Blog L&M Chpt 20 Risk Communications Before, During and After Emergencies
This chapter had many points that overlapped with chapter 4. A lot of crisis communications comes down to being prepared with a plan that has been rehearsed, know your audience(s), know how your company wants to respond, know who should be the communicator and know what behavior is appropriate for the communicator to use.
Today’s society want s to see genuine concern and a show of some emotion reinforces that they care about the situation and those affected by the incident. The communicator needs to establish credibility and trust as soon as possible. Research shows the following factors affect trust: caring and empathy, dedication and commitment, competence and expertise and honesty and openness (Slovic 1999).
The communications dept. should remember that even when a plan is in place the crisis will inevitably be something that has not been previously prepared for or rehearsed. Be flexible, resources and calm until the dept. can prepare a response. Remember that waiting too long can back fire and the organization could end up losing trust and credibility.
While preparing the organization be sure that each of the players knows their role and the roles the others have. This will aid in maintaining some semblance of control, get through the crisis and move on with as little negative effect on the whole organization as possible.
Early preparation within the organization is important but knowing the roles of each person on the communication team as well as how those roles work with other organizations is also important. If the roles are established early than attitudes and egos may not interfere with moving through the event.
Not only is communication important with the public and the audiences affected by the crisis but the organization needs to have a different point person for the employees of the organization to contact for information and up-dates. Determining methods of communication is important what will be most effective, should it be telecommunications, websites and/or mass media or any combination. Be prepared to go low tech if power is out and could be for a long time.
There is a great list of FAQ’s that every emergency communicator should expect to be asked. Copies should be made and put in an emergency plan file. Be transparent throughout the process. Emergency operation centers are a great tool and can be efficient in getting out a consistent message to the audiences. In cases of casualties there is a different set of questions that need to be addressed as well as other services that need to be provided for those families that might be or are dealing with casualties.
Be emotionally prepared for “Murphy’s Law” because even the best prepared crisis team will have to deal with the unexpected somewhere along the road to recovery.
Thanks, Liz
Today’s society want s to see genuine concern and a show of some emotion reinforces that they care about the situation and those affected by the incident. The communicator needs to establish credibility and trust as soon as possible. Research shows the following factors affect trust: caring and empathy, dedication and commitment, competence and expertise and honesty and openness (Slovic 1999).
The communications dept. should remember that even when a plan is in place the crisis will inevitably be something that has not been previously prepared for or rehearsed. Be flexible, resources and calm until the dept. can prepare a response. Remember that waiting too long can back fire and the organization could end up losing trust and credibility.
While preparing the organization be sure that each of the players knows their role and the roles the others have. This will aid in maintaining some semblance of control, get through the crisis and move on with as little negative effect on the whole organization as possible.
Early preparation within the organization is important but knowing the roles of each person on the communication team as well as how those roles work with other organizations is also important. If the roles are established early than attitudes and egos may not interfere with moving through the event.
Not only is communication important with the public and the audiences affected by the crisis but the organization needs to have a different point person for the employees of the organization to contact for information and up-dates. Determining methods of communication is important what will be most effective, should it be telecommunications, websites and/or mass media or any combination. Be prepared to go low tech if power is out and could be for a long time.
There is a great list of FAQ’s that every emergency communicator should expect to be asked. Copies should be made and put in an emergency plan file. Be transparent throughout the process. Emergency operation centers are a great tool and can be efficient in getting out a consistent message to the audiences. In cases of casualties there is a different set of questions that need to be addressed as well as other services that need to be provided for those families that might be or are dealing with casualties.
Be emotionally prepared for “Murphy’s Law” because even the best prepared crisis team will have to deal with the unexpected somewhere along the road to recovery.
Thanks, Liz
posted by Liz Felter at
3/25/2007 06:20:00 PM
2 Comments:
Liz - How did you get this reading assignment?
Mic Brookshire
By
nyuspike, at 8:18 PM
I decided to pick one of the chapters for this week and run with it….
Chapter 20 in L&M is about when risk communication turns into “emergency communication.” L&M make a distinction between the definition of an emergency and a crisis. They say that a crisis “is a turning point that will decisively determine an outcome. […] Thus, a crisis follows a process, even if an undesirable one, and is not altogether unexpected” (p. 389). The authors make the analogy that a crisis is like a disease in this way. According to them, an emergency “is a sudden or unforeseen situation that requires immediate action” (p. 390). Now, I do not know about you, but this seems to stretching the definitions of both of these words. I know that several people commented on this in class previously, and still remains an interesting issue to me. I always thought that we try to prepare for crises, but we can never guess what it may actually be. What do you think about L&M’s definitions of crisis and emergency?
I thought it was interesting the way that L&M mentioned the emotions of people during an “emergency.” They say that when in an emergency, and I would argue a crisis, that people sometimes become irrational and act in ways that they would not usually act. Basically, a variety of emotions will be experienced by the people involved, even the communicator. We talked about the emotion involved in these situations through the Sago Mine case study. Sandman suggests giving people options of what to during these situations, so they can have some sort of response without doing something irrational.
L&M blur the line between their emergency and crisis definition when they give an outline for developing an emergency risk communication plan, which looks a lot a crisis communication plan. Anyway, this could be preparing for natural disasters if you work for the government. Look at what happened during Katrina, miscommunication, and a lack of sticking to an emergency plan was the source of many of the problems. Another issue was that any media communication that was used, did not reach all the victims, because most people did not have power or mass communication access. Much of this probably could have been helped if they had a better emergency plan, or followed the one that they had.
Communicating during the emergency is one of the most important parts of the process. Control over the situation important, for all parties involved, going through the process of situation as well as being clear about what is happening, and remembering the needs of the individuals. Then, it is vital to have an Emergency Operations Center to have one central location where information is disseminated.
After an emergency, a communicator must be prepared to respond to questions from the victims’ families. Things like identifying who has died and who may be severely injured and reporting that to the families. Who is assigned that job is important, because it is one that should be performed as tactfully as possible. Then, of course, there should be counseling and debriefing for those who lived through the situation.
By
Catherine, at 8:30 AM
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