Dynamiques contemporaines de la communication interne – Communication & Organisation 66

In 1994, Communication & Organisation published a feature on internal communication that has become a benchmark. Thirty years later, although it sometimes appears to be the ‘poor relation’ of communication, the importance of internal communication has not been denied in professional circles. In the scientific sphere, however, the subject has been somewhat neglected. Other formulations have been put forward to study what communication does to the organisation and to emphasise the organising dimension of communication, moving away from operational or functionalist visions. The Covid-19 pandemic of 2020, and the state of crisis into which many organisations plunged, changed the situation. The internal communications function was called upon to come up with new ways of forging links despite the distance, establishing a new horizon of meaning during the lockdown and then re-establishing meaning when people returned to the workplace. The function was strengthened and its legitimacy enhanced. It is against this backdrop that this dossier proposes to take a fresh look at internal communication, analysing the continuities and, above all, the contemporary dynamics that run through it, as it is embedded in organisations and carried out by people who are, for the most part, trained in communication. The aim is also to revisit, from a variety of contemporary perspectives, a field of research that is now structured and providing a framework for SIC.