The network society is generally challenging for today’s communication practitioners because they are no longer the sole entities responsible for communication processes. This is a major change for many of them. In this paper, it will be contended that the normative practice model as developed within reformational philosophy is beneficial for clarifying the structure of communication practices. Based on this model, we argue that government communication should not be considered as primarily an activity that focuses on societal legitimation of policy; rather, it focuses on clarifying the meaning of the actions of the government. If the government can convincingly answer the question about the reason for their actions, societal legitimation will subsequently follow. Hence, it is argued that government communication is primarily linguistically qualified.
In this chapter, it is argued that corporate communication is not an arbitrary affair, but an activity with its own intrinsic normativity. Communication is part of a creation order, which means that one has to obey specific norms and rules in order to present oneself in a convincing way. First of all, organisations need to have a clear sense of self and have to be accountable for their actions. They have to know ‘who’ they are, and to which principles they stick (directional dimension). Secondly, organisations must have a clear sense of the intrinsic good that is at stake in their professional field. They need to have a clear understanding of ‘what’ they are doing (structural dimension). Thirdly organisations must have a clear understanding of what is required in their specific context. They must have a sense of ‘why’ they exist in a particular time and place (contextual dimension). All three normative dimensions are important. If they lose sight of any one of these dimensions, organizations risk losing their credibility.
It has been established that normative social influence can be used effec-tively in persuasive technology. However, it is unknown whether the application of more social pressure makes it more effective. To test this hypothesis, a quantitative experiment was conducted on the online social network Facebook. Although evidence to support the hypothesis was found, it cannot be concluded from this experiment that more intense persuasion is more effective, when utilizing normative social influence in persuasive technology.
