Читать книгу Theorizing Crisis Communication - Timothy L. Sellnow - Страница 10

Foreword

Dr. Brooke Fisher Liu

University of Maryland

Crises present opportunities and threats. Communication helps us understand and make meaning of these opportunities and threats. With a sound understanding of crisis communication theory, leaders are better equipped to navigate troubled waters and steer their organizations and communities towards a stronger tomorrow. Understanding crisis communication theory also empowers community members on a path towards resilience in collaboration with or independent from organizations. At the individual level, crisis communication theory and the related research can help individuals better prepare themselves and their families for hazardous weather, terrorist attacks, active shooter events, and many other crises. With the knowledge presented in this book, readers can become more critical consumers of social media, traditional media, and political discourse surrounding crises. This book also positions readers to ground their research in the rich theoretical tapestry of the crisis communication field.

When this book was published in 2013, it was the first undertaking to synthesize decades of research from a variety of disciplines into a single resource. The book provides an accessible entrée for students, researchers, and professionals into the power of theory. As social psychologist Kurt Lewin famously wrote, “There is nothing so practical as a good theory” (Lewin, 1951, p. 169). In the second edition of this book, Sellnow and Seeger capitalize on the success of their first edition, while keeping up with recent crisis communication theorizing.

Friends, colleagues, and students often ask why I study the potentially depressing topic of crises, especially since I generally am a positive person. You may also have been asked why you are studying crises and, thus, reading this book. While perhaps not obvious, the answer should be simple: Through communication, leaders, and community members make sense of crises, collectively overcome obstacles, and – if done well – improve the wellbeing of society. When done poorly, ineffective crisis communication contributes to more widespread damage including loss of life and property, environmental harm, and financial ruin.

As you can see, crisis communication is the perfect area of study for eternal optimists who see the positive possibilities of crisis management and the land mines to avoid. As Sellnow and Seeger note in Chapter 1 of this book, “While avoiding all crises and disasters such as earthquakes and tsunamis is impossible, some can be avoided and most can be more effectively managed” (p. 2). To understand the power of crisis communication we have to simply look at the world around us. As this book goes to press, we are experiencing a global pandemic on a scale that has not been experienced since the 1918 Spanish Flu Pandemic. As we witness history in the making, we are also experiencing the powers of effective crisis communication and the pitfalls of ineffective crisis communication. The COVID-19 pandemic has sharpened our attention on the role of media in crises (see Chapters 7 and 8), including the World Health Organization declaring COVID-19 an infodemic and a pandemic (WHO, 2020). The COVID-19 pandemic also has crystalized the importance of conveying messages that motivate people to take appropriate protective actions (see Chapter 9) and the central role of ethics in crisis communication (see Chapter 11).

The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic will no doubt inspire a new generation of crisis communication theorists and professionals. We welcome you into the vibrant and growing area of crisis communication scholarship and practice. Crisis communication is an applied area of scholarship grounded in a solid theoretical foundation. Applied communication research seeks “to make a difference in the world through examining some feature of human communication” (Cissna, 2000). British Prime Minister Winston Churchill is credited with saying, “Never let a good crisis go to waste” during the Second World War (Mutter, 2016, para. 1). We have already seen special calls for research on COVID-19, first from the Journal of International Crisis Communication Research and then from Health Communication among other journals.

The proliferation of scholarship on the COVID-19 pandemic comes on the heels of a steady increase in crisis communication research. Indeed, some researchers have joked that we should rename divisions within our professional associations because of the dominance of crisis communication scholarship in these divisions. Mega crises have long captured the imagination of researchers, including myself. Indeed, the 9/11 terrorist attacks and the 2005 Hurricane Katrina solidified my dedication to crisis communication scholarship while I was in graduate school. Likewise, the 2009 H1N1 pandemic launched my focus on social media and crisis communication, including the social-mediated crisis communication model that my colleagues and I have developed over the past decade (see Chapter 8 for a discussion of social media and crisis communication theories). More recently, the tragic tornadoes that have devastated portions of the Southeastern United States have motivated my team’s collaboration with the National Weather Service to improve tornado risk and crisis communication, including theories about warning communication (see Chapter 3 for a review of these theories).

As we think about the crises to come, this book provides the necessary framework for developing robust research grounded in theory that can inform practice (see Chapter 12). The many functions of crisis communication theory include organizing and describing observations, explaining relationships among constructs, predicting what will happen next, controlling outcomes when feasible, informing practice, facilitating critique, and promoting inquiry, as further discussed in Chapter 2 of this book. This book also showcases the wide variety of contexts to which we apply crisis communication theory including crisis development (Chapter 4), crisis outcomes (Chapter 5), emergency responses (Chapter 6).

While reading this book, I encourage you to consider how theory can guide crisis communication practice – including areas for which we have limited knowledge. As a scholarly community, we create the most impact when we develop and test theories through active engagement with communities of practice. As Sellnow and Seeger discuss in Chapter 1 of this book, crisis communication is a relatively young field of study. In the decades to come, the field will continue to grow and mature. My recommendation is that as you read this book, consider how you can contribute to our knowledge base whether through research, theory development, and/or your future careers.

References

1 Cissna K. M. (2000). Applied communication research in the 21st century. Journal of Applied Communication Research, 28, 169–173. https://doi-org.proxy-um.researchport.umd.edu/10.1080/00909880009365563

2 Lewin K. (1951). Problems of research in social psychology. In D.Cartwright (Ed.), Field theory in social science: Selected theoretical papers (pp. 155–169). Harper & Row.

3 Mutter J. (2016, April). Opportunity from crisis: Who really benefits from post-disaster rebuilding efforts. Foreign Affairs. www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/2016-04-18/opportunity-crisis

4 WHO. (2020, February). WHO director-general’s opening remarks at the media briefing of Ebola and COVID-19 outbreaks. www.who.int/dg/speeches/detail/who-director-general-s-opening-remarks-at-the-media-briefing-on-ebola-and-covid-19-outbreaks