Chp 20: Crap happens, deal with it!
Wes Jamison PUR 6934 Reaction blog #6 Lundgren and McMakin chapter 20
Chapter 20 begins the ominous discussion of risk communication during a crisis, and notes that phenomena like bioterrorism, mad cow disease, and other highly complex and poorly understood events require different ways of communicating. The authors note that other types of crises like SARS and Avian Flu pose different types of risk communication models than the care/consensus/crisis model posed by the authors. Hence, beginning in chapter 20 they differentiate between crises and emergencies.
Lundgren and McMakin note that traditional definitions of crises all involve a “turning point that will decisively determine an outcome” (pp. 389). They note that crises follow discernable and often predictable patterns and processes---indeed, they argue that traditionally, crises follow not-altogether-unexpected stages. However, they contrast crises with emergencies, which can be defined as “sudden or unforeseen situation[s] that requires immediate action” (pp. 390). They note the randomness of emergencies, which don’t follow predictable patterns, and that emergencies are largely unexpected. Interestingly, there is a significant body of literature that contradicts their perspective. Perrow argues in Normal Accidents that accidents, and indeed emergencies involving modern technologies, are to be expected and can be anticipated. Beck also argues in Risk Society that apparent unpredictability typifies modern technologies, but that systems theory and chaos theory can begin to untangle the seemingly haphazard development of emergencies. Chapter 20 could have done a better job of discussing the literature regarding modern technological emergencies. Langdon Winner reinforces Perrow and Beck in Autonomous Technology, arguing that accidents and emergencies typify modern technologies and can therefore be predicted.
Nevertheless, Lundgren and McMakin do their best given the relatively newness of catastrophic events like 9/11. After noting that risk communication is a distinct field within public relations, and that crisis communication is yet another distinct field within risk communications, they begin a concise explanation of the unique attributes of emergencies. They note that the purpose of the communications is to place the emergency in context, explain what happened, and correct misperceptions. Emergency communications must also provide options, empower action, facilitate recovery, and attenuate consequences of the emergency. In other words, people faced with crisis and risks ask three questions: what is it, what should I think about it, and what should I do about it? The authors state that the essence of emergency communications is to answer those three questions as quickly and thoroughly as possible.
They also argue that emergency communications mandate that decisions be made within narrow and constrained timeframes while the emergency is still taking place and hence the outcome is unknown, all the while facilitating recovery efforts. Lundgren and McMakin also argue that emergencies disrupt normal and pre-planned crisis communication channels, thus greatly complicating communication efforts. One can think of the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina as an example of this scenario.
More interestingly, the authors discuss the nature of modern catastrophes and their unprecedented nature: they cross jurisdictions, effected populations demand immediate attention, and the ability to respond with food, water and health care are severely restricted. Likewise, into this perfect storm comes a media feeding frenzy, and since modern mass media have resources and access to disaster areas without the encumbrance on jurisdictional issues and constitutional limits of power, they often rush to the scene of an emergency and amplify both public anxiety and outrage. One need only point to Anderson Cooper’s combative and ill-informed badgering of Mississippi Governor Haley Barber as an example of emergency amplification and outrage exacerbation.
This raises an interesting and rarely covered aspect of the Hurricane Katrina debacle. The tight coupling of media coverage to unfolding emergencies does not lend itself to reflection or scholarship. An example is the absence of federal troops during the initial stages of the recovery. The federal government is limited by the Constitution from sending federal troops without a specific request from the state legislature. Second, the federal government was severely limited by the context: New Orleans was a heavily African-American city, and the presence of troops before or during the early stages of the hurricane would have elicited outcries of racism. Hence, while the federal government was institutionally, structurally, and contextually limited in its ability to manage the emergency, media coverage amplified the crisis and engendered outrage. More interesting than the lack of federal response to Katrina was the lack of federal response to Hurricane Rita a few weeks later in central and western Louisiana. Rita was equally powerful and devastating, but since residents were dispersed, poor, and population density was far lower than New Orleans, the media failed to cover Rita with equal verve and vigor. Certainly other factors were involved, like public “crisis fatigue” and the media’s fixation on New Orleans metanarratives, or the media’s fixation on the subtext of Katrina regarding the comeuppance of George Bush. Whatever the causes regarding the lack of attention, more important for our purposes was the complete lack of looting, hunger, or disease. Indeed, scholars argued after Rita that citizens of western Louisiana were highly self-sufficient and independent, and that they were enculturated to the absence of federal or even state aid. Indeed, it was argued that because citizens were closely linked to their environment---many were hunters and fishermen---they were able to provide for themselves until help arrived. Likewise, before the Hurricane hit, the sheriff of Acadia Parrish deputized masses of citizens under the Posse Comitatus, equipped them with walkie-talkies, and clearly communicated broad parameters of law enforcement and emergency response. That single action is largely credited with staving off any looting or civil unrest. In other words, the lesson of Hurricane Rita is that empowerment of citizens before an emergency, coupled with their own sense of self-sufficiency, can be an effective crisis mitigation formula.
That digression aside, chapter 20 lays out a very concise and useful typology of what makes emergencies different. Risk guru Peter Sandman notes that after 9/11, Rudy Giuliani was transparent in his emotional response. Indeed, Lundgren and McMakin state that “Americans don’t want leaders to hide their own response to tragedies” (pp. 392). This raises two interesting points: first, that’s a completely untenable statement, because I’m certain that several leaders have thought “it’s serves them right!” when confronted with a tragedy of stupidity. Hence, Americans don’t want leaders to hide their responses, that is, unless the leaders don’t affect sorrow, grief, or some other placating and patronizing emotion that assuages public emotions and avoids blame attribution. Indeed, in some tragedies the public is actually at least partly to blame for their own actions! Thus, the authors’ contention is ridiculous---we only want empathy and sympathy, no matter how feigned. Which brings us to the second point: feigned responses, practiced emotions, will eventually have deleterious consequences, including cynicism. One can think of the feigned tears of the anchorman in Broadcast News¸ or the famously disingenuous ability of Bill Clinton to “feel our pain” to realize that emergency communications can often be disingenuous at best and manipulative at worst.
That aside, the authors note that taking a constructive role can engage people, helping to move them beyond crisis and emergency fixation toward a common sense of purpose and mission. They also argue that research indicates that caring, empathy, dedication and commitment can increase credibility and trust, which are two critical factors in managing an emergency. And yet again, Lundgren and McMakin’s utter lack of self-examination itself breeds further disdain for the practice of PR. How can one suddenly become caring, empathetic, dedicated and committed when no such character attributes existed beforehand. In other words, the authors are shameless in recommending disingenuous emoting and feigned character as a “technique” to “manage” public response. I wonder if they actually understand what they are advocating, and the implications of recommending actions that are incongruent with true character attributes. To put it another way, integrity can be defined as being on the outside what you are on the inside, or to quote Martin Luther King, integrity is what you are when nobody is looking. But Lundgren and McMakin bypass such messy discourses about authenticity, opting instead for a discussion of “what works.” In so doing they do disservice to the profession and the public.
The rest of the chapter follows the same format as previous chapters. The authors lay out a schematic approach to emergency communications that is practical and applicable, at once concise and relatively parsimonious. But like the other chapters, they leave the ugly details like discussing manipulation and disingenuous motives to others. They spill scant ink reflecting upon the implications of their recommendations. George Bush is not my friend no matter how many times he cries, Bill Clinton does not feel my pain regardless of how skilled his media training has been, and the local flak for a regional utility really doesn’t care about me. Instead, chapter 20 crystallizes my vague sense of unease I’ve felt throughout the entire book. Risk communication as presented by Lundgren and McMakin is more about self and organization preservation than anything else. I know all the rationalizations as to why persuasion is legitimate, why social exchanges require competition in the marketplace of ideas, blah blah blah. But nevertheless, something seems disconcerting about studying what are certainly intensely real, authentic and personal responses that were successful in the past in order to provide a template to be practiced in the future, independent of authenticity. The implications of this approach are obvious, and yet the authors discuss them very little. Public trust will evaporate, cynicism will increase, and disengagement will amplify as various publics become sophisticated in the ways of crisis and emergency communications.
As I said before, Anderson Cooper wasting oxygen while trying to excoriate the Bush administration won’t make our fears go away, George Bush shouting into a bullhorn won’t male the terrorists go away, and no rhetor making empathetic, sympathetic, compassionate statements can lesson the angst associated with modern, anomic and alienated existence. In that milieu, Bellah was so prophetic it’s scary: he noted in Habits of the Heart that the coming ethos of utilitarian individualism coupled with therapeutic individualism would require the devolution of institutions into providers of therapy, as conduits for collective angst attenuation through an incessant collective public dialogue about what ails us. The realization of that concept in the discourse of emergency communications makes me shudder. To be blunt, when it comes to emergencies, my philosophy is “craps happens, deal with it!” There is no institution, no technique, to assuage public fear, to ameliorate public crisis, to excise public angst, in the absence of a sacred canopy of meaning that places all such emergencies under a greater, transcendent context.
Chapter 20 begins the ominous discussion of risk communication during a crisis, and notes that phenomena like bioterrorism, mad cow disease, and other highly complex and poorly understood events require different ways of communicating. The authors note that other types of crises like SARS and Avian Flu pose different types of risk communication models than the care/consensus/crisis model posed by the authors. Hence, beginning in chapter 20 they differentiate between crises and emergencies.
Lundgren and McMakin note that traditional definitions of crises all involve a “turning point that will decisively determine an outcome” (pp. 389). They note that crises follow discernable and often predictable patterns and processes---indeed, they argue that traditionally, crises follow not-altogether-unexpected stages. However, they contrast crises with emergencies, which can be defined as “sudden or unforeseen situation[s] that requires immediate action” (pp. 390). They note the randomness of emergencies, which don’t follow predictable patterns, and that emergencies are largely unexpected. Interestingly, there is a significant body of literature that contradicts their perspective. Perrow argues in Normal Accidents that accidents, and indeed emergencies involving modern technologies, are to be expected and can be anticipated. Beck also argues in Risk Society that apparent unpredictability typifies modern technologies, but that systems theory and chaos theory can begin to untangle the seemingly haphazard development of emergencies. Chapter 20 could have done a better job of discussing the literature regarding modern technological emergencies. Langdon Winner reinforces Perrow and Beck in Autonomous Technology, arguing that accidents and emergencies typify modern technologies and can therefore be predicted.
Nevertheless, Lundgren and McMakin do their best given the relatively newness of catastrophic events like 9/11. After noting that risk communication is a distinct field within public relations, and that crisis communication is yet another distinct field within risk communications, they begin a concise explanation of the unique attributes of emergencies. They note that the purpose of the communications is to place the emergency in context, explain what happened, and correct misperceptions. Emergency communications must also provide options, empower action, facilitate recovery, and attenuate consequences of the emergency. In other words, people faced with crisis and risks ask three questions: what is it, what should I think about it, and what should I do about it? The authors state that the essence of emergency communications is to answer those three questions as quickly and thoroughly as possible.
They also argue that emergency communications mandate that decisions be made within narrow and constrained timeframes while the emergency is still taking place and hence the outcome is unknown, all the while facilitating recovery efforts. Lundgren and McMakin also argue that emergencies disrupt normal and pre-planned crisis communication channels, thus greatly complicating communication efforts. One can think of the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina as an example of this scenario.
More interestingly, the authors discuss the nature of modern catastrophes and their unprecedented nature: they cross jurisdictions, effected populations demand immediate attention, and the ability to respond with food, water and health care are severely restricted. Likewise, into this perfect storm comes a media feeding frenzy, and since modern mass media have resources and access to disaster areas without the encumbrance on jurisdictional issues and constitutional limits of power, they often rush to the scene of an emergency and amplify both public anxiety and outrage. One need only point to Anderson Cooper’s combative and ill-informed badgering of Mississippi Governor Haley Barber as an example of emergency amplification and outrage exacerbation.
This raises an interesting and rarely covered aspect of the Hurricane Katrina debacle. The tight coupling of media coverage to unfolding emergencies does not lend itself to reflection or scholarship. An example is the absence of federal troops during the initial stages of the recovery. The federal government is limited by the Constitution from sending federal troops without a specific request from the state legislature. Second, the federal government was severely limited by the context: New Orleans was a heavily African-American city, and the presence of troops before or during the early stages of the hurricane would have elicited outcries of racism. Hence, while the federal government was institutionally, structurally, and contextually limited in its ability to manage the emergency, media coverage amplified the crisis and engendered outrage. More interesting than the lack of federal response to Katrina was the lack of federal response to Hurricane Rita a few weeks later in central and western Louisiana. Rita was equally powerful and devastating, but since residents were dispersed, poor, and population density was far lower than New Orleans, the media failed to cover Rita with equal verve and vigor. Certainly other factors were involved, like public “crisis fatigue” and the media’s fixation on New Orleans metanarratives, or the media’s fixation on the subtext of Katrina regarding the comeuppance of George Bush. Whatever the causes regarding the lack of attention, more important for our purposes was the complete lack of looting, hunger, or disease. Indeed, scholars argued after Rita that citizens of western Louisiana were highly self-sufficient and independent, and that they were enculturated to the absence of federal or even state aid. Indeed, it was argued that because citizens were closely linked to their environment---many were hunters and fishermen---they were able to provide for themselves until help arrived. Likewise, before the Hurricane hit, the sheriff of Acadia Parrish deputized masses of citizens under the Posse Comitatus, equipped them with walkie-talkies, and clearly communicated broad parameters of law enforcement and emergency response. That single action is largely credited with staving off any looting or civil unrest. In other words, the lesson of Hurricane Rita is that empowerment of citizens before an emergency, coupled with their own sense of self-sufficiency, can be an effective crisis mitigation formula.
That digression aside, chapter 20 lays out a very concise and useful typology of what makes emergencies different. Risk guru Peter Sandman notes that after 9/11, Rudy Giuliani was transparent in his emotional response. Indeed, Lundgren and McMakin state that “Americans don’t want leaders to hide their own response to tragedies” (pp. 392). This raises two interesting points: first, that’s a completely untenable statement, because I’m certain that several leaders have thought “it’s serves them right!” when confronted with a tragedy of stupidity. Hence, Americans don’t want leaders to hide their responses, that is, unless the leaders don’t affect sorrow, grief, or some other placating and patronizing emotion that assuages public emotions and avoids blame attribution. Indeed, in some tragedies the public is actually at least partly to blame for their own actions! Thus, the authors’ contention is ridiculous---we only want empathy and sympathy, no matter how feigned. Which brings us to the second point: feigned responses, practiced emotions, will eventually have deleterious consequences, including cynicism. One can think of the feigned tears of the anchorman in Broadcast News¸ or the famously disingenuous ability of Bill Clinton to “feel our pain” to realize that emergency communications can often be disingenuous at best and manipulative at worst.
That aside, the authors note that taking a constructive role can engage people, helping to move them beyond crisis and emergency fixation toward a common sense of purpose and mission. They also argue that research indicates that caring, empathy, dedication and commitment can increase credibility and trust, which are two critical factors in managing an emergency. And yet again, Lundgren and McMakin’s utter lack of self-examination itself breeds further disdain for the practice of PR. How can one suddenly become caring, empathetic, dedicated and committed when no such character attributes existed beforehand. In other words, the authors are shameless in recommending disingenuous emoting and feigned character as a “technique” to “manage” public response. I wonder if they actually understand what they are advocating, and the implications of recommending actions that are incongruent with true character attributes. To put it another way, integrity can be defined as being on the outside what you are on the inside, or to quote Martin Luther King, integrity is what you are when nobody is looking. But Lundgren and McMakin bypass such messy discourses about authenticity, opting instead for a discussion of “what works.” In so doing they do disservice to the profession and the public.
The rest of the chapter follows the same format as previous chapters. The authors lay out a schematic approach to emergency communications that is practical and applicable, at once concise and relatively parsimonious. But like the other chapters, they leave the ugly details like discussing manipulation and disingenuous motives to others. They spill scant ink reflecting upon the implications of their recommendations. George Bush is not my friend no matter how many times he cries, Bill Clinton does not feel my pain regardless of how skilled his media training has been, and the local flak for a regional utility really doesn’t care about me. Instead, chapter 20 crystallizes my vague sense of unease I’ve felt throughout the entire book. Risk communication as presented by Lundgren and McMakin is more about self and organization preservation than anything else. I know all the rationalizations as to why persuasion is legitimate, why social exchanges require competition in the marketplace of ideas, blah blah blah. But nevertheless, something seems disconcerting about studying what are certainly intensely real, authentic and personal responses that were successful in the past in order to provide a template to be practiced in the future, independent of authenticity. The implications of this approach are obvious, and yet the authors discuss them very little. Public trust will evaporate, cynicism will increase, and disengagement will amplify as various publics become sophisticated in the ways of crisis and emergency communications.
As I said before, Anderson Cooper wasting oxygen while trying to excoriate the Bush administration won’t make our fears go away, George Bush shouting into a bullhorn won’t male the terrorists go away, and no rhetor making empathetic, sympathetic, compassionate statements can lesson the angst associated with modern, anomic and alienated existence. In that milieu, Bellah was so prophetic it’s scary: he noted in Habits of the Heart that the coming ethos of utilitarian individualism coupled with therapeutic individualism would require the devolution of institutions into providers of therapy, as conduits for collective angst attenuation through an incessant collective public dialogue about what ails us. The realization of that concept in the discourse of emergency communications makes me shudder. To be blunt, when it comes to emergencies, my philosophy is “craps happens, deal with it!” There is no institution, no technique, to assuage public fear, to ameliorate public crisis, to excise public angst, in the absence of a sacred canopy of meaning that places all such emergencies under a greater, transcendent context.
posted by Wes Jamison at
2/17/2007 04:23:00 PM
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