정책소통 개념화: 정책홍보 패러다임에서 정책소통 패러다임으로의 전환

Abstract

This study examines the paradigm shift from a “government publicity paradigm” to a “government communication paradigm” and seeks to conceptualize government communication within the context of public administration and policy studies. First, an analysis of international usage reveals that the term communication is more widely adopted than public relations to describe governmental activities of information dissemination and citizen interaction. Second, within the broader framework of communication, publicity is characterized as information notification, public relations as relationship management, and communication as sharing. Korean scholars, however, often combine the notion of policy with these terms, using expressions such as policy publicity, policy PR, and policy communication. Despite such variations, the definitions converge on a common theme: “communication through which government builds relationships with citizens to achieve policy objectives, such as securing public support.” Third, communication in the public sector differs from private-sector communication in its purposes, values, legal–institutional constraints, and accountability requirements. In particular, public administration displays a distinctive view of communication targets: normatively, the general public is considered the audience, while in practice, both the citizenry and policy-specific target groups are included. Based on these insights, this study recommends the use of the term policy communication to describe government–citizen interaction and defines it as “a process by which government shares information with citizens and fosters reciprocal relationships through two-way communication to achieve policy goals.”