TY  - JOUR
AB  - Purpose This article offers an in-depth exploration of university communications practice by describing and analysing a publicity and recruitment campaign, called ‘Challenge Everything’, carried out by the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) in 2018. By providing insight into internal sense-making around the campaign it contributes to literatures in science communication and communication management.Design/methodology/approach This qualitative research uses semi-structured interviews and informal organisational ethnography, mobilising concepts of sense-making and auto-communication to guide analysis. The focus is on how organisation members made sense of the Challenge Everything campaign.Findings The analysis focuses on four key themes within organisational sense-making about the campaign: the openness of the campaign meant that it was readily picked up on and personalised by university staff; its meaning was always contextual, shaped by organisation members' roles, interests, and concerns; its controversy seems to primarily derive from questions of representation, and specifically whether organisation members recognised within it their own experiences of university culture; and its development points to the rise of new forms of expertise within university organisation, and the contestation of these.Research limitations/implications The research offers only a partial snapshot of one instance of university communications. However, in demonstrating how public campaigns also operate as auto-communication it has important implications for strategic communication within complex organisations such as universities.Originality/value The research has particular value in offering an in-depth qualitative study of university marketing practices and the effects these have within an organisation.
VL  - 24
IS  - 3
SN  - 1363-254X
DO  - 10.1108/JCOM-08-2019-0120
UR  - https://doi.org/10.1108/JCOM-08-2019-0120
AU  - Davies Sarah R.
PY  - 2020
Y1  - 2020/01/01
TI  - University communications as auto-communication: the NTNU ‘Challenge Everything’ campaign
T2  - Journal of Communication Management
PB  - Emerald Publishing Limited
SP  - 227
EP  - 243
Y2  - 2024/04/27
ER  -