Crisis Communication and the Underserved: Partnering with Institutions of Faith - Article Example

Running Head: ARTICLE SUMMARIES Crisis Communication and the Underserved: The Case for Partnering with Institutions of Faith Lachlan & Spence in this article shows the need of relief organizations to collaborate with religious institution to offer aids to the casualties after a major crisis. The article illustrates the reliance of different people under different socioeconomic strata on religious institution. The author uses other sources of that show that people who are economically disadvantaged are more likely to turn into faith and prayers in time of crisis than the affluent. This is because they have no other ways to cope with the crisis apart from depending on religious institutions to provide guidance and support. According to the article it is evident that religious institution are the major contributors of social bonding and this help the socioeconomically disadvantaged people to interact thus eradicate isolation. The African Americans are more reliant on faith than other immigrants are like the Caucasians1. The evidence that it is more likely for African Americans to attend religious services than other races proves this but the women are more reliant than men are. The economically challenged people live in venerable areas with poor transportation and other means to help them cope with the crisis thus they become over reliant on the religious institutions to mitigate their problems. The author calls on the relief organizations to collaborate with religious institution in their crisis communication. This will make the relief organization to be successful since the religious institutions know the major problems facing the society and the best way to solve them. The article concludes that this collaboration will help the emergency workers focus on restoration while the religious organizations focus on coping with the crisis. Media crisis, climate crisis, systemic crisis This article summarizes the major reasons the credibility of the media is deteriorating in different issues like climate issues, economy and other issues affecting the world at large. The article claims that the current media is unable to explain issues in depth. This is making the public to criticize the media. The author gives several examples where the public has demanded for transparency but the independent media’s information shows the opacity they are involved in. The systematic nature of the media has contributed to the failure of the media to address economic issues2. The critics criticize the media for not warning the public and governments on economic crisis although they knew the serious economic crisis that the excesses of the banking systems and other sub-prime mortgages undermined the international financial systems. According to the article, the media tends to cover striking issues and air dramatic topics for sales purposes instead of covering important issues from the root. This is the case of the media when it addresses climate changes issues. The media claim that the scientists do not convey messages on climatic change properly hence the poor information transmitted. The author claims that this claim from the media portrays lack of specialization in the media since the scientists have to use their language to explain the changes3. The media’s claim proves their inability to be mediators between the scientists and the public. The author concludes by claiming that the media tactic to refrain from exposing contradictions inherent in their system shows their incredibility and affect the economy through their advertisements. How you handle stakeholder communication during a crisis can make or break your brand The article issues the best way to handle an organization crisis in the current era by ensuring communication to the stakeholders. This proves that the organization is dealing with the crisis for the shareholders benefit. The author claims that the best way to cope a crisis is having a crisis plan and maintaining communication with the stakeholders4. The author notes that the lack of communication illustrates that the management has no idea there is a crisis or the management do not know how to deal with the crisis. These rumors and the void created by the lack of communication will break the brand. The author states that the management should maintain communication with the stakeholders to ensure the rumors do not arise. The management should admit the case of the crisis and take responsibility of the crisis5. They should show they are concerned and have plan that will solve the crisis. The article claims that the management should use a crisis plan that will help them but if an organization does not have a plan, they should train on how to communicate effectively with the stakeholders. The parties involved should plan and take different parts to avoid repetition and confusion when communicating with the stakeholders. The article offer examples of how the brands of different organization broke due to lack of communication whereas some CEOs have saved their brands by using creative communication to ease the zealous stakeholders although the management had no plan. In conclusion, the lack of communication creates a void that when exploited by the media breaks a brand but continuous creative communication protects a brand. Slippery Dilemma: Tony Blair’s Rhetorical Response to Fuel Tax Protesters The article has used the rhetorical situation to analyze the decision of Prime Minister Tony Blair to address and solve England’s oil crisis in 2000. The high tax imposed on fuel by the government led to increase of fuel prices. The prices affected public and businesses since after some time, there was no fuel and transportation became an issue leading to low food supplies and medical centers only offered emergency surgeries. This led to protestations from many citizens urging the government to reduce taxation. The author claims that Blair used Thatcher’s strategy of not giving-in to protestors making it evident that he used the three primary tools of rhetoric theory namely; exigency, audience and constraints. Blair noting the exigency of the citizens by collectively opposing the tax rate, he formulated by claiming that the move of the refineries was a move to disable the country and forcing the government to change the policy. His speech also accused OPEC as a strategy to divert blame to OPEC. The audience was the public and he tried to portray the protestors as traitors a move earlier used by Thatcher6. This claim was a tool to gain support and ensuring that those who did not protest were right and sensible. This created a sense of responsibility to those who did not protest. He also addressed other leaders to gain support7. The constraints were from the public exigency that he needed to change and the actions of OPEC impose prices of fuel. He used Thatcher’s strategy 15 years earlier to disown the protestors and not to give in to their demands thus giving the government room for future changes instead of submitting to Edwards’ error of implementing the protestors’ demands and later resigning since the government proved it was not in authority. Crisis miscommunication and media persecution: The case of the Singapore Mass Rapid Transit This article analyzes the Singapore Mass Rapid Transit (SMRT) train services. It analyzes the cause of the disruption on 15 December 2011 and the response of SMRT. The disruptions were because of poor train maintenance, undertrained train drivers and the lack of proper training on crisis management. The response of the crisis led to the public discontent and the poor communication method proved the company did not take responsibility for the disruption. The social media tackled this issue since the media could not give trustworthy information since SMRT was government cooperation and the government owned shares in the local media8. The People’s Action Party that was in power controlled it. This means the media was gagged thus social media takes center stage in this case. The overreliance of public transport due to economic constraint and the expensive prices of personal vehicles and other vehicle registration fees made SMRT increase its fare and acted as a monopoly9. The CEO of SMRT response to the disruption made people believe that the company main aim was to maximize profits at the expense of social responsibilities. The article provides a better way the company could have used to ensure their reputation is restored and ensure no future crisis due to the poor and delayed communication. The author calls for the company to use Coomb’s and Benoit models to solve such a crisis in the future to limit the wrath of the public and poor reputation and to ensure that the trains are maintained to ensure there will be no future disruptions. Rhetoric in times of crises: How financial institutions try to restore confidence The banking industry has suffered reputation confidence due to the continued losses incurred over the years. This article analyzes one of the ways used by Commerzbank in Germany that the government used billions to prevent it from bankruptcy. This analysis indicates the need of communication to restore reputation and uses Dialogic Action Game in this article. Dialogic Action Game was used to ensure that the internal communication was effective and then the bank used an advertisement to communicate with the external public who are the customers10. The advertisement ‘A First Step’ compounded of sequence strategies to mitigate aspects in dialogue, strategies of evaluation and emotional address thus included a popular figure in the advertisement, evasion and cover-up and cooperation and confrontation to assert their claims. The advertisement using the runner is act of creating trust among the public thus ensuring and covers other principles of Dialogic Action Game. The bank fulfills the Game’s principles; the advertisement is principle of the game, the questions and answers in the advert shows dialogue principle and the change of the of background offers confidence to the people to give a thought to bank their money. The emotions created by the presence of the runner helps to divert the negativity of people towards banking. The article concludes by claiming that better communication skills and actions will promote the image of the banking industry and the public will trust the management even if the future is unpredictable and complex. Crisis Communication Response and Political Communities: The Unusual Case of Toronto Mayor Rob Ford The article tries to analyze the theories involved with crisis communication response in political communities. It uses the case of Ron Ford who was a mayor in Toronto when a video of him with a crack pipe surfaced in social media. Ford did not answer to the media on the issue and used all the tactics to evade the journalists. Some days passed and his brother disclaimed the issue but this did not stop the rumor. Ford answered to the allegation after a week and claimed that he did not use cocaine11. The silence period according to professionals on crisis communication was a bad idea and it meant that the mayor was guilty. Later Ford was busted when drunk and agreed that he had used cocaine but he was not an addict but he also apologized. Crisis communication shows that his reputation should be damaged after the change of his statements but this was not the case since after a legitimate poll his legitimacy was not damaged. The author claims that the crisis communication theories do not cover the and thus Ford’s crisis case was a discursive break since it defied the rule of crisis theories as Ford popularity did not decline. The author has noted that legitimacy in the political world is different and Ford’s legitimacy amongst his voters was because he addressed their issues and was from a politically legitimate family. The author concludes that although Ford legitimacy among his voters did not diminish his actions were illegitimate. The author challenges the crisis communication to address the issue on crisis among the politicians since no crisis professional has addressed it fully. Emotion Management in Crisis Situation The essence to maintain success and social norms in the current competitive world increases the chances of crisis in organizations. The crisis requires plans to solve them and the plan is designed in ways that it shows the causes and solutions for the crisis. This article however tries to analyze the emotional side for the causes of the crisis since human beings respond differently under different situations and environment. The author identifies the main emotions associated in the internal and external environment of the business that result to crisis in the organization. He claims that even after the solution of any crisis there are still emotional issues amongst the parties involved. The author uses the table of social emotions after Jon Elster to prove the causes of different emotions and the actions the emotions triggers. This proves that emotional control is a key issue to reduce crisis and companies should try to ensure that their policies do not lead to negative emotions since this will increase crisis. The article divides emotional responses into two namely adaptive and maladaptive emotional responses12. Adaptive emotional responses tend to bring value in people’s lives whereas maladaptive tend to diminish or debilitate people’s lives and may lead to depression and other negative actions. If the maladaptive emotional responses are identified they can be avoided thus creating better working conditions for in the organization and limiting crisis. In conclusion, the author calls for organizations to ensure that their environment is conducive to promote adaptive emotions thus ensure the workers have similar targets as the organization for its success. Social media use during Japan’s 2011 earthquake: How Twitter transforms the locus of crisis communication The author of this article provides the number of twitter users during Japan’s 2011 earthquake that addressed the natural crisis. The article claims that after the earthquake the mainstream took much time to convey the message on the crisis but since mainstream channels were not operational when the earthquake began, Japanese and people all over the world learnt about the earthquake and the status of their relatives through twitter13. The author claims that the government crisis communication was ineffective since the government did not turn to twitter to address the issue. The article shows the advantages of social media since it provides a channel for fast communication and it is not limited by the borderlines that limit the mainstream channels from conveying messages to the world. The lack of government to send messages through twitter and other social networks portrays that the Japanese government has not changed its traditional channel of conveying messages. The twitter messages coded and used in the article portrays that emotional messages were sent just few hours of the earthquake but this changed and encouragement messages dominated the tweets14. The author has also criticized the twitter account for being able to portray just 140 tweets whereas the others people had to us URLs links. In conclusion, the author requests the government to embrace social media to convey messages but he claims that this research has some limitations that future researches should address. This article identified tweets from 40 hours after the earthquake but the earthquake was a long-term crisis. Where Crisis Communication Meets Linguistics This article covers different ways to solve crisis via communication and uses different cases, disciplines and diagrams to ease crisis communication. The author also integrates the essence of face and images in the external environment when handling crisis. The author claims that the outward appearance in ensures that a person is confident to handle crisis communication. The article identifies that there is no clear definition of the term crisis but all the definitions portrays the complexity and diversity of this term. The use of different diagrams on prevention and solutions to crisis shows that it is important to prevent the crisis since solving them could lead to high financial loss for organizations or end individual careers15. The article has addressed hacking, which is an intentional crisis that results to individual’s privacy being exposed and is punishable by law. The author has analyzed and discussed crisis communication handling in issues concerned with hacking, corruption and other unethical leadership. The individuals found guilty of this charges form linguistics realization of the dimension approach or withdrawal from the individual to speak on the crisis. The author has used many key points to show where crisis communication meets linguistics making face as the converging point. This article has analyzed several theories on crisis communication thus including key assumption from Coombo and Terkourafi to ensure that the discussion has some background thus improve its relevance. Bibliography Cho, S. E. & Park, H. W. (2013). Social Media Use During Japan’s 2011 Earthquake: How Twitter Transforms The Locus Of Crisis Communication. Media International Australia, 149(1), 28-33. Faarte, G. I. Emotion Management in Crisis Situations. Hampton-Farmer, C. (2014). Slippery Dilemma: Tony Blair’s Rhetorical Response to Fuel Tax Protestors. American Communication Journal, 16(1). Koerber, D. (2014). Crisis Communication Response and Political Communities: The Unusual Case of Toronto Mayor Rob Ford. Canadian Journal of Communication, 39, 311-331. Lachlan, K. A. & Spence, P. R. (2011). Crisis Communication and the Underserved: The Case for Partnering with Institutions of Faith. Journal of Applied Communication Research, 39(4), 448-451. Molthagen-Schnoring, S. Rhetoric in times of crises. How financial institutions try to restore confidence. Morris, A. A. (2013). Strong message, stronger messengers. Communication world. 19-21. Nosty, B. D. (2014). Media crisis, climate crisis, systemic crisis. Interactions: Studies in Communication & Culture, 5(1), 3-5. Rachfal, E. (2013). Where Crisis Communication Meets Linguistics. Topics in Linguistics, 11. Rahman, K. A. (2014). Crisis miscommunication and media persecution: The case of the Singapore Mass Rapid Transit. Media Asia, 40(3), 244-259. Read More