Manuel Adolphsen 
Communication Strategies of Governments and NGOs 
Engineering Global Discourse at High-Level International Summits

Processes of global governance are mostly invisible to ordinary citizens, due to an overall lack of accompanying transnational public discourse. However, there are exceptional occasions on which media around the world do pay attention to global governance: high-level summits, such as the UN climate change conferences. Through a detailed case study of UN climate summits, Manuel Adolphsen investigates the transnational communication strategies and behind-the-scenes coordination processes that prominent governments and NGOs carry out on such occasions. His research reveals political actors’ conscious use of summits as public diplomacy resources as well as the prevalence of on-site coproduction routines among journalists and PR professionals. Summits feature complex public diplomacy constellations interweaving transnational, international, and also solely domestic processes.

Table of Content

Summits in an Age of Global Governance.- Public Discourse beyond National Borders.- Investigating Strategic Communication at Summits.- Political Actors’ Communication Structures, Processes, and Preplanned Strategies.- Short-Term Interactions between Summit PR and Summit Proceedings.

About the author

Manuel Adolphsen completed his Ph D as a research associate at the Department of Media and Communication Studies at the University of Mannheim. He is a communications consultant in Berlin.