Strategic Communication Messages: Web Analytics Application with R Programming Language

Abstract

Purpose – The aim of this research is to develop an original external stakeholder analysis method within the scope of strategic communication management and to provide a resource for researchers and strategic communication professionals. Design/methodology/approach – Because the strategic communication management model requires interdisciplinary knowledge due to the nature of strategy and communication concepts, the fields of business management, management and organization, communication research, management information systems and computer science were referred in this research. As research sample, two companies from the Fortune 500 largest companies list 2023 who is also operating in Turkey were selected. The data was gathered from internet news and social media posts of these two companies, and was analyzed with a two-phase qualitative research. In the first phase, data was collected from news sources by web scraping, which is one of the web analytics methods, and applied text mining with R programming language. In the second stage, the social media posts published by these companies at local, global and conglomerate levels were examined with the qualitative content analysis method. Findings – As a result of the research, it was determined that the strategic communication practices of the companies at local, global and conglomerate levels are compatible with one another, and that both companies produce content with similar messages. It has been understood that strategic communication management is not evaluated separately from strategic management. Discussion – Although several applications, environments and tools are helpful for analysis of textual data, the use of R programming language, which has advantages in certain aspects, is important for the originality of this study. It is recommended that future researchers and strategic communication professionals conduct external stakeholder analysis by using the method presented in this research and develop an automation application.