The Role of Social Media in the Communication of Leaders

Abstract

This thesis explores the impact of social media on leadership. For this purpose, it presents a new model for the communication of leaders. This builds on the empirical finding; that leaders must optimize two elements in order to communicate effectively; communication channel and communication style. It then seeks to explore the impact of social media on this model. On a general level, this impact is categorized into five subparts; openness, transparency, personification, power, and control. On a more spesific level, the thesis also proposes specific impacts of social media on the communication channels and styles of leaders.