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Source:
Journal of Media Research - Revista de Studii Media Journal of Media Research
Location:
Romania
Author(s):
Cosmin Irimieş
Title:
Effective Communication in Crisis Situations Effective Communication in Crisis Situations
Issue:
3 (26)/2016
Citation style:
Cosmin Irimieş. "Effective Communication in Crisis Situations". Journal of Media Research Revista de Studii Media 3 (26):115-121. https://www.ceeol.com/search/article-detail?id=495852
CEEOL copyright 2017
Effective Communication in Crisis Situations
Assoc. Prof. Cosmin IRIMIEŞ, PhD Babes-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca, Romania Email:
[email protected]
Abstract: Communication has become, in the contemporary geo-strategic settlement, one of the most important issues both for professionals and for ordinary people as well, and by professionals we mean not only public relations specialists, campaign leaders and researchers, but also any person in a leading position no matter what type of organization we refer to. Under these circumstances, mastering effective communication represents an essential element of public life especially when there is any type of crisis involved. Keywords: effective communication, crisis, strategy, speech, public, audience, argumentation.
Before commencing any attempt to design or analyze a crisis communication campaign from the point of view of its effectiveness, we should define crisis and crisis situations: what they are, how they emerge, which are the actors and the possible evolutions, what steps have to be made in order to overcome the crisis and subsequently which is the role of communication in all this construction. The theoretical coverage of crisis situations is extremely wide, thus offering us a variety of definitions. According to Jonathan Bernstein (2013), crisis can be any situation that is threatening or could threaten to harm people or property, seriously interrupt business, significantly damage reputation and/or negatively impact the bottom line (Bernstein 2013). Timothy Coombs (2015) on the other hand, considers that crisis is a perceptual situation and “if stakeholders believe an organization is in crisis, a crisis does ex-
Journal of Media Research, 115 Vol. 9 Issue 3(26) / 2016, pp. 115-121 CEEOL copyright 2017
CEEOL copyright 2017
ist, and stakeholders will react to the organization as if the organization is in crisis” (Coombs, 2015). Crises themselves disturb some stakeholder expectations as people become upset and angry, which threatens the relationship between the organization and its stakeholders. That is why crises are considered dangerous to organizations’ reputations”(Barton, 2001), being events that dramatically interrupt the current activity of an organization and that have a negative influence on its public image (Coman 2001). Other scholars on the contrary approach crisis as an opportunity to detect errors, escape routines and accelerate change, develop new strategies and increase competitiveness (Chiciudean & David 2011). Apart from the specific issues they raise we can see that all definitions approach crisis as an unexpected, unplanned and overwhelming situation that can shake the natural order of things within an organization’s environment, be it internal or external, through uncertainty, confusion and lack of control. Scholars differentiate various types of crisis taking into consideration different factors involv