Theorizing Crisis Communication. Timothy L. Sellnow

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Название Theorizing Crisis Communication
Автор произведения Timothy L. Sellnow
Жанр Учебная литература
Серия
Издательство Учебная литература
Год выпуска 0
isbn 9781119615989



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have joked that we should rename divisions within our professional associations because of the dominance of crisis communication scholarship in these divisions. Mega crises have long captured the imagination of researchers, including myself. Indeed, the 9/11 terrorist attacks and the 2005 Hurricane Katrina solidified my dedication to crisis communication scholarship while I was in graduate school. Likewise, the 2009 H1N1 pandemic launched my focus on social media and crisis communication, including the social-mediated crisis communication model that my colleagues and I have developed over the past decade (see Chapter 8 for a discussion of social media and crisis communication theories). More recently, the tragic tornadoes that have devastated portions of the Southeastern United States have motivated my team’s collaboration with the National Weather Service to improve tornado risk and crisis communication, including theories about warning communication (see Chapter 3 for a review of these theories).

      As we think about the crises to come, this book provides the necessary framework for developing robust research grounded in theory that can inform practice (see Chapter 12). The many functions of crisis communication theory include organizing and describing observations, explaining relationships among constructs, predicting what will happen next, controlling outcomes when feasible, informing practice, facilitating critique, and promoting inquiry, as further discussed in Chapter 2 of this book. This book also showcases the wide variety of contexts to which we apply crisis communication theory including crisis development (Chapter 4), crisis outcomes (Chapter 5), emergency responses (Chapter 6).

      While reading this book, I encourage you to consider how theory can guide crisis communication practice – including areas for which we have limited knowledge. As a scholarly community, we create the most impact when we develop and test theories through active engagement with communities of practice. As Sellnow and Seeger discuss in Chapter 1 of this book, crisis communication is a relatively young field of study. In the decades to come, the field will continue to grow and mature. My recommendation is that as you read this book, consider how you can contribute to our knowledge base whether through research, theory development, and/or your future careers.

      References

      1 Cissna K. M. (2000). Applied communication research in the 21st century. Journal of Applied Communication Research, 28, 169–173. https://doi-org.proxy-um.researchport.umd.edu/10.1080/00909880009365563

      2 Lewin K. (1951). Problems of research in social psychology. In D.Cartwright (Ed.), Field theory in social science: Selected theoretical papers (pp. 155–169). Harper & Row.

      3 Mutter J. (2016, April). Opportunity from crisis: Who really benefits from post-disaster rebuilding efforts. Foreign Affairs. www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/2016-04-18/opportunity-crisis

      4 WHO. (2020, February). WHO director-general’s opening remarks at the media briefing of Ebola and COVID-19 outbreaks. www.who.int/dg/speeches/detail/who-director-general-s-opening-remarks-at-the-media-briefing-on-ebola-and-covid-19-outbreaks

      Crises are increasingly important social, political, economic, and environmental forces and arguably create more change, more quickly than any other single phenomenon. Crises have the potential to do great harm, creating widespread and systematic disruption, but they may also be forces for constructive change, growth, resilience, and renewal. They can quickly reshape institutions, create shifts in demographics and populations, alter ecosystems, undermine economic stability, and rapidly alter widely held beliefs. Understanding these events, therefore, is critical. A significant component of that understanding involves clarifying the role of communication processes in the onset, management, resolution, and meaning of crises.

      Historically, the worst crises have been earthquakes and infectious disease pandemics. The 1918–1919 influenza, or Spanish flu, pandemic, is estimated to have infected 500 million people worldwide and may have resulted in more than 20 million deaths. The worst earthquake of the twentieth century occurred in Tangshan in China in 1976. Official death tolls indicate that about 255,000 people lost their lives and another 150,000 were injured. Crises, big and small, natural and human caused, are inevitable. In fact, many scholars suggest they are occurring with more frequency and causing more harm than they have in the past (Perrow, 1984; Seeger et al., 2003).

      Crisis communication theories problematize the messages and meaning construction process in all the forms of human interaction and coordination that surround these threatening and high uncertainty events. Owing to the unpredictable nature of crises, theorizing about them creates many challenges. In some ways, every crisis may be seen as an entirely anomalous and unique event that, by definition, defies any systematic explanation. It is common to see a crisis as just an accident, an unusual combination of events that could not happen again. Conversely, the fact that crises occur at an increasing and alarming frequency allows scholars to observe similarities, patterns, and relationships across numerous occurrences. Many theoretical crisis frameworks described throughout this book were developed for specific types of events, including warning theories and evacuation models for hurricanes and recall models for contaminated food (Chapter 3). In many cases, scholars have also found these approaches have utility for understanding other kinds of crises. Increasingly, efforts are directed toward developing broader, more encompassing theories, using what is sometimes called an all-hazards approach. These approaches begin by understanding that all events described as crises will