Introduction to Issues and Crisis Communication - Essay Example

Crisis Communication Plan Analysis Insert Insert Introduction to issues and crisis communication At the point where you find both the outrage and the hazard to be high created by risk, communication leads to crisis communication. A happening that may put people’s lives in danger in the days to come might be termed as a crisis. The happening might be very fearful to the point that make people angry and other to be miserable. Arousing of alarm concerning serious hazards or even to make people free from fear is rated to be the most objective of the crisis communication. Assisting people to understand, to bear their feelings, and to adapt perfectly to the extreme risks is also another fundamental objective of this topic (Jaques 2007). There are important areas that have been focused on this subject. Knowing the informational content is a vital responsibility for any crisis communication. Informational content basses on the following principles; what do the authorities know concerning the crisis? What is it that they want people to consent? And how are they going to deliver the information to the people accordingly?. Media also is another based area of concern. The primary task that the management ask themselves is that how will they get their content from them into the minds of the public. Another based field is the assessment of the audience. From the study of the past years, it reveals that a successful progress in crisis communication has been a sector that is growing bearing in mind that not all people are intelligent (Jaques 2007). Rationale Due to variations in knowledge, values, and emotions, it gives the assessors very tough time in giving out the information. Basing on what, do they need to reach the people, what they have in their mind already and the effect that will arise the moment they are told about the crisis? Involving the audience also is another aspect that needs to be put into concern. Targeting a deliverable communication at the two-way end and the mode that they need to keep immediate audience active is their worry. Self-assessment gives self-examination on the effect of values, emotions, and political problems relating to crisis management (Coombs 2009). Relational approach to issue and crisis From the definition approaches, there have not been good levels of agreement that demonstrate critically what is a crisis and what the issue is in management. Many writers have analyzed problem management, and it was found to lack clarity. Crisis, on the other hand, has been hard to be defined indecently without the placement of crisis management. The illustration of this by individual scholars shows a thesis that identify a frequent misplacement. “Management issue involves mainly looking into the future to determine potential ways and activities that may prompt the organization while crisis management is a more reactive discipline focusing on the situation after a disaster has occurred.” By definition, a crisis can be defined as situation out of control and regarding of a simple tactical principal can be purely reactive in the concept of crisis management. From both perspectives, the same difference for crisis management is understood in a less concept that perpetuates the superficial differences. And this difference has been known to also hinder the progress in the situation where both tactical and strategic element have recognition regarding management. Regarding life cycle models, organizations in that respect rely greatly on two fundamental terminologies. The management understands that there is increased risk and bigger danger if some of the problems are left unattended. From this negligence of risks, there should be increased the resolution that results from reduced cost of intervention from the only available choices. Communication in crisis to stakeholders Influencing the public perception about the organization and the maintenance of the positive picture is the objective of the communication in case of a crisis so that to regain the destroyed image among the stakeholders. Management of the impression of the organization itself is the only way the firm seeks to protect its name from modification of the public perception of responsibility. When rumors about an inhuman activity lawsuit on WWE made rounds in the media, the management through communication with stakeholders drove the objective to inform, convince, and motivate their stakeholders to the action plan. They sought to undertake damage control as the other goal for communication; this prevented extreme adverse changes in components of the environment. The opportunity to tell the public about their mission, values and operations was considered the secondary target by the organization. Target audience, the type of crisis, available evidence, the severity of damage and the history of the company are the considerations strategy choices by most firms. From this strategy choice, the fitting of the damage caused by the crisis is done. When Imprimant Company that manufactures drinks was put under spot light for not meeting standards, they ensued the policy choice, creditability is another important aspect, in that the forgiveness of a stakeholder to a company will be based on this credibility. The plan began with framing the strategy to be undertaken during the period of crisis with focus on using the culture, this lead to the affection of the way the organization related and communicated with different stakeholders. It also influenced what was considered as immediate responses and aided the preservation of the image of the company (Benoit 1997). Utilizing frames key messages Formation of senior executives who manage a crisis is an alternative way many organizations have opted for effective communication during a crisis. The team of officials in the Katrina case included the managing director, the chief financial officer and the senior operations manager. In the Katrina disaster management team, electing of the person who handled individual crisis and legal counseling has been relevant. In most instances, the crisis events, warnings, progresses are reported in the line of news; gathering of the site by reporters from different reporting forms should have air out according to what they see on the ground. From the starting event of the crisis, the media plays a key role as planned by the team. According to Benoit, the duty of explaining what occurred should be left to the organizations media relations officer because their job is to gather and to give such information to the journalists (Benoit 1997). Without proper communication, there will be no good crisis management. In the nature of management and communication literature as a measure of relationships, sex characteristics appear consistently. These features are; trust, understanding, creditability, satisfaction, cooperation and agreement. All of the above characteristics contribute to crisis public relations. Within different companies, there is a communication culture. Definable communication cultures exist in many of organizations. Parts of this that are being encounter are two-way communication while others merely adopt the disseminated information to its relevant authorities (Sisco 2012). Crisis communication planning Immediate communication is the requirement when an emergency erupts. Imprimant Company regarded the affection to customers as the main point of concern especially when business operations were disrupted. The progress that was going on in the market need to be understood by the local authorities; this was implemented through modification of the regulations. The anxiety of the employees and their families to get information was reported to have risen because of concern and that is when the firm deliver messages that restored the confidence. Also, people living in the neighborhood will also be eager to get information because of the fear that the facility may put into them. To deal with this in an appropriate manner, planning is the most important component for the preparedness of such incidents. In the days to comes, a firm has an obligation to respond immediately, accurately and confidently in the time of emergency (Sisco 2012). The mode in which Imprimant Company dealt with the scenario determined the perception of the public because by carrying themselves and responding accordingly, their image was positively impacted and restored. The providence of direction for a developing a crisis communications plan came because of the step of ready business. The important first step the management undertook in the development of a crisis communications plan was to understand their audience. The necessity of information varies in the time of a calamity. Because of the varied types of the audiences, to deal with the varying audiences, the better option is to choose a representative from the business (Sisco 2012). Potential readers are; customers, survivors affected by the incident and their families, employees, and their families, new media and community that near the facility. Company management, directors and investors, government elected officials, regulators other authorities and suppliers are also categorized to among the audiences. During any incidents, contact person that have been chosen to represent the fans should compile a report once the relevant bodies access them. Relying on the existing information such as customer, supplier and contact information from the current database is always affordable. Image repair strategies In this context, image restoration theory deals with an approach that can be readily absorbed to alleviate destruction to the picture in the event where the respect has been destroyed. In crisis, image restoration can be used for the understanding of personal or even organizational disasters. The context outlines two components that must be utilized in any given attack to the image of an organization. The components are (Benoit 1997); Holding the accused to handle the action Considering the act to be offensive To restore image in the theory perspective, two fundamental assumptions are needed 1) Communication is goal directed activity. People try to get the targets that are of most importance to them with reasonable cost concurrently, despite the fact that communication has multiple goals that are not compatible collectively. 2) A key goal of communication is by maintaining a favorable reputation. At the point when organizations actions are compromised, motivation of the group takes place because of the reason that they value the face, the image of the company. Fundamental to image reputation is perception unless the knowledge exist that it is fault the accused actor will not engage in the defensive strategy. Basing on the particular situation, the player who committed the mistake has to decide on the plan of the best course. Factors that need to be considered are the audience, perception and the level of the offensiveness of the act. Situational crisis communication theory Situational crisis communication theory focuses on the crisis managers that they should match strategic emergency responses to the degree that they can resist the threats that are posed by the calamities. Factors that will help disaster managers predict the amount of reputational risk to the business and the means they will use to perceive the tragedy. A terrotism attack’ when an institution is undersiege and citizens are under the terrorists mercy is a delicate crisis affair. A governement in such an issue shouod advocate for the responsibility of the catastrophe, by evaluating the hazard type, history, and prior reputation. Crisis management in this case is a situational emergency communication theory that deals with the safety of the information that is allowed to the public by media partners. Attribution theory bases its roots on situational crisis communication theory. From the theory, it holds the perspective that people in sometimes try to access the cause even make attributions that pertain different events especially the event that are mainly harmful or they are not expected (Hallahan 1999). The providence of the first link between crisis and emergency responses was conducted through attribution theory. Reaction to the event results from of the responsibility. Emotion reactions to the causality elicit by the stakeholders especially when the organization is blamed as to be the cause bring a negative emotion. Anger is one of the negative emotions that have been pointed out; this will affect the future interaction of the stakeholders and the organization. From this effect, there will change in behavior such as purchases and spoken recommendations. Impact of the internet and social media The article is putting out that social media is the use of web-based technologies that changes the communication into an interactive dialog. The group of internet-based applications that are built upon the ideological and technological foundations is another alternative definition of the social media. The use of social sites such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube has great importance when calamities strike the on nearby environs. Social media has the following significance (Seeger 2006), Valuable provision of information to those in the areas those are likely to be hit by the calamity. Generation of volunteers and donors through awareness drive to those who live outside the affected areas The displaced family and friends are connected through social media In case of unclaimed properties and worst scenarios, social media provides relevant information. The centers that provide aid can be accessed by the affected through the use of the social media Internets in some ways have been used to in the management of disasters in both private and public sectors. In the United States, the internet was mainly designed to be used as a calamity recovery methodology in the telecommunications structure. It has been rated the most means of solving some disasters in the world. The following are instances where the internet has been used during the time of calamities. When an earthquake hit the northern ridge of California, the internet was the essential emergency communication by the emergency offices of California. During the Kobe earthquake in Japan, the only link that connected the victims to the outside world was the internet. Responding to the event and coordinating It enables communication between employees Dissemination of the information to the public Apart from the above, internet has numerous possibilities that can be handled with. The use of the World Wide Web gives the user an allowance to access the images, sound plus other millions of subjects that are available in it (Seeger 2006). Airline crisis/ developing best practice In the context, “The laying of a fast disaster management system is making sure that those with roles have the information, resources, and authority they need.” Continuous maintenance of the coverage for the students and staff, relationships with local health care providers and civil authorities is part of the requirement. BP Deepwater Horizon explosion/leadership during crisis According to the employees of the Transocean, stated that the initial state was flickering of lights that were followed by vibrations. It eventually broke into a big fire that continued for the whole day. The burning was severe that it the entire platform. Before this calamity happened, the workers had received sinking notice that was to occur during the day, this was according to the guard who talked to the CNN. From the official of the drilling unit, they said the 126 people were on board, and they managed to evacuate 115 (Lee 2007). Sports PR facing issues and crisis Rather than advertising or sales campaign, sport is an exclusive practice that is the reason most of its activities are broadcasted through media coverage. Media interest in some occasions become more disastrous in high-profile scandals that raises a lot of demands, but still the coverage is always active. The paper creates a scenario in which sports public relations personnel have access to the crisis of media staff and the proposal of the culture that will make the elite of sports independent. In particular circumstances, a sports organization may draw upon a crisis that deals with strategy as we base on the analysis of media coverage of the Australian rugby league scandal. The crisis that happens repetitively may ruin the reputation of the sport (Trosby 2010). References Jaques, Tony (2007) Issue Management and Crisis Management: An Integrated, Non-Linear, Relational Construct, Public Relations Review, 33 (2), pp. 147-157 Coombs, W. Timothy, (2009), Conceptualizing Crisis Communication, in Handbook of Risk and Crisis Communication, Edited By Robert L. Health and H. Dan O’Hair, New York and London: Routledge, pp. 99-118 Hallahan, Kirk, (1999) Seven Models of Framing: Implications for Public Relations’ Journal of Public Relations Research 11 (3), pp. 205-242 Benoit, William L., (1997), Image Repair Discourse and Crisis Communication, Public Relations Review 23 (2), pp. 177-186 Sisco, Hilary Fussell, (2012), Nonprofit in Crisis: An Examination of the Applicability of Situational Crisis Communication Theory, Journal of the Public Relations Research, 24 (1), pp. 1-17 Seeger, Mathew W., (2006), Best Practices in Crisis Communication: an Expert Panel Process’, Journal of Applied Communication Research 34(3), pp. 232-244 Lee, Betty Kaman, (2007), The HKSAR Government’s PR and Sensitivity: Analysis of its SARS Crisis Management, Asian Journal of Communication 17 (2), and pp. 201-214 Trosby, Erick, (2010), Public Relations, Football and the Management of Player Transgressions in Australia, Public Communication Review 1 (2), pp. 49-66 Read More