Download International crisis communication

Crisis communication in the digital and
global age of the 21st century
Research insights and practice implications
Dr. Andreas Schwarz
International Research Group on Crisis Communication (IRGoCC)
Ilmenau University of Technology
Sofia, April 21, 2016
New Bulgarian University
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Research
European and international networking
Conferences, workshops, training
Handbook of International Crisis
Communication Research
• Crisis Communication Section at ECREA
http://www.crisis-communication.de
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Agenda
1. Relevance & understanding
of crisis communication
2. Crisis communication research and its
practice implications
3. Challenges of the digital and global age
4. Outlook & discussion
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Crisis communication: Relevance
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Crisis communication: Relevance
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Crisis communication: Relevance
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Common characteristics of crises
1. Crises affect all social levels and systems
2. Causes: interaction of internal and external factors as well as
cognitive processing
3. Perceived as disrupting continuity, negative, pressuring,
threatening; and stimulate attention
4. Threat basic values, goal attainment …
5. Crisis perception and labelling dependent on the observing
system
6. The capacity of systems to cope with crises varies
Schwarz, 2010
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Functions of crisis communication
• Coping: support psychological coping,
e.g., risks, causes, consequences,
solutions
Sturges, 1994; Coombs, 2013; Schwarz, 2014
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Protect
organizational
assets &
scope of action
• Reputation & change management:
Empathy, responsibility/blame, trust,
scope of action, corrective action
Protect & support
stakeholders,
victims
• Instruction: Rules for behavior, protect
from harm
Key questions for research & practice of
strategic crisis communication
1. What are the most relevant structural and cultural context
variables at organizational and societal levels that influence
Institutional
perspective
development,
implementation, and
effectiveness of crisis
communication strategies?
2. What are the characteristics of effective instrumental and
technological
measures/tactics for crisis perspective
communication
Technical-instrumental
across sectors, industries, and societies?
3. What are characteristics and effects of content and form of
crisis Symbolic-relational
communication as well as stakeholder
relationships in
perspective
crisis contexts?
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IMOCC
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Integrative Model of Organizational Crisis Communication (IMOCC)
Effectiveness: Goal attainment, stakeholder protection, reputation
1.
Crisis prevention &
early detection
2.
Crisis preparation
3.
Management of
acute crisis
communication
4.
Post-crisis
communication and
learning
Institutional factors (e.g., contingency th., crisis management, gov. crisis c. decision wheel)
Technical-instrumental factors (e.g., crisis preparedness, issues management, etc.)
Symbolic-relational factors (e.g., SCCT, attribution theory, OPR, reputation)
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Institutional perspective
High crisis risk,
More harmful
crisis progress
Low crisis risk,
Less harmful
crisis progress
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Institutional perspective
Crisis Prone
Crisis Avoiding
Narcistic organizations
Empathetic organizations
Emphasis of internal publics; External
publics as means of accomplishment of
corporate objectives
Emphasis on external publics; broader
perception of environment
Defensive mechanisms: Denial, conscious
refusal, grandiosity/omnipotence
Accaptance of crises as sthg. that can
happen to all organizations
World view of good and evil dichotomy
No good-bad dichotomies, consciousness of
own deficiencies
‚Excellence barrier‘
Importance of strategic CM acknowledged
Focussed on technical issues of CM
Balanced importance of technical and
psychological/emotional issues in CM
The nature of human relationship:
competetive, individualistic
Paradoxical approach: competetive &
cooperative as well as individualistic &
group cooperative
Pauchant & Mitroff, 2006
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Technical / Instrumental Perspective
• Issues management (Monitoring, Scanning)
• Risk communication
• Crisis plans
• Crisis teams
• Online communication, dark sites
• PR standard tools during crises
• The evaluation of crisis communication
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Technical / Instrumental Perspective
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Technical / Instrumental Perspective:
predictors of crisis preparedness: German NPOs
B
Beta
(Constant)
1,0
Crisis communication competence
0,5
0,3**
Differentiated understanding of crisis PR
0,5
0,2*
General importance of PR in organization
0,4
0,2*
Model:
dependent variable:
R² = 0.28
Durbin-Watson = 1.87
number of crisis comm. tools
Schwarz & Pforr, 2011
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Symbolic-relational perspective
- cases  Commom shortcomings in crisis response and
resulting ‚thumb rules‘
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December 12
December 12
December 15
„I acknowledge that this could have
created a wrong impression. I am sorry
for that… In fact, I did not have and still
not have anything to hide.
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December 22
First public appearence
(started on July 25th)
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„oil spill …
is relatively
tiny“
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• Police strategies: deny responsibility, attack
accusers (Schaller/Lopavent, Duisburg/mayor),
victimage
• Mayor Sauerland: excuse, deny and shift
responsibility (Lopavent, police), victimage
• Lopavent / Schaller: excuse, attack accuser
(police)
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Symbolic-relational perspective
Rules of thumb:
• Be quick (control interpretation patterns)
• Be consistent (one voice/message)
• Be open (information policy, media)
• Express sympathy/empathy
• Adapt crisis response to the situation
• Give instructing and adjusting
information
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Crisis communication &
globalization
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Crisis communication & globalization
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Increasing number and importance of international communicators:
INGOs, TNCs, governments (public diplomacy), other transnational
organizations (UN, EU, etc.)
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Transnational causes, impact and resolution of crises: natural
disasters, economic crises, large-scale industry crises, global
warming, etc.
•
Cross-national conflict shifting: „Domestic conflicts are increasingly
shifting worldwide because of the growth of international
transactions, transportation and communication, especially
information technology” (Molleda & Connolly-Ahern, 2002, p. 4)
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Increasing migration flows and decreasing cultural homogeneity of
urban, national and regional populations
•
…
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Crisis communication & globalization
Who is responsible for crisis communication at your int. NGO?
Survey of international NGOs, N = 440
Schwarz & Fritsch, 2014
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Process: All communication processes and messages in
anticipation of crises, during crises, and after crises
Understanding cross-cultural variation in all crisis phases
Content/factual: All messages about crises
Understanding cross-cultural variation in
messages/frames
Social: All individuals, groups, and social systems that are
involved in crisis communication
Understanding cross-cultural variation in structures and
behavior of crisis communicators and crisis stakeholders
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CONTEXT & DIVERSITY ?
Goals of cross-cultural
crisis communication research
Cross-Cultural crisis communication
≠ International or Cross-national crisis communication
Subnational:
International or Cross-national crisis communication
= Cross-Cultural crisis communication
Culture 1,
2, 3, 4, 5
…
Transnational
:
Culture 4
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Cross-cultural crisis communication:
State of the art
International crisis communication:
• “That international crisis communication is underdeveloped, if
not undeveloped, reflects either insensitivity or ethnocentrism in
the current crisis communication field” (Lee, 2005, p. 286).
• Descriptive case studies, lack of discussion regarding culture
concepts, comparative methodology (equivalence), country
selection
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The impact of culture on crisis
communication?
Symbolic-relational Perspective
How, with whom and with what effect do communicators and or
Main findings: Causal antecedents  ATTRIBUTIONS of cause 
publics communicate in crises?
responsibility  crisis response  REPUTATION/TRUST/EMOTIONS
 messages and publics
“A great deal of research indicates that there are substantial crosscultural differences in attributions” (Silvera & Laufer, 2005, p. 17)
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Crisis communication in
the digital age
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Crisis communication & hybridization
• Hybridization of interpersonal, group, and mass
communication in online communication channels and social
media
• Increasing public exposure and public voice of organizations
and crisis stakeholders
• Myths and assumptions about the use, significance and
threat with regard to social media in contexts of disasters,
organizational crises, political crises, etc.
• Exploitation of fears and myths by consultants using
‚Alchemy‘ formulas
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Social media & strategic crisis
communication: some findings
• Most used social media channels by organizational
communicators: social networks, online videos, mobile apps,
microblogs  gap between importance and actual use (Zerfaß
et al., 2012)
• 38% of European communication managers use social media
in crisis contexts (Zerfaß et al., 2013)
• Still underused and underdeveloped dialogic/innovative
communication tools (Köhler, 2006; Schwarz & Pforr, 2011;
Taylor & Kent, 2007)
• Depending on communication channel (newspaper, blog,
microblog) different effects of strategic crisis communication on
reputation and follow-up communication (Schultz et al., 2011)
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PRACTICE
Crisis communication as core competence
in strategic communication of organizations in
corporate and public sectors
~ usually international dimensions
~ usually strategic positions  leadership, research
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THANK YOU !
много благодаря !
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