Читать книгу Communicating in Risk, Crisis, and High Stress Situations: Evidence-Based Strategies and Practice - Vincent T. Covello - Страница 16

This book identifies the principles underlying effective communication in situations where there is risk, crisis, or other causes of high concern. This book describes both the differences between and similarities among the situations of risk, crisis, and high concern, describing principles that underlie all such situations and practices specific to each. Previous books have written about these topics, but there are now important new fields of scientific inquiry and enormous new challenges in the communication environment. Inquiries are taking place on diverse fronts, including scientists and experts in anthropology, economics, engineering, epidemiology, law, psychology, sociology, media studies, medicine, statistics, toxicology, and neuroscience. Each discipline has generated publications related to risk, high concern, and crisis communication, and each adds to the understanding of the practice. However, with few exceptions, nearly all existing resources focus on a specific subset of the literature, on a specific area (e.g. bioterrorism, nuclear power, climate change, or genetically modified foods), or on topics of direct interest to the authors’ discipline. As a result, the literature has become highly specialized and dispersed.

While this literature specialization serves experts within specific disciplines, it is less useful for the many professionals who work outside of these explicit fields and who may encounter any one of a wide range of challenges. This book offers a common framework of the major principles, strategies, and tools and shows how they relate to inform the work of communicators in high concern or emotionally charged situations.

This book provides the background and practices essential for successful communication in risk, high concern, and crisis situations. It describes what often happens when feelings and facts collide. It explains why leadership accepts some ideas for managing a risk, high concern, or crisis issue and rejects others.

Why do some projects that encounter high concern and controversy go forward and others do not? Why are some facts, information, and guidance recommended to stakeholders in high concern situations heeded more than others? Why are some presentations about high concern issues well received, while other presentations are ignored or incite anger? Why do some team interactions proceed without a hitch and others fail? Why are some interactions with upper management effective and others are ignored? Why are some people trusted with challenging communication responsibilities and others are not? Why do some meetings about high concern issues succeed while others fail? Why are some people better able to handle difficult or controversial situations than others?

This book addresses and answers these questions. The answers often come down to knowledge of risk communication principles and practices.