Stop Splitting the Atom: Why Communications Needs to Simplify Its Own Story

The communications field has become obsessed with its own labels: branding, marketing, corporate comms, PR, public affairs, issues management, internal comms, and strategic comms. The list gets longer every year. It’s as if we’ve taken one discipline and split it into dozens of micro-specialties, each with its own jargon and self-contained universe.

The result? We’ve made the field more confusing than it needs to be, especially for younger talent and the leaders we’re meant to advise. In trying to define everything, we’ve ended up creating noise rather than clarity.

At its core, communications have one purpose: to shape perception, internally, externally, and across all stakeholder audiences.

Sometimes our work is about identity: defining who we are, what we stand for, and how we want to be experienced. Sometimes it’s about awareness: making sure people know what we do and why it matters. Sometimes it’s about alignment: ensuring the organization speaks with one voice. And sometimes it’s about anticipation: scanning the environment for emerging issues so we can act before problems take shape.

Yet industry language often makes it feel far more complicated than this. The proliferation of terms, sometimes used inconsistently or simply because they sound important, can cause us to lose sight of our raison d’être.

A junior professional entering the field today faces a baffling landscape of roles, including brand strategist, stakeholder engagement officer, external comms advisor, public affairs specialist, issues manager, and strategic comms consultant. Many are distinct but overlap significantly. They are different lenses on the same objective: shaping how people understand and interpret the organization.

However, seeing that we live in a world where these terms get thrown around, let’s define what they actually mean. You’ll see very quickly how many of these terms overlap, testifying to the jargon that we, as communicators, should be resisting.

• Brand / Brand Identity: How an organization presents itself, so people recognize and understand it — its story, tone, visuals, and overall personality.
• Marketing: Activities that promote products, services, or the organization to the audiences you want to reach.
• PR (Public Relations): Shaping how the public sees the organization by building relationships with media and broader audiences.
• Media Relations: Working directly with journalists and outlets to secure accurate, favourable, or strategic coverage.
• Digital / Social: Using digital platforms, including social media, websites, email, and paid digital, to reach, engage, and mobilize audiences.
• Corporate Communications: Organization-wide communication that explains strategy, decisions, and actions to all external stakeholders.
• Internal Communications: Communication aimed at employees to keep them informed, aligned, and engaged.
• Executive Communications: Supporting senior leaders with speeches, messaging, thought leadership, and presentations that represent the organization.
• Public Affairs: Managing relationships with policymakers, regulators, and political stakeholders to shape the environment in which the organization operates.
• Stakeholder Relations: Building trust and dialogue with groups that affect or are affected by the organization, such as investors, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), communities, industry bodies, etc.
• Crisis Communications: Managing communication during high-risk situations to protect reputation and maintain trust when something goes wrong.
• Reputation Communications: Proactive and reactive communication aimed at shaping, defending, or restoring how the organization is perceived.

Simply put, when we fixate on all these labels, we forget what we are actually here for. We stop advocating for the value of our work. We start contorting ourselves into narrow specialist boxes that don’t reflect reality.

The truth is, to be a good communications professional, you already wear multiple hats. You read audiences, shape narratives, engage stakeholders, guide leaders, manage risk, and build trust, often all in the same week.

So let’s stop slicing the discipline into finer and finer pieces. Let’s remember the whole point — we shape perception. Everything else is just the tools we choose to use.