The significance of international corporate communications is growing rapidly, and the complexity associated with it is increasing almost exponentially. But systematic understanding of international corporate communications, even in the corner offices of the PR industry's top management, is not well developed.

There is no comprehensive interlinking of PR knowledge with relevant expertise derived from other disciplines. Anyone who wants to position specific content through specific institutions by means of specific people in specific media in a specific country needs expertise on all those levels. Similarly, anyone who tries to do this on the internet cannot simply rely on English as the "lingua franca", but must likewise consider many communicative specifics of individual target countries.

This essay will illustrate the status quo in this area through examples and propose a heuristic analytical grid, along with its interdisciplinary application using the example of media relations. It will conclude with a few basic considerations about the future of cross-border corporate communications and a resolution of the scenarios depicted in the introduction.