Risk Management

Theories of Crisis Communication

Crisis communication is a fundamental function of authorities responsible for crisis management and response. A failure to provide timely crisis communication can cause undesirable severe outcomes for the community, organization, and stakeholders. Crises can originate from natural causes such as earthquakes, floods, thunder, and tsunami. It can also originate from human factors such as nuclear explosions, fires, electricity, and oil spills. Crisis communication involves giving accurate information to the public to improve safety and optimize crisis management efforts (Zamoum & Gorpe, 2018). The public relations professionals are at the center of crisis communication and crisis management. This paper shall analyze the application of crisis communication theories. Many of these theories are traditional, and therefore they leave gaps for addressing technological crises such as the social media crisis. However, some of these theories can be generalized to a vast range of situations. A proper communication theory selection can improve crisis response and prevent adverse outcomes.

Crisis Communication Theories

When a health pandemic is under the spotlight, communication efficiency is determined by the crisis communication theory used. The choice of an appropriate approach is problematic because information and circumstances change frequently, and some approaches may work or fail. Crisis communicators in the event of a pandemic are health officials, politicians, researchers, the Red Cross, WHO, and corporate leaders. They warn the public about the severity, dangers, limits, and statistics of a pandemic at hand. Fake information about a disease can spread quickly if the responsible communicators delay communicating the correct information to people.

Situational Crisis Communication Theory (SCCT)

Situational Crisis theory support that the public should not blame victims or their government/organization for any crisis that they cannot control. Public blame should be a key consideration when communicating about a crisis since it can damage the victims' reputation. However, every crisis, including natural disasters like COVID-19, is blamed on politicians whenever they fail to respond effectively. For example, US President Trump was overly criticized and blamed for the quick spread of Covid-19. Conversely, some politicians were heavily praised for observing best practices to control the pandemic spread. The SCCT divides crises into three categories, including the victim crisis in which a community, nation, or organization is a victim, the accidental crisis where the cause is unintentional, and the preventable crisis where people are intentionally put at risk. Depending on the crisis type, people either blame or praise the communicator. These views can either build or damage the reputation of the organization/government.

The response strategies under SCCT are categorized into deny response strategies, diminish response strategies, and rebuild response strategies (Cheng, 2018). Deny response is where the responder blames the accuser and denies responsibility for the crisis. Diminish response is where the responder justifies the reasons for failure using excuses. The rebuild response is where the responder takes the blame and apologizes or compensates the victims for damage caused. The United States federal government used to diminish and rebuild response because the reputational damage was severe. Therefore crisis communicators must respond to the crisis based on how the community attributes responsibility. If people perceive that a crisis is far intentional, they tend to attribute more profound responsibility to the responder.

Attribution Crisis Communication Theory (ACCT)

This theory highlights and stresses communication and the critical role that public relations have on crisis management. It elucidates how the public perceives events. When a crisis occurs, people attempt to determine the cause of the crisis and make attribution for responsibility based on the cause. When ACCT is practiced during an emergency, stakeholders are hypothesized to attribute responsibility internally (organization/governmental factors) or externally (environmental/natural factors). For internal attribution, the public will tend to develop negativities against the government/organization. However, they will tend to understand the government/organization if the cause is environmental. By applying this theory to the Covid-19 pandemic, communicators who use attribution theory would assume that the public would adopt external attribution since natural ecological factors cause the pandemic. However, internal attribution could also hold based on governmental failures to control the spread by either wearing masks or authorizing a compulsory quarantine. ACCT is audience-based because it examines the aspects of a crisis that shape the stakeholders' attributions.

Contingency Theory

This theory attempt to clarify how a government/organization communicates with the public and how various factors can influence communication. It also includes the concept of how a government/organization responds to conflict with its stakeholders. The concepts have the continuum of accommodation at one end and advocacy on the other. Advocacy is where the government/organization defends its interests. Accommodation applies when an organization announces a concession to other parties. For example, when the US government supports its decision not to subject the nation under quarantine to prevent an economic crisis, it advocates for the economy and local businesses. A section of the public will agree to this, while a section will oppose these decisions. Accommodation is when the government concedes that it cannot deliver without support from other stakeholders. When contingency theory is applied to a crisis, it demonstrates the relationship between stances (advocacy and accommodation) and crisis response approaches of image repair. Crisis communication using the contingency theory considers additional variables like threat duration and type.

Apologia and Apology Theories

These two theories are not similar but are related. In the application of apologia, the government/organization explains vividly and attempts to convince its stakeholders that whatever it is doing is right for the crisis. Conversely, apology theory is where a government/organization issues an apology for the consequences of its actions. According to Rouweler (2020), the two theories are related because they try to respond to criticism and allegations against the public and stakeholders' expectations. The government/organization tries to come up with more favorable explanations to restore its image.

Four strategies are used under apologia theory. One strategy is denial, in which a government/organization reports that it was not involved in the wrongdoing. The second strategy is bolstering, in which it reminds the stakeholders of the good achievements. The third is differentiation, in which it removes the negative actions from its content. The last is transcendence, in which it replaced the negative actions with a more favorable context. An illustration of apologia crisis communication theory is when President Trump reminded people about his government's economic achievements every time he was associated with the Covid-19 crisis response failures. In this way, he used the bolstering strategy to remind the public that his administration has overcome an economic crisis despite his crisis response failures.

Conclusion

This paper analyzed the application of crisis communication theories by teams involved in crisis communication and management. The choice of a crisis communication theory requires a proper understanding of the principles of the chosen theory. The history and research findings based on a particular type of crisis can also be sources of knowledge to a crisis communicator. Proper knowledge and application of a theory can save the image of a government/organization and reduce a crisis's repercussions. Further improvements should be made to the existing theories to integrate technological aspects. Crisis managers and stakeholders in various sectors should be effectively trained to improve crisis communication in the future.

References

Cheng, Y. (2018). How social media is changing crisis communication strategies: Evidence from the updated literature. Journal of contingencies and crisis management, 26(1), 58-68.

Rouweler, D. D. (2020). Not in my country!: Crisis proximity and the global pandemic (Bachelor's thesis, University of Twente).

Zamoum, K., & Gorpe, T. S. (2018). Crisis management: A historical and conceptual approach for a better understanding of today's crises. In Crisis Management-Theory and Practice. IntechOpen: 203-217.