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Communications Trend Radar 2024
Contact
Prof. Dr. Stefan Stieglitz
stefan.stieglitz@uni-potsdam.de
Prof. Dr. Ansgar Zerfaß
zerfass@uni-leipzig.de
About the research project
Team: Prof. Dr. Stefan Stieglitz (Universität Potsdam), Prof. Dr. Ansgar Zerfaß (Universität Leipzig), Dr. Michelle Wloka (Universität Leipzig), Sünje Clausen (Universität Potsdam)
Project period: January 2023 – February 2024
Since 2021, the Communications Trend Radar has been supporting communications managers in identifying important developments outside their own discipline at an early stage. To this end, the research team particularly observes and evaluates changes in the areas of society, management and technology.
The five trends for 2023:
- Information Inflation: Dealing with the declining value of information
- AI Literacy: Fostering competencies to improve task accomplishment with artificial intelligence
- Workforce Shift:Preparing for the inevitable transformation in labor supply
- Content Integrity: Dealing with the flood of fabricated content
- Decoding Humans: Leveraging technology to harness physiological and behavioral data
Methodology
The Communications Trend Radar specifically concentrates on current professional and academic discourse in management, technology, and society, monitoring and evaluating their potential relevance to communication professionals.
Screening:The research teams reviewed a variety of sources including scientific publications, conference proceedings, international trade journals, studies by management and technology consultancies, and systematic analysis of social media platforms. More than 100 sources were evaluated for the Communications Trend Radar 2024.
Trend descriptions: Twelve trends were shortlisted during the screening process and subsequently described in more detail. The research team paid particular attention to the potential impact of each trend on the communication function (leadership, goals, structure), the communication processes (formats, stakeholders, platforms), and communication management (content creation, budgets).
Scoring and selection: The pre-selected trends were assessed using a standardized scoring system to determine the five most pertinent trends. They comprised two trends each from the technology and management sectors and one trend from the social sector.