You say Digital, I Say Dialogue
It is around VIII century BC. Theseus, the mythical king of Athens, has arrived to Crete and is about to face his next adventure – kill the Cretan Minotaur. The beast, half bull and half man, is kept in the legendary Cretan Labyrinth where thousands have found their death either trying to kill the ferocious creature or searching their way out of the maze. Theseus, however, not only slew the beast but also found his way out of the deadly Labyrinth. How did he do that?
Ariadne, the daughter of the Cretan king Minos, gave him a ball of thread. Theseus tied the thread to the door of the labyrinth and unrolled it all the way to the Minotaur and then found his way back to the entrance, following this same Ariadne’s thread.
Today, 2024, Tim, our so-called user, the intertextual animal browsing the Web, has opened a screen to face his next challenge – find a solution. A labyrinth of choices, all kinds of content and data published on the Web, all kinds of meandering platforms, walls and u-turns built of purchase paths and communication designed to serve linear sales funnels is waiting for him. How will Tim discern the red thread that will take him out of this labyrinth?
If we want to be Ariadne for Tim we can give him the red thread of engagement through genuine connection. To provide that thread we need much more than yet another digital tool. We need the solid foundations of a millenia-old concept. That of dialogue.
To find them, in this part of the book we will walk in the world of dialogue, dialogic communication, relationship marketing and PR dialogic theory, to arrive at the understanding of the dialogic potential of the Web. An understanding that marketing communication on the Web can readily incorporate in order to meet the needs of an increasingly open and connected world.
In Chapter 4: Thinking Outside The Dialog Box we will look at the different approaches towards understanding Dialogue, then we will highlight the importance of dialogue for coherence and coorientation and last we will see whether and how these relate to marketing communication on the Web.
In Not Impossible, Inevitable: Being Dialogic In Marketing Communications On The Web, we will see which marketing lineage of research has already used and incorporated dialogue as a driving force for theoretical and practical explorations. We will talk about the importance of dialogue for knowledge and community management, as well as for marketing communication from the perspective of relationship building and knowledge discovery.
In Chapter 6: Understanding Homo Dialogicus And The Digital Public Sphere For Marketing Communication, we will talk about the pillars of relationship marketing, their relevance for todays’ networked society and communications. We will also link these conceptualizations to a PR theory from the 1990s. Which theory happens to be ever more valid today, allowing us to explore new avenues for marketing communication on the Web through its principles and framework.
