Interview on the role of the modern communication advisor

In an interview with The Danish Union of Journalists, Associate Professor Gitte Gravengaard discusses the development of communication consultancy in Denmark from the 1960s and onwards. Based on an extensive literature review, she describes four paradigms within communication consultancy each conceptualizing the advisor’s role and work, the relation and collaboration between the advisor and the organization, as well as knowledge and the creation of knowledge in four different ways:

• Paradigm 1: The linguistic expert advisor – the critical linguistic perspective
• Paradigm 2: Communication consultancy from the communication expert – the organizational perspective
• Paradigm 3: The facilitator and the datadriven advisor – the interactional perspective
• Paradigm 4: Towards big data and artificial intelligence – a (big) data perspective

This development has important consequences for the advisors’ professional practice. And Gravengaard’s main point is that none of the demands from earlier paradigms have disappeared, leaving the modern communication advisor in a complex spot.