Virginia Tech shootings

I was feeling slightly guilty about not having the time to blog last week (despite reading, believe it or not) when the shootings at Virginia Tech took place. First and foremost, this is an awful, violent and incomprehensible tragedy for our country and our thoughts and prayers are with the victims and their families. But I could not help thinking, while watching news coverage with friends last night that both our crisis communications training we’ve learned in this class and our prior knowledge of media framing are applicable in this situation.

It doesn’t seem that long ago that the Columbine shootings took place. I remember I was here at UF in undergrad and I heard about them much through the same way that I heard about the VT shootings – word-of-mouth from other students. Back then, the Internet wasn’t as prevalent as it is now, where you can get updates every few minutes. I just looked at Yahoo! News and this was posted about a half-hour ago:

…BLACKSBURG, Va. - A gunman massacred 32 people at Virginia Tech in the deadliest shooting rampage in modern U.S. history Monday, cutting down his victims in two attacks two hours apart before the university could grasp what was happening and warn students….

What strikes me most about this sentence is the “before the university could grasp what was happening and warn students.” What an insensitive and irresponsible statement for the media to make. As I said earlier, the framing by the media about this tragedy was absolutely ridiculous and offensive. I couldn’t quite tell if it was because of lack of access to the appropriate spokespeople/family members/students but every news program focused on how the university let down the students, how they weren’t alerted soon enough immediately following the first shooting around 7:30 a.m. Emails were first sent out from what I am assuming is a university relations office around 9:30 a.m….two hours later. This action begs the question of whether VT had a crisis communication plan or whether it was implemented correctly. Who ultimately made the decision…public relations/affairs staff, the university president, university police?

Students and parents are now openly complaining to the media that VT let them down, that they and their students were not fairly warned or made to understand the severity of this rampage. But in a crisis situation, can everything go to plan? What about using a crisis plan that wasn’t designed for tragedy of this magnitude? Coombs states, “Actual crisis damage should be less than the anticipated crisis damage if the crisis management efforts were effective” (p. 136). But who could have foreseen this event, a senseless and seemingly random act? Who could have designed a crisis management plan for something this atrocious?

Coombs also states, that “media portrayals of the organization and the crisis can be critical in shaping the perceptions of other stakeholders involved in the crisis” (p. 140). You think? All I’m reading right now, about 15 hours after this story first broke nationally, are statements such as:

"I think the university has blood on their hands because of their lack of action after the first incident," (student quote on Yahoo! News)

“Too Few Warnings at Virginia Tech?” (Time.com headline)

and “Parents Demand Firing of Virginia Tech President, Police Chief Over Handling” (foxnews.com headline)

Coombs says that “skilled crisis managers communicate to stakeholders through channels other than news media” (p. 141). Ideally, yes. But it seems we are still learning exactly who was in charge of communication at VT, or even if law enforcement acted according to its crisis plan. The human factors, the victims, those injured and their families are clearly of most importance and not far behind are other students wondering just what went wrong and where do they go from here. It made me think of the Danny Rollings killings here at UF in 1990. Mass chaos and confusion coupled with the absolute necessity of pinning down someone to blame is a volatile combination. But Coombs tells us that “the purposes are learning and improving crisis performance, not placing blame” (p. 144). However, because the media has already, in such a short time, done such a stellar job of placing blame and focusing the attention away from the victims, the tragedy and the clear irrationality and instability of the shooter and instead on VT’s lack of or poorly chosen or executed crisis communication plan, I know it will be a long road ahead for VT’s president.

Earthquakes and Grunig's Situational Theory of Publics

I think this might be the last post here, it actually made me a bit sad.. But here you go anyway:

According to Grunig's Situational theory, there is not a general unified public, but there are different publics with different levels of involvement and risk awareness, thus messages should be constructed according to the needs and perceptions of each public group if risk communicators want to be effective.

Research must be conducted to learn more about how communities learn about risk and what kind of approaches they have towards this risk. But for this to happen, people who are in powerful positions and who can implement such campaigns need to value research and need to buy in the public information campaign beforehand in order to support it. This might be harder for developing countries because research is not see as a priority since there are other important issues at hand which might require more immediate attention.

The authors cite Turner, Nigg and Paz and state that news reports of conflicting opinions create more ambiguity than informing the public. I agree with this statement. Especially in areas where people have little ways of predicting something, such as an earthquake, when they see that there are conflicting statement in the news, they become even more critical and less caring about the risk because they feel like nothing is for certain and there is nothing they can do.

Turkey has had many earthquakes and many more are expected, especially in certain regions which are more prone to this risk, and people are tired about hearing conflicting statements and not knowing what and whom to believe. As Major argues, the “prediction process is further complicated by the fact that earthquake prediction s also are issued by astrologers, psychics, and religious leaders as well as self-appointed earthquake “scientists” (p 490).

In the case of Turkey, this was even more complicated by some religious leaders who claimed that the earthquakes are a punishment for all the bad actions of the community members which did not fit with the rules of Islam. This made people, especially people from certain economic and social backgrounds, even less sure about what to do or whom to listen to because now there were some religious leaders who claimed that this was a punishment and the only solution was to become “better” Muslims – whatever that meant.

As the “personalized risk” these people had increased, they became less caring about the earthquake education efforts and they started believing that this was a punishment from God. As most of you can realize, this was not a very useful approach and it limited the communication between risk communicators and communities who regard earthquakes as God’s punishment. They even went as far as to believe that there was nothing to be done and this was their fate and they had to suffer the consequences.

I strongly agree with implementing Grunig’s situational theory of publics into crisis and risk communication efforts and trying to customize messages for each different group. One overall message will not work in these risk situations because people have many different approaches to the risk, why the risk exists, how it will affect them and what they can do to protect themselves. Risk education programs should include different messaging and different strategies created specifically for the different publics involved to be effective.

The article of Reynolds and Seeger was, as Jiun-Yi pointed out, a recap of our semester’s learning of risk and crisis communication. The authors introduce Crisis and Emergency Risk Communication (CERC) model to effectively deal with risk and crisis situations. The underlying assumption of this model is that the thin line between risk and crisis situation should be integrated together in order to address more complex and disastrous events.

The CERC model was introduced by CDC after the bioterrorism attack of 911 and emerging global pandemics threatening the public health. Health communication in this complicated era must be “strategic, broad based, responsive and highly contingent,” attempting to embrace crisis from the prevention stages of risk. (p. 49). Traditionally, risk communication has been known to “deal with risk elements and risk consequences” (p.45). By this nature, risk communication focus towards threat sensing and using fear appeals as a persuasive method. As discussed in class, behavioral changes are achieved by presenting a threat and providing a methodology to alleviate the potential danger. Risk communication also underlies the public’s right to access information and facilitate logical decision making. In order to effectively communicate during a risk situation, certain factors should be acknowledged.

According to Sandman (1993, 2002), risk contains of the perception of the actual hazard and the actual outrage of the people. While the actual hazard may be minimal, people perceive it to be more dramatic when uncertainty levels are high, information provided are not credible, self-efficiency acts are lacking, and if the cause was known to be intentional. In these situations, public outrage is immense, thus effective risk communication becomes more challenging. Reynolds and Seeger point out that during a risk situation, communication is usually in the form of PR. Although it was a simple line in the article, it was nice to know that PR was noticed, albeit previous misconception of public relations as the muckraker still seemed be remaining in certain people’s minds.

Crisis communication was differentiated by the concerns of origin; “crisis communication is associated with PR and is grounded in efforts to strategically manage and frame public perceptions of an event so that harm is reduced for both the organization and the stakeholders” (p.46). The article gives a summary of the difference between risk and crisis communication in a table format. Some key distinctions note that crisis communication messages are principally informative and address current states and conditions. Whereas risk communication messages are structured and controlled, crisis messages are spontaneous and reactive.

Crisis and Emergency Risk Communication model attempts to address the diverse situation according to five different levels. The first stage will be precrisis, where communication should focus on potential risks as well as warnings and preparation of a possible hazard. In this stage, it is important to communicate messages so that the “general public” understands the potential danger. Addressing specific behaviors to alleviate the risk is also crucial. The second stage, initial event, attempts to reduce uncertainty levels and reassure in emotional turmoil. Rapid communication is the key during this time period. This would be somewhat similar to the traditional risk communication since the communication process tempts to reduce crisis related uncertainty and provide information on how and where to get more information. Designating spokespersons and formal information channels are also done in this stage. The maintenance stage is the on-going procedure of uncertainty reduction, self-efficacy, and reassurance. Here, in-depth understanding of the risk and crisis situation is formed and the publics are also aware of the on-going risks. Feedbacks from publics are available by this time and this influences the decision makings. Communication during this period not only focuses the general public, but also those who have been affected as well. The fourth stage is resolution, and during this stage updates regarding resolutions and discussion on the causal factors of the risk are done. Information as well as persuasion of recovery acts is communicated and broad, open discussions are welcomed. The new understanding of the risk is discussed and agencies, organizations and companies reinforce the positive corporate image during this stage. Finally, the evaluation stage discusses whether the whole communication process has been effective. This stage also document and formalize lessons learned and create linkages to precrisis activities.

CERC model integrates “many existing activities into more comprehensive systems of communication and grounded in a recognition of broad developmental features of crisis” (p.53). While this is an intelligent attempt to efficiently address the complex and vast social structure of risk and crisis, one must look into what integration may leave out. This concept derives my discussion points.

1. The merged model of CERC seems to bundle risk and crisis, almost as an attempt to catch two birds with one stone. However, there are certain factors that distinctively differentiate risk and crisis. Can you think of what these would be?

2. What do you think might happen as a backfire of this integrated model? Can you see a hole where some crucial factors may be left out?

3. The CERC model “assumes that crises will develop in largely predictable and systematic ways” (p.51). We had a heated discussion in class once between the difference of risk, crisis, and emergency. Didn’t we conclude that crisis is a situation where you cannot predict, and an emergency is a situation where you assume that it will happen, but you just never know when? What do you think about the author’s interpretation of crisis?

The utility of situational theory of publics

Grunig’s situational theory helps public relations managers or crisis managers identify their organization’s publics by categorizing who people communicate with and the rationales behind their choices of publics. The theory uses independent and dependent variables to determine the types of publics an organization faces. The theory uses three independent variables, problem recognition, constraint recognition and level of involvement, to predict two dependent variables, information processing and information seeking There are three types of publics with various communication behaviors. Latent publics face a shared problem but do not recognize it; aware publics detect the problem but do not take action; and active publics take measures to address the problem. These publics have various communication behaviors that should be considered when determining effective strategies for a communication plan or crisis situation. The article mentioned, “In past studies, Grunig has found that high problem recognition and low constraint recognition are more likely to be associated with communication behavior” (p. 493). It is easily expected that the person who is directly related to the problem and with less constraint would be the most active public to solve their problem. In this article, social factors were also tested to find out publics’ different response to the crisis. Social factors include discussions with friends and family members. The article concluded that situational theory provides a useful framework for examining public response to an earthquake prediction.
Situational theory demonstrates that there is not a single, general public for disaster predictions. Therefore, it must be very useful for public relations managers or crisis managers. This article used the example of earthquake, unpredictable natural disaster and concluded that high involvement was associated with high problem recognition and interpersonal discussion was related to problem recognition. The perceived influence of interpersonal discussion and news media use were associated with problem facers. Societal-level constraint recognition was related to personal constraint recognition. I believe those results will be different if we use different case such as AIDS. In case of AIDS, it is possible that the person who has AIDS, which would be considered as high problem recognition, can not actively be a problem facer because he or she wants to protect his or her privacy. So I’d like to raise a few questions here. First, do you believe situational theory can help practitioners in real world? Secondly, if you believe it can help practitioners’ making strategic plan, how can we make practitioners use the theory? Thirdly, how can we make an effort to relate theory and the real world? I’m a doctoral student in public relations, and believe to develop a theory, which is useful in real world, is very significant.
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It all depends

The Grunig Situational Theory of Publics: in essence, the Grunigs take an aecdotal and common sense observation and support it---there is no 'one' single public, no general public, but instead there are different publics with different levels of involvement and risk awareness. With this is mind, and in keeping with the co-orientation elements of their excellence theory, Grunig argues that risk messages should be constructed according to the context of stakeholder groups. This seemes true enough, but as we argued in class, who exactly are those publics? Indeed, with the advent of new media and the disintegration of traditional communities of meaning and their realignment in increasingly transient coalition, the post-modern perspective may be more accurate.

That is to say, post-modern and post-structural critics would attack Grunig as not only out-of-touch but antiquated. Peter Berger would argue that modernity and post-modernity have fragmented meaning into an infinite array of individuated and amorphous plausibility structures, and the text "The Functions of Social Protest" would tell us that one result of modernity is that protest and activism serve as focii of collective meanings, e.g. people protest because it gives them a sense of belonging to a greater group as well as a sense of purpose. The implications of this for risk communication and for crisis communication are profound, because if indeed we live in Beck's Risk Society then any attempt to implement two-way symmetric PR is doomed to fail.

Instead, I have come to see that crisis communications may be more about managing rumors and the crises that arise within the crises, as well as pitting groups of rhetors against each other (divide et impera) in a classic political strategy of preserving the status quo ante. Yes, clearly there are techniques that "work" to address elements of crisis cycles, and yes, there are other techniques that may work to help people deal with crises. But technique without philosophy provides little guidance at all.

Crisis and emergency risk communication as an integrative model?

The crisis and emergency risk communication as an integrative model, is presented as an alternative to the seemingly perceived inadequate traditional models of risk and crisis communication in effectively responding to the new and emerging global threats and bioterrorism. The authors describe the scope and nature of communication efforts proposed by the model as being ‘broader than many traditional models of risk or crisis communication (p.49)’. They draw mainly from the anthrax episode (which followed the 9/11 attacks) to justify the expediency of the model. The model was initiated by CDC in an attempt to facilitate effective communication within a context of immediacy, threat and high uncertainty.

Noteworthy points about the model

1 Incorporate principles of effective risk and crisis communication throughout the evolution of a risk factor into a crisis event and on through the clean-up and recovery phase.

2 Merged many existing activities into more comprehensive systems of communications.

3 Grounded on a recognition of the five staged development features of crisis – ‘from risk, to eruption, to clean-up and recovery on into evaluation (p.51)’

4 Based on the notion that effective communication regarding crisis and emergencies must begin long before an event erupts and continue after immediate threat has subsided (p.53).

5 Offers a comprehensive approach within which risk and warning messages and communication activities can be connected into a more encompassing communication form (p51).

6 Crises are threats and actual events; often a combination of the two.

7 Acknowledges limitations based on the following

Stages of a crisis are not necessarily mutually exclusive - crises rarely develop exactly as expected. They may skip stages or actually move back to earlier stages.

Dynamic nature of crisis dictates that specific needs and conditions cannot be predicted precisely.

Development stages of crisis in CERC

1. Precrisis

Focus of communication – public and response community

Purpose: To inform the general public and stakeholders about the risk and encourage behaviors that reduces the chances of exposure.

· Pre-event communication e.g. education campaigns, issue press releases, message development testing.
· Forging alliances with stakeholders

2. Initial event

Focus of communication – general public and affected groups

Features: Immediate and focused communications to the general public and those affected using designated spokesperson, established channels of communication and other important features of crisis communication.

3. Maintenance

Focus of communication – general public and affected groups

Purpose - to update and provide feedback about the crisis and to correct any rumors or misunderstandings.

4. Resolution

Focus of communication – General public and affected groups

Purpose – updates regarding resolution, discussions and cause and new risks/new understanding of risk.

5. Evaluation

· Focus of communication – agencies and response community

· Purpose – postmortem, assessment and learning of the effectiveness of the communication activities, re-examination of the crisis communication plan for any deficiencies or areas that need development and lessons learned.

Views regarding the model

The key feature about the CERC model is that it blends the risk and crisis communication activities into a more comprehensive system. In so doing it gives communicators a sense of what to expect as a crisis develops and specifies some of the communication activities that may be appropriate at different points in a crisis. However, literature on both risk and crisis communication highlights these issues, though separately from the respective fields’ point of view.

In terms of the developmental stages of crisis, the model does not differ much from Mitroff (1994) and Fink (1986) staged models of crisis communication as well as Coombs (1999) three-staged model, further divided into sub-stages. Just as the different developmental stages of a crisis proposed by these three authors mainly differ in the number of stages, the main thing is that they do not differ in key elements and features and intervention strategies. The CERC model as proposed in no different. The precrisis phase of the CERC model focuses entirely on the ideals, principles and strategies of risk communication and is aimed at prevention. The rest of the stages borrow much from effective crisis communication principles and strategies.

The CERC model, as presented in the article, is simply an attempt to bring together components of risk communication and crisis communication. Apart from that, I don’t see anything new about the model. This point is demonstrated by the fact that reading throughout the article provided a good overview of what we have already learned in class throughout the semester concerning risk and crisis communication. However, since the model is still new and presented as a working model, it may develop further with time and testing to distinguish itself from the current existing models.

U., S., & S. Chapters 9 and 12

Before I begin my assessment of the chapters, even if I have mentioned this before, it has to be said that I truly enjoy the ease and straight-forwardness with which Effective Crisis Communication is written. In particular, I enjoy the situational descriptions of previous crises. Chapter 9, Learning Through Failure, began by illustrating the need for organizations to unlearn bad habits by describing the Challenger and Columbia tragedies experienced by NASA. Although my recollection of the Challenger explosion is limited to the now-famous image of the explosion featured in middle and high school history books, the Columbia catastrophe had an impact upon me. In particular, I remember thinking, “how could that happen?” I don’t really know why, but I felt exceptionally saddened when thinking about Kalpana Chawla, the female astronaut who was of Indian descent. The fact that NASA’s ego problems were identified after the Challenger explosion is not as much “bittersweet” (p. 142) as it is just ridiculous. This, however, got me to thinking about a conversation that I had recently. There are certain personalities that simply do not learn vicariously or even from failure. To me, this means that in order for an organization to be able to learn under the different circumstances outlined in the chapter, the organizational leadership needs to be varied enough to have people who exhibit different learning styles. It would not surprise me if, based on the uncommonly elitist status that NASA is regarded under in American society, the personalities within the organization might be lacking variation.

Another point brought up in chapter 9 is that it is important for organizations to rely on their organizational memory. This means that, “[i]f new employees are unwilling to learn from departing ones, the organization’s accumulated knowledge is lost. Thus new employees who want to do things their way could be destined to repeat previous organizational failures” (p. 148) The chapter goes on to advocate for the unlearning of bad habits and willingness to listen to new ideas, but in reading the quoted section above, I wondered if an organization can ever really gauge whether someone is learning or not learning properly unless trouble arises.

The last chapter in the book focused on ways in which crisis can serve as an inspiring renewal to a new normal. The example of Cantor Fitzgerald is one that is once again very memorable to me because, like most Americans, 9/11 was a life-changing event to me. Cantor Fitzgerald was mentioned often in the press within the aftermath because they were the largest amount of space in the World Trade Center. Their responsibility to the families of their 658 families was certainly owned up, and that is truly honorable. However, in reading the section I also thought that Cantor Fitzgerald was not at fault in any way. Being able to start anew is not something that can happen in all situations, especially if there is even a minimal amount of organizational fault. Would anyone disagree with that?

The section titled “Opportunities for Inspiring Renewal to a New Normal,” was concluded with the safety-raising changes that occurred in air travel following the terrorist attacks: “At present, airplanes with too much fuel for a scheduled flight must burn some of it off before they are allowed to take off” (p. 182). The book was copyrighted in 2007. At the risk of sounding like a tree-hugger, I wonder, with the attention that global warming is getting, how socially responsible is it to just sit on a runway and burn fuel? Aren’t the cockpit modifications and security restrictions enough that don’t allow passengers to fly with lip gloss or nail files enough?

I have to say, though the most frustrating part about reading this last chapter was the explanation about how one year after the Columbia accident, NASA was still experiencing some of the communication problems that led to the previous crises. The section concluded by stating that “an organization’s leadership is a key component of any movement to a new normal and renewing response to organizational crisis” (p. 185). This supports my earlier assertion that, perhaps, NASA’s leadership and organizational structure may not be varied enough with regard to personality types to be able to make the necessary changes.

New Madrid Earthquake Prediction and Grunig's Situation Theory of Publics

Since you all read the article, I will spare you as many background details as possible. This study focused on applying Grunig’s Situational Theory of Publics to a sample of people in the New Madrid Seismic Zone after a prediction that an earthquake with a magnitude between 6.5 and 7.5 would hit the area.

There is no such thing as a general public and Grunig’s situation theory of publics provides a framework around the publics involved with disaster preparedness or response. Major then breaks down situational theory into three sets of variables: belief in prediction and personalized risk, personal and societal factors, and mastery. Much of the necessity for this type of communications comes from the difficulty and inaccuracy involved in earthquake prediction and preparedness, which is where the article draws its situation from.

I thought one of the more interesting variables that Major discusses comes directly after her breakdown of situational theory. The role that the news media has in the believability of a prediction since they “chronicle debates” (p. 490). This could definitely throw a wrench in the gears of a prediction if it is controversial, giving anyone who wants an excuse not to evacuate a reason to stay behind. That is quite the hurdle for the public relations practitioner to surpass.

DISCUSSION QUESTION 1: What are some of the best ways to deal with a situation such as this when problem recognition is high?

Giselle did a good job explaining this version of the situational theory of publics. Check out her blog posting since Major (1998) uses different terminology.

Major developed a number of hypotheses (nine total):

1. The problem-facing public will be associated with (a) interpersonal discussion and (b) news media use.
2. Belief in the prediction will separate high problem recognition publics (i.e., problem facers and constrained) from low problem recognition publics (i.e., routines and fatals).
3. Personalized risk should separate the high constraint recognition publics (i.e., the constrained and fatals) from the low constraint recognition publics (i.e., the problem facers and the routines) regardless of belief in the prediction.
4. Level of involvement should separate the high from the low problem recognition publics.
5. The estimated risk of being killed or injured in an earthquake should separate the high from the low constraint recognition publics.
6. Belief in prophetic predictions will be associated with the fatal public.
7. The perceived influence of (a) interpersonal discussion and (b) news media use on the perceived importance of the earthquake problem will separate the problem facers from the other three publics.
8. Societal-level constraint recognition will separate low from high constraint recognition publics with low societal-level constraint recognition associated low constraint recognition.
9. The mastery variables, (a) perceived preparedness and (b) willingness to pay more taxes for earthquake mitigation, will separate the low constraint recognition publics from the high constraint recognition publics.

Major then telephone surveyed 629 people in the New Madrid Seismic Zone.

Supported Hypotheses were: 1a, 3(partially), 4, 6, 7a, 7b, 8, 9a (partially),

Unsupported Hypotheses: 1b, 2, 5, 9b

Overall the paper found a significant amount of support for the situational theory of publics, and further, for each of the three variables that Major (1998) tested. She found that messages should be targeted at publics that do not already communicate about the possible disaster.

DISCUSSION QUESTION 2: What role does the public relations practitioner take on according to Grunig’s situational theory? How is his or her their judgment affected if his/her perceived risk differs from that of the audience? In other words, how much does the public relations practitioner’s problem and constraint recognition affect their judgment about what to communicate and how?

DISCUSSION QUESTION 3: Why don’t you think that hypotheses 1b, 2, 5, 9b were supported?

Crisis and Emergency Risk Communication as an Integrative Model

This paper is written by a practitioner working in the office of communication of CDC, aiming to address a CERC model that combined communication elements in crisis, risk and emergency situation. Just like we have discussed in the class, the paper can be viewed as a recap of what we have learned through the risk and crisis communication process.

The author started to summarize the differences between risk and crisis communication.

Risk communication is closely associated with threat sensing and assessment. In practice, risk communication most often involves the production of public messages regarding health risks and environmental hazards. Risk communication is most closely grounded in research on fear appeals as a persuasive device. These messages seek to induce behavioral change by presenting a threat and describing a behavior or behavioral change that may alleviate the threat. Risk messages should be clear and simple, appeal to reason and emotion, and offer solutions to problems (Friemuth et al., 2000).

The common attribute that risk communication and crisis communication each rely on is credibility as a fundamental persuasive dimension, although they manifest in different ways.

The working model of CERC can be divided into five stages – precrisis, initial event, maintenance, resolution and evaluation, which are consistent to the situation of how a crisis evolved in a systematic approach. The blended form of crisis and risk communication, then, incorporates principles of effective risk communication and crisis communication throughout the evolution of a risk factor into a crisis event and on through the clean-up and recovery phase.

Reactions on Nigeria case

Now, if you took the gas in your car and traced it to its source, there’s an increasing chance that you would end up not in the Middle East, but in West Africa. Nigeria has become a country of increasing importance to America’s oil-driven economy.

After reading Salopek’s vivid report, I couldn’t help thinking what public relations could play a better role in this case. We are keeping saying that the fundamental goal (or contribution) of public relations effort is to make corporation more social responsible. However, in this case, I can’t see any practice in terms of social responsibility.

“The U.S. oil giant (Exxon Mobil) has a complex relationship with its destitute neighbors. On one hand, it helped renovate village’s schoolhouse. Bu it also spilled at least 40,000 barrels of crude into the sea in 1998, a fiasco that fisherman say permanently destroyed the village’s traditional livelihood.” The presented story made me feel that the corporate social responsibility is just one way to show compensation to local communities. Many would argue this effort just is a practice of tokenism. (I would think the same way, too.)

Also, what are the strategies that Exxon Mobil Company takes to deal with increasing pressure from activist? It is not a news that a dozen environmental and liberal-advocacy groups have launched a protest campaign against ExxonMobil Corp. (News)

Coombs Chpt 8 &9 – by Liz Felter

Well Catherine and Mic did a fine job summarizing these two chapters.

I think evaluation should be looked at as lessons learned. All experiences are valuable even the ones that fail miserably once initiated. Not only can they improve the situation in the organization but you can take the experiences with you to other organizations as you advance in your career.

How do you know if you have the right person in the right position once a crisis goes into effect? Can you change mid stream if needed? I guess you could do strengths and weaknesses evaluation including performance by each person in each position and based on that data makes changes if needed. Sometimes that may be the only way to get around ego and attitude.

If evaluation is so important how come so many people either don’t budget for it as part of the planning process or they just don’t do it? Shouldn’t this be part of accountability? This just doesn’t make sense. It seems like it is as important if not more important than the actual crisis plan. The information gleaned from evaluation should be seen as a means to improve the plan and get closer to full proof.

Do organizations really have more than one communicator to deal with the external audience, the employees and stakeholder? This seems to be an area where they would cut corners to save money or streamline the operation by having one spokesperson. Has someone worked in an organization that has it separated out?


In reading the team 7 presentation information I couldn’t help but think about a class I took last spring called International Extension. Accountability, transparency and local buy-in were the key to success when working in a foreign country. Trust and credibility were the by-products of the previously mentioned. It doesn’t seem like any of those actions were considered let alone practiced. It also didn’t seem like any one cared if those actions were taken. How ironic that the wealth associated with petroleum was the actual catalyst to poverty and destitution.

These articles made me think about how accountability or the lack of seemed to be associated with corruption particularly in third world countries, especially those countries that have very little stability. Maybe the Niger Delta Development Commission will start to have an effect on that situation. The story about the different Americans was interesting in that they didn’t seem to care as long as they had gas in their car. Gas in their car is one thing I wonder how they will feel when it is a shortage of drinking water.
Both of these issues have one thing in common people don’t seem interested in caring until the tap or pump runs dry. Maybe Mark Twain was on to something when he said, " Whiskey is for drinking, water is for fighting over".

The Utility of Situational Theory of Publics for Assessing Public Response to a Disaster Prediction

Ann Marie Major looked at the situational theory of publics in relation to earthquake preparedness. For those unfamiliar with the situational theory of publics, it’s a PR theory that separates members of a population into groups (“publics”) based on variables such as level of involvement, problem recognition, and constraint recognition. It’s an essential tool when planning a campaign of any kind, as it helps you develop and tailor messages according to each public’s needs.

The first variable, problem recognition, is exactly how it sounds – it refers to the level on which the public recognizes the problem facing them. Constraint recognition refers to the level on which the public believes they can do something to solve the problem. The final variable, level of involvement, refers to the level on which the public feels a personal connection and investment in the problem.

The author used different terminology for each of the publics than I’ve seen before, but the essence of the theory is still intact. The four publics as defined by Major are:

• Problem-facing public (active) – this group actively thinks about the problem and believe they can do something about the problem (high level of involvement, low constraint recognition)
• Constrained public (aware) – this group thinks about the problem, yet perceive constraints that would keep them from affecting the problem (high level of involvement, high constraint recognition)
• Routine public (latent) – this public does not think about the problem, but believes they could have an affect on the problem if it happens to them (low level of involvement, low constraint recognition)
• Fatalistic public (nonpublic) – this public doesn’t think about the problem, nor does it believe it could do anything about the problem (low level of involvement, high level of constraint recognition)

The concepts of active information seeking and passive information processing are also included in the author’s model. Information seeking is the “planned scanning of the environment for messages about a specified topic” (p.492). This would be a characteristic present in both the problem-facing and constrained publics, as they are actively involved in the situation. Passive information processing is the “unplanned discovery of a message, followed by continued processing of it” (p.492). Any of the four publics could utilize this method; the difference would come when the member of the public would decide if this is information to be concerned with or not. Then again, it could also vault an individual into another category of public, if the information was enlightening about the state of the problem.

This particular study looked at the response to a predicted earthquake in the New Madrid seismic region of the Central United States (a more exact location was not given). The following were among the conclusions the researchers came to:

• The level of high personalized risk had an impact on the high constraint recognition publics (constrained & fatal) – the higher the level of problem recognition, the lower perception of personalized risk. In other words, the more the public understood about the problem, the more equipped they felt in regards to dealing with it
• High involvement was associated with high problem recognition – those who understood the problem the most were the most motivated to get involved
• Interpersonal discussion was a critical form of communication amongst all groups, as people turned to their friends and family for clarification and further information regarding messages given by the news media

(There were more results that dealt more specifically with the earthquake situation – I encourage you to check out the article for more information on those, as it’s useful information to consider when planning public education campaigns – in the interest of time, I just mentioned the more generalizable results)

Questions
- If you were designing a public education campaign, which public(s) would you be most interested in targeting? How come?
- What methods would you use to reach out to the publics with low levels of problem recognition, but high levels of constraint recognition?

What's been learned -- maybe? Ronnie

I'm going to touch on issues involving the Lisa Nowak situation and Jet Blue but one disclaimer -- I am a bit out of the loop as to what is required -- or even if we are supposed to blog on this. But since I am not in class, I thought I would post this anyway. So read on, if you like.

NASA has a new issue to contend with in terms of crisis communication in the aftermath of the Lisa Nowak affair. I am certain everyone here is familiar with the story of the now former astronaut who traveled from Houston to Orlando to confront her rival for the affections of another astronaut in a now famous or infamous showdown in the Orlando Airport.

A NASA crisis has usually involved some disaster in space – not on the ground. And its crisis communication skills have clearly improved between the time of the 1986 Challenger disaster and the 2003 Columbia explosion. Both tragedies involved multiple deaths; but when the Challenger blew up; NASA officials were evasive and secretive. Seventeen years later, NASA was open and upfront about what happened and its own investigations into the incident.

Open and upfront seems to the model that NASA chose to use in handling the Lisa Nowak incident. Immediately after Nowak was arrested, director Michael Coats issued a statement that said NASA was "deeply saddened by this tragic event.” Coats also made it known that Nowak was “officially on 30-day leave.” Since, then, of course, Nowak has been dropped from the astronaut program.
But NASA went further to divulge its plans to review psychological screen assessments of astronauts and to review procedures to determine if any changes need to be made. That was an obvious step to take given that if Nowak had engaged in similar behavior while on a space mission, the impact of her actions could have been even more devastating.
So in response to one of the questions raised by Jennifer -- What other important factors, other than commitment to stakeholders, would be important in handling a crisis and in helping an organization return to a “new normal” after a crisis? – This is what I have to add in regards to NASA. NASA has a wide range of stakeholders and it is important to assure all concerned of two things – that they had compassion for Nowak as a member of the NASA family and that they will take steps to keep this kind of personal imbalance on the part of a NASA public figure from occurring again. The first statement issued by NASA made reference to their concern for the “safety and well-being of Lisa,” a statement that showed public concern for her as a person. NASA’s new normal, of course, will be to show all its stakeholders that it is looking to see if there are any loopholes in NASA procedures that need to be closed so this type of incident doesn’t happen again.

On another note, and to look for an answer to one of the other questions raised by Jennifer on an organization which has had a crisis and whether information about poor ethical decisions prior to the crisis – what comes to mind for me is Jet Blue. I guess I would consider poor communications akin to an ethical dilemma in this day and age and that is definitely what nailed Jet Blue on Valentine’s Day were the hundreds of flights that were cancelled and the thousands of passengers who were left stranded on the tarmac for hours. The end result, of course, was many angry passengers and Jet Blue double and triple time to try and make up for the mistakes. Company CEO David Neeleman was everywhere – on talk shows, in the newspapers and even on his own Jet Blue blog to offer apologies and information about Jet Blue’s new passenger Bill or Rights. Some say Jet Blue lost this battle; in a white paper written by OneUpWeb.com, it was noted that Business Week Magazine dropped Jet blue for its list of “25 Client Pleasing Brands” Jet Blue had been fourth on the list.

Effective Crisis Communication Chapters 9 and 12

Chapter 9 from Effective Crisis Communication

Chapter 9 brought up some interesting points about the importance of learning from failure. Too often organizations try to avoid failure all together and do not view it as a learning experience. Some lessons can only be learned from failure and by figuring out what went wrong and why. According to the chapter, there are several ways to learn from failure. The first way is to learn directly from a failure that was experienced by the organization. The second way is to learn vicariously from a failure which was experienced by another organization. Another way organizations can learn is from a process called “unlearning”. With unlearning, organizations change or “unlearn” their previous behaviors that are outdated due to changes in the environment.

If organizations and their leadership learn from failure and environmental changes, they may have these opportunities:

· “Opportunity 1: Organizations should treat failure as an opportunity to recognize a potential crisis to prevent a similar crisis in the future.”(p.150)
· “Opportunity 2: Organizations can avoid crises by learning from the failures and crises of other organizations.” (p. 150)
· “Opportunity 3: Organizational training and planning should emphasize the preservation of previous learning in order to make organizational memory a priority.” (p.150)
· “Opportunity 4: Organizations must be willing to unlearn outdated or ineffective procedures if they are to learn better crisis management strategies.” (p.150)

The authors used Johnson & Johnson and the Tylenol crisis as an example of failure. According to them, Johnson & Johnson handled the crisis well, but did not learn from failure because they did not handle future crises with the same speed and effectiveness. This brings me to my first discussion question:
Do you agree with the authors’ claims?

I do not necessarily agree because while they may not have handled future crises as well, they could not have learned nothing from the Tylenol crisis. Tylenol is still a trusted brand and Johnson & Johnson is still a trusted company, so the future crises they had to handle were not handled completely wrong. The way they handled the future crises may have been due to several facts, such as a change in leadership and a change in public relations practitioners working for the company.

Chapter 12 from Effective Crisis Communication

Chapter 12 discussed how to return to business again after a crisis. Depending on the crisis and the severity of it, an organization may be able to return to business as usual or the organization may have to return to a “new normal”. The case studies in the chapter discussed how the organizations could return to a “new normal” after a crisis and the one thing they had in common was the fact that the organizations were committed to their stakeholders.

Four ways for organizations to have effective crisis responses are:

“Opportunity 1: Organizations that set strong ethical standards before crises can create opportunities for renewal.” (p. 186)
“Opportunity 2: Organizations that emphasize developing strong stakeholder relationships prior to a crisis have opportunities to experience renewal after one occurs.” (p. 186)
“Opportunity 3: Organizations that focus on moving beyond crises rather than shifting blame or escaping blame are more likely to experience renewal.” (p. 186)
“Opportunity 4: Organizations that focus on effective crisis communication strategies have better opportunities to create renewal.” (p. 186)

Now for my discussion questions:
Can you think of an example of an organization that had a crisis and during the crisis information about the organization’s poor ethical decisions prior to the crisis was made public? What organization was it? What was the end result?

What other important factors, other than commitment to stakeholders, would be important in handling a crisis and in helping an organization return to a “new normal” after a crisis?

P.S. I apologize for the formatting issues. I typed this is Word first and I just could not get the formatting to look as pretty as it did in Word.

Chapter 8 and 9 (actually, 8 mostly) from Coombs

Postcrisis Concerns

So you’ve been dealing with a crisis, and it is finally over. What do you do after the dust has settled? Coombs says when things have returned to normal, it is time to evaluate your efforts. Learning from what you did right, what you did wrong, and what you could do better is a key part of crisis management. First, the crisis is examined through every phase of how it was handled. Then the impact of the actual crisis is measured, including physical and financial damage, and reputational damage (Coombs).

Coombs brings up Crisis Management Performance (CMP) evaluation as important to determining how the situation has been handled. Evaluating the CMP will help the communicators figure out there downfalls and learn for the future.

Data collection is key to this process. Analyze the media, stakeholder opinions and any other records you may have, such as transcripts, interviews, eyewitnesses if applicable. Impact evaluation is what evaluates the damage to the organization. Coombs says that the financial damage is pretty cut and dry, and can be evaluated easily. However, reputational management is not so easy to define. Coombs says that reputations are built on stakeholder experience with the organization. Some of that experience comes from what the media portrays about the crisis, especially when it is the stakeholder’s primary source of information. Reputation is often defined by what the media thinks about organization. Media audits are important, as well as analyzing what could have been communicated differently to the media. Coombs does say that the stakeholders will not just believe everything that media says and that “the media are not all powerful” (p.140). If an organization already has a strong reputation, it will be less susceptible to the media interpretation. What do you think about this? Is the media all powerful? Or is it only powerful in certain situations with certain organizations?

Institutional memory is important to not repeating the same mistake twice. Coombs says, “a crisis should not be wasted.” (p.144). Some lessons, unfortunately, can only be learned through experience. This should be taken advantage of so that it will not happen again, and that similar crises can be avoided. One very important point Coombs makes is not to “become a slave to memory” (p. 145). Be willing to use other measures when needed, do not think that it is the same as the last crisis. Can you think of any times where institutional memory actually prevented an organization to make a poor crisis management move? What were the implications of the decision?

Follow-up communication must be pursued as much as possible, along with cooperation with investigations, and crisis tracking. It is important to open in these situations, it gives the organization creditability. Then, the post crisis phase ends with going back to pre-crisis preparations, and the cycle continues.

Chapter nine was basically the highlights of what we have learned about crisis management this semester, at least from Coombs point of view. Crisis management is ongoing, and training your communicators well is important, and the crisis management procedures summarized. What d you believe is the most overarching thing about crisis management that you have learned this semester? For me, it has been reinforced that crisis management is an ongoing cycle. Just because the crisis is over, does not mean that the crisis management lets down its guard.

April 10 - Coombs 8 & 9

Coombs – Chapter 8 “Postcrisis Concerns”

The crisis may be over but the work is not done. Evaluation is in order. How well did the Crisis Management Plan (CMP) work in theory? How well was the CMP executed? How well did the Crisis Management Team (CMT) perform?

If these three components were effective, crisis damage should not exceed what was anticipated. An actual crisis is an opportunity for an organization to learn.

Evaluation

Data from crisis records, stakeholders and media coverage should be collected and assessed in order to determine the effectiveness of crisis performance. Assessments of overall crisis performance should include a systems analysis:

A) Technical – Was the CMT hampered by a lack of technical system support for crisis management?

B) Human – Were crisis management problems a function of a poor match between people and technology?

C) Infrastructure – Did the CMT fail because it is not considered a functioning part of the organization?

D) Cultural – Were any problems the result of constraints imposed by corporate culture?

Did crisis management protect the organization from damage in the following areas?:

Financial, Reputational, Human, Environmental, and Media.

All aspects of crisis performance should be summarized into a final report indicating:

A) whether the CMT performed effectively

B) if the CMP proved useful in anticipating and resolving situations created by the crisis

C) whether structural features facilitated or hindered the crisis management effort

D) if the completed evaluation provides a full assessment of the crisis damage

Learning

Remember to remember….and remember to forget. Institutional memory is both good and bad. For the next crisis, use what was learned from this crisis. But don’t blindly follow past successes.

Postcrisis Actions

Though the crisis may be over, follow-up communication with stakeholders and cooperation with ongoing investigations is a valuable component of any Crisis Management Plan.

Coombs – Chapter 9 “Final Observations and Lessons”

Coombs….Coombs….Coombs

Everything comes in 3s with Coombs. Coombs illustrates crisis management with a 3-stage model:

Precrisis Crisis Event Postcrisis

Each of these stages has 3 substages: (relevant chapter in parenthesis)

1) Precrisis: a) signal detection (3); b) prevention (4); c) preparation (5)

2) Crisis Event: a) recognition (6); b) containment (7); business resumption (7)

3) Postcrisis: a) evaluation (8); b) learning (8); c) postcrisis actions (8)

Coombs also wants us to remember a particular number of valuable lessons in his pedagogy of crisis management. Guess how many? You cheated. You looked ahead. Or behind.

1) Crisis management is an ongoing process. Organizations should routinely test and revise the various elements of crisis preparation.

2) Specific knowledge, skills and traits are associated with effective crisis managers. Spokespersons should be selected for their knowledge base or media skills. The selection and training of crisis team members must seek to maximize the knowledge, skills and traits that facilitate group performance.

3) Crisis management involves the development and maintenance of procedures designed to improve the flow of information before, during and after the crisis. A crisis-sensing network should operate everyday as organizational units scan the environment and internal operations for potential crises. An organization should monitor its actions to see if it is meeting key stakeholder expectations and delivering on promises during crises.

Coombs also wants you to reflect on your status as a student at the center of the collegiate athletic universe. How many major national championships has your university won in the past year?

For discussion:

As previously mentioned, I’m not a PR major, so my discussion point for Chapter 8 is a question directed to those of us who are. Chapter 9 touched a bit on this, but I imagine in the real world only the very largest organizations employ full-time crisis management personnel. Even then, if the company is any good at what it does, worst case scenario would have a crisis occurring very infrequently. What do these people do between crises? It could be years in between. Or is it the norm that a crisis team consists of employees who have regular jobs in the organization and come together as a crisis management team only when a crisis is imminent?

With Chapter 9, we finish the Coombs book. I would ask our PR majors to highlight—­in short—what they’ve learned from Coombs. What new ideas presented in this book appear to have the potential to be applied to the practice of Public Relations in the real world?

mic brookshire

Final readings -- April 10

Just a reminder that there is no research paper part 2 due this week. It is now folded into the final paper which is due by 9am, Tuesday May 1st (latest I can give you & get grades in).

Don't forget in your reaction blog to raise at least 3 discussion questions as well as summazing the few key points you think it's essential for others to read.

Everyone should read the two Team 7 readings available on WebCT. The individually assigned readings for this week are:

Coombs Ongoing Crisis Communication chapters 8-9
Catherine, Lauren, Liz, Mic, Tolo, Ronnie

US&S Effective Crisis Communication chapters 9, 12
Jennifer, Meredith, Minji, Nadya, Ramon

Reynolds & Seeger article from J Health Communication (available in Team 7 folder on WebCT)
Courtney, Jiun-Yi, Min, OT, Wes

Major article from Public Relations Review (available in Team 7 folder on WebCT)
Emel, Gisele, Katie, Paul, Sooyeon

One less statistic may not be everything.

While I was waiting for my favorite show to come on, I saw the TV advertisement for Gardasil once again. This made me think of the content analysis we did during class, and led
me thinking deeper about the “symbolic system” of our culture. Recalling from the heated debate on Tuesday, the TV ad clearly targets to young women and pose to stir their emotions. By displaying series of active young women (they’re skateboarding, jumping ropes, painting, etc) with serious faces, the message clearly strikes you that if you care enough, you can be one less person to suffer from the disease that annually kill thousands of women in America. By emphasizing the phrase “one less” throughout the whole commercial, there is a prevalent tone in the message that if you do not get vaccinated, you fall behind from the current trend, which happens to be a social suicide for teenage girls. As Wes pointed out with his (rather confusing :p) graph chart, the message in the commercial is structured so that it provokes enough anxiety to make the target audience concerned about the issue, but prevent outrage by giving them an option to act upon. While it is important to provide a point of action during risk situations in order to prevent outrage, the intentions behind this certain vaccine is questionable because the manufacturers are (were) lobbying to state legislators to pass the bill to mandate it for schoolgirls (NYT).

The NYT article notes that Merck has stopped lobbying to pass the bill when objections towards their acts rose beyond their anticipation. Merck is saying that this fueled objection may hinder the adoption of the vaccine. According to the article, public health officials do favor the vaccine, but feel that it is “too early” to make it mandatory; they fear Merck’s lobbying damaged the intention to “reach and educate as many females as possible and prevent cervical cancer.” However, considering the fact that the majority of American’s were not aware of cervical cancer threats in the previous year, Gardasil advertisements did a great job setting the issue forth.

It is no surprise that many people are concerned surrounding the vaccine; the vaccine itself, bombarding amount of product advertising, and the legislation acts. Parents are noting that mandatory vaccination preempts their rights and are concerned that the vaccine will encourage promiscuity among young females. Many are concerned of the long term effects of the vaccine that has yet to be proven. Like many newly introduced vaccines and medicines, not enough research has been conducted to know if the vaccine is applicable and effective enough to be taken. I’ve heard that the research done regarding Gardasil was 5 years, and this is too short in my opinion. It is said that there needs to be at least a 15 year period in order to ensure minimum level of safety of the medical product, and Gardasil doesn’t even come close to this. Our class discussion brought up the topic of the three series of shots being too expensive; hence, people who may need it the most may not receive the benefits of it. This cost issue can also be tied in with the fervent legislation act since Merck holds exclusive petition for the vaccine only for a short period of time.

A final factor that strikes me is the men’s perception of the “women who get the shots.” In my culture, discussing sex and being sexually active before marriage is considered a sin. Only promiscuous women with thin morals would engage in such behavior. If you approach your parents informing them that you would like to take the shots, many of them will in turn preach about the importance of “staying a virgin” before you marry and emphasize the fact that “a normal girl” like you do not need the shot. I did a little research on my own and discovered an interesting statistic. According to a health report in 2001 conducted by National Institute of Health, 23 women out of a million are diagnosed with cervical cancer annually, and this is three times more than America, which happens to be 7. The report notes that while HPV examination is available in Korea, MDs do not mandate this due to economical reasons. Alongside with the report was a newspaper article that emphasized that more than 47% of the prostitutes are infected with HPV. Returning to the symbolic structure of the society, it is clear that the Korean society almost automatically relate the vaccine with promiscuity, which brings guilt to those who wish to protect themselves from potential life threatening danger.

The various issues surrounding Gardasil isn’t just about making money or preventing loss from death related to HPV. This is, in fact, an issue that carries mixed messages and intentions that act differently upon cultural structures and socioeconomic systems.