students leverage these skills to develop ethical and effective internal communication projects that address a range of organisational changes such as mergers and acquisitions, leadership succession and technological disruption.

In today’s world, it has become important for organisations to pre-empt and quickly respond to risk. Thus, having a solid reputation management strategy is critical. This subject introduces students to the overlapping areas of risk, issue, and crisis communication as allied functions in managing communication. Students explore the role of effective communication in relation to issues and crises for reputation management and organisational sustainability. Students examine case studies of best and worst practice to understand how risks can escalate into issues, how issues can turn into crises, and the shifting role of strategic communication in this nexus. Guided by theory, students learn about complexities in developing and implementing communication strategies and tactics in time-pressured environments that threaten organisational objectives, operations, finances and reputation.

Successful communication initiatives all share one thing in common; a well-designed and implemented engagement strategy. In this subject, students examine the concept of stakeholder engagement to develop a holistic understanding of the factors that generate or hinder engagement. Students explore key concepts in the phenomena of public engagement, disengagement, and non-engagement such as motivation, trust, cynicism, authenticity and credibility whilst also considering the notions of stakeholders, stake-seekers, audiences and publics. Ultimately, students build the skills required to investigate and apply strategies to enable mutual gains, manage conflict and develop social capital. Students research best practice in engagement with Indigenous organisations and communities and consider cultural competencies needed for practitioners working with and for Indigenous Australians.