Internal social media: a promise of participatory communication and organizational transparency

Internal social media (ISM) can be transformative in an internal communication strategy (Men et al., 2019) since it can empower employees to become active communicators instead of passive receivers (Dahlman and Heide, 2020; Madsen, 2016; 2018) and make organizational communication visible to all organizational members (Treem et al., 2020). However, organizations seldom reap the benefits of ISM since it requires an open communication environment and an attentive, responsive leadership. This chapter explores recent research in ISM to provide insights into how ISM can play an important role in strategic internal communication, the possibilities and challenges involved in doing so, and how communication about ISM can provide insights into internal communication processes as well as how employees construct their organization.