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Cause and Consequences ofCrises: How Perception Can

Influence Communication

Misse Wester

Department of Philosophy, Royal Institute of Technology, Teknikringen 78B, SE-100 44 Stockholm, Sweden.E-mail: [email protected]

This article focuses on how different events that cause a crisis are perceived by

communication officers. The aim of this paper is to investigate how the attribution ofwhatever has caused a crisis affects how the crisis is perceived and how this in turn affects

communication efforts. Previous research indicates that people will respond differently

to risks depending on the cause of the risk, even though the consequence is the same. If

individuals react to a crisis differently depending on what caused it, is that also true for

crisis professionals and if so, does this influence the planning and execution of crisis

communication? This article presents the results from an empirical investigation of crisis

communicators in Sweden. The results reveal that there are differences within this group

of professionals when they are presented with crises due to different causes. The possible

implications this might have for crisis communication are discussed.

1. Introduction

H ow to best communicate to different audiencesduring a crisis is a topic of much interest sincetoday crisis management seems to be high on the poli-tical agenda. The information released in times of crisesoften needs to be timely, accurate and should providerelevant information to those affected. Today, crisiscommunication strategies are present in nearly all kindsof ventures, making it an interesting and relevant areafor research. The content of the crisis communicationis of course dependent on what type of crisis is at hand,ranging from public apologies when the reputation of anorganization is at stake, to emergency behaviour in caseof a major natural disaster. This article will focus onhow different events that cause a crisis are perceived bycommunication officers. More specifically, the datapresented here were gathered from communicationofficers responsible for providing the general publicwith information in case of a crisis. In brief, thestructure of crisis management in Sweden is as follows:all 290 municipalities are required by law to have a crisismanagement committee that will convene in case of anextraordinary event. An extraordinary event is defined

as [during peacetime] an event that deviates from the

norm and disrupts, or threatens to disrupt, the im-portant societal functions and demands expedient ac-tions of a municipality or county council [SFS, 2006, p.544 (authors translation)]. This law also states that eachmunicipality and county council must produce a risk andvulnerability assessment, as well as a crisis managementplan. The latter document should specify a communica-tion plan, as well as an individual being responsible forcarrying this out.

The main objective of this study was to investigatehow these communication professionals, rather thanthe public, perceived and were influenced by the eventsleading up to a crisis. It was also of interest to see how,

based on this, the participants judgements affectedwhat information they believed was important for thepublic to have, and what sources they believed thepublic would turn to in order to obtain this information.

2. Previous research

Within the field of crisis communication, considerableresearch has been devoted to mapping how lay people

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perceive certain crises and what communicationor information is needed to suit the demands ofthe situation, be it changing individuals perceptionor behaviour. This has led to the development of anumber of strategies for communication, regardless ofwhat has caused the crisis. The form and content of thecommunication has been recognized as important,where communicators are urged to respond quickly

and with information that is relevant for the affectedstakeholders or groups (Coombs & Holladay, 1996;Coombs, 1999). Indeed, different causes have beenseen to influence the content of the informationgiven to those affected, as communication of threatssuch as large-scale technical accidents or terrorismtakes on a slightly different approach than if an organi-zation is faced with a reputational crisis. During anemergency, such as a natural disaster, instructing peopleon how best to protect themselves, where to turn ifthey need emergency relief and what precautionarymeasures they can take is seen as most important. It hasbeen found that this instructing information should

contain the what, why, when, where, and how detailsconcerning the crisis (Coombs, 1999, p. 127). In thepast, crisis communication has been encouraged tofocus on causes and who or what that is to be blamed,as a way of reducing threat and uncertainty. Thisapproach, however, is being called into question (See-ger, 2002). Instead, when the causes leading to a crisisare unclear or unknown, communicating uncertaintyand ambiguity is now encouraged as a best practice ofcrisis communication.

Other than providing instructions, what informationshould communicators focus on? Some evidence sug-

gests that comprehension, compassion and attributionare issues that are important when planning andimplementing crisis communication (Coombs, 1999,2004; Coombs & Holladay, 1996; Keselman, Slaughter,& Patel, 2005; Seeger, 2006). Communication benefitsfrom acknowledging or attributing the cause of the riskor crisis, because it provides the context for thesituation (Coombs & Holladay, 1996). Although this isnoted, there is little research on how and whethercrisis attribution affects those responsible for distribut-ing information, and how this influences what informa-tion they release to the wider public. Previously,authorities have been reluctant to share information

concerning different risks and crises out of concern thatthe public, or groups of people, might react withprotests, irrational behaviour or even panic (Perry &Lindell, 2003; Sandman, 2006). To a certain extent, thiscan be understood, as in some cases individuals canobject to the risk-managing process as a whole or tohow a crisis has been managed once the initial turmoilhas settled. It has been noted that providing people withdetailed information concerning the events leading upto a crisis can cause them to believe that the risk could

have been better managed or that the crisis could havebeen altogether avoided (Coombs, 1999). Also, someevidence suggests that risk managers see a danger inopening up the risk assessment process to larger scrutiny,as it may invite discussions of overall risks rather thanthose controlled by the individual company, leading todelays or costly processes (Gouldson, Lidskog, & Wester-Herber, 2007; Wiseen & Wester-Herber, 2007). How-

ever, these observations cannot provide support for aless is more attitude in crisis communication practices,because purposely withholding information can have farmore damaging consequences. Providing citizens withrelevant and sufficient information can encourage themto comply with emergency procedures in case of anemergency (Palenchar, Heath, & Oberton, 2005). Con-text is important for how individuals perceive a situationand it can be concluded that it is better to openlycommunicate what has caused the crisis, as it willinfluence how the affected, or other groups, will perceiveand react to the crisis.

In the planning phases of crisis communication, it

might be wise to consider how people react to whatprecedes a crisis the risk of something negativehappening. The field of risk perception and risk com-munication research has provided additional knowledgeof how people react before and during a crisis. It is notonly the events that cause crises that are important toacknowledge in crisis communication, there also needsto be an analysis of how people are affected in afinancial, emotional or physical way. Specific character-istics of the consequences of crises have receivedconsiderable attention within the field of risk commu-nication since the introduction of the psychometric

paradigm (Fischhoff, Slovic, Lichtenstein, Read, &Combs, 1978). This model suggests that how risks, orcrises, are perceived and reacted towards depends to alarge extent on the degree of dread it invokes.Although the theoretical concept of dread has beenquestioned (Sjoberg, 2002), it can be agreed upon thatrisk perception is more influenced by possible conse-quences, rather than the estimated probability (Sjoberg,2002). Also, risk communicators have seen that risk is amulti-dimensional concept where focus is not just onthe probabilities and technical estimates, but alsoincludes an outrage factor that includes cognitive andaffective components. These outrage factors have been

used to explain reactions to crisis communication inemergency situations (Lachlan & Spence, 2007). Forexample, people will respond differently to risksdepending on the cause of the risk even though theconsequence is the same. For example, health risksfrom naturally occurring background radon radiationwill be judged (or rather reacted to) differently fromradiation from radon due to an industrial contamina-tion. In the first case, the risk derives from a naturalsource where no one is to blame and the exposure is

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unintentional, whereas in the second case, the risk isman-made and a result of careless risk management. Inthe latter case, chances are that the reaction, andcommunication, will focus more on questions ofresponsibility and fairness, whereas proactive and cor-rective measures will dominate the former. The riskperception literature shows that gender differencesexist in lay samples, where men are usually found to

have a lower risk perception than women (Flynn, Slovic,& Mertz, 1994; Finucane, Slovic, Mertz, Flynn, & Satter-field, 2000; Wester-Herber & Warg, 2002). Thesedifferences are also found in expert samples, i.e.,individuals with the same profession who are expertsin their field, where the pattern is the same: men have alower perception of risks when compared with womenin the same profession (Slovic, Malmfors, Mertz, Neil, &Purshase, 1997). This could be explained by the per-ceived influence and control over the processes thatregulate and mitigate risk, although it has been arguedthat gender differences are not sufficiently explored(Gustafson, 1998).

Individuals use different channels when looking forinformation during a crisis. Traditional media such astelevision and radio seem to be important sources(Mileti & OBrian, 1992). Keeping on good terms withrepresentatives from the media is thus recommended(Reynolds & Coombs, 2005; Seeger, 2006; Wiseen &Wester-Herber, 2007). Media is most often seen as agood way to get the desired message across to a largeaudience, but the information that is released must beverified and controlled in order to avoid confusinginformation. Some evidence suggests that personalinformation networks (e.g., being told in person or

through a cellular phone) and television were thelargest sources of information during the terroristattack on 11 September 2001 (Bracken, Jeffres, Neuen-dorf, Kopfman, & Moulla, 2005). It has also been foundthat ethnic groups differ in how they search forinformation in case of a crisis and also judge thecredibility of sources differently (Spence, Lachlan, &Griffin, 2007). Having one spokesperson responsible formedia contacts seems like a sound tactic, but the impactof the rapidly evolving information technology is chal-lenging this position. New media channels such asinternet sites, blogs, cellular phones (with their built-in cameras) and other personal information networks

influence the communication process in ways that arenot yet fully understood. This illustrates that the role ofnew and traditional media needs to be further re-searched and the results need to be incorporatedinto future communication plans. However, the mediadoes not always present an unbiased and undistortedpicture of the crisis. Recent analysis of the medialcoverage of Hurricane Katrina in 2005 indicates thatnews stories that are based on unsubstantiated claimsof e.g., looting and widespread outbursts of panic, can

have detrimental effects on crisis management (Tierney,Bevc, & Kuligowski, 2006).

The aim of this paper is to investigate how theattribution of whatever has caused a crisis affects howthe crisis is perceived and how this affects communica-tion efforts. If it can be assumed that individualsperceive and react to a risk or a crisis depending onwhat caused the event, is this considered in the planning

and execution of crisis communication? Crisis commu-nication is often portrayed as a means to conveyinformation that will in some way mitigate the impactof a crisis, be it from the perspective of the reputationof an organization or the survival of individuals. How-ever, does this imply that the communication is un-affected by the cause of the crisis, or are the strategiesthe same regardless of the event, or are communicationplans already decided on and cannot vary depending onthe situation? To what extent do communication offi-cers believe that the public will rely on traditionalinformation pathways rather than newer ones andwhat implication does this have for their plans to

disseminate information to affected groups? And inwhat ways do communication officers differ? In thisarticle, terms like emergency and crisis will be usedinterchangeably as they both refer to situations wherenormal conditions are suspended. Also, because theindividuals who are responsible for crisis communica-tion on the municipal and county council level havedifferent educational backgrounds, where some areinformation professionals and others are fire-fightersor safety officers, the term used here will be commu-nication officers as it refers more to the responsibilitythese individuals have for disseminating information to

the public in case of a crisis than to their formaleducation. The role of the communication officer isto be part of the crisis management team in the caseof a crisis, serving directly under the municipal director.The different municipalities are free to decide forthemselves whether the communication officer shouldhandle all contacts with the media and the public,or whether this task falls on another person. What isrelevant for this article is that the communicationofficer is responsible for preparing the informationthat is to be distributed to the public in the eventof a crisis.

3. Method and material

The aim of this paper is to investigate how the attribu-tion of whatever has caused a crisis affects how thecrisis is perceived and how this in turn affects commu-nication efforts. For this purpose, a survey was con-structed, containing 58 questions concerning crisiscommunication. In this article, results from a total of23 items are presented: where eight items concern the

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attribution of crisis, five items the consequences of thecrisis and 10 items what information channels theseofficials believed the public would use.

Regarding the items measuring the causal attributionof crises, permission was given to utilize scales con-structed by Coombs and Holladay (1996). Theseauthors developed three scales for measuring the causalattribution of a crisis: locus/intention, external control

and stability. In short, locus/intention reflects whetheror not the crisis is caused by an actor or a situation;external control refers to whether the event thatcaused the crisis is controllable or not, and stabilitypoints towards whether or not the cause of the event isstable over time. These scales were used in the presentstudy, after they were translated into Swedish. Theoriginal scales contained 10 items. However, as thepurpose of this study was to investigate large societalcrises, rather than organizational crises, two items thatwere judged to focus on the organization rather thansociety were excluded.

Sweden consists of 290 municipalities and 21 county

boards. In each of these, one person is responsible forcommunicating with the public during a crisis. Since theaim of this study was to reach all of these individuals,the survey was distributed by email to 321 persons. Theresponse rate was 55% (N152), after correcting forpersons who did not want to participate or were nolonger working for the municipality.

Three different versions of the survey were devel-oped in order to measure how different causes affectedthe communication officers responses. The respon-dents were presented with a scenario where therewas an outbreak of smallpox in their communities. The

cause of this outbreak differed, so that in the firstcase tourists had inadvertently brought the virus from aremote part of the world (Accidental), in the secondcase the virus was spread intentionally by a groupof terrorists (Terrorist) and in the third case the causeof the spread was unknown (Unknown). For all threeversions, the survey questions were identical but thecause of the crisis differed. The different causes wererandomly distributed across the three groups.

The material presented here thus focuses on threemain areas: attribution, perception of consequencesand choice of information sources.

4. Limitations

These scenarios are fictitious, calling the relevanceof them in a real situation into question. Also, theresponse rate was lower than expected, implying thatthe generalization of the results should be made withcaution. An analysis of attrition revealed that there wasa slight overrepresentation of women who participatedin the survey, as compared with the whole sample (28%

of the respondents, 18 % of the sample). The analysisalso revealed that no scenario was over- or under-represented as each one represented roughly one-thirdof the respondents, but caution needs to be exercisedwhen generalizing these results.

5. Results

The eight items relating to attribution of the crisis wereanalysed as follows:

First, a principal component analysis with VARIMAXrotation was performed in order to examine the data.The analysis showed that with one item removed, threefactors emerged, explaining 67 % of the total varianceand corresponding in large part to the study performedby Coombs and Holladay (1996). The three factorscorresponded to aspects of external control, locus/intentionality and stability. The factor loadings arepresented in Table 1.

This led to further analysis and the three items

pertaining to external control were summarized to aform an index after one item was recoded (a .71). Ahigh score on this index indicated that society did nothave control over the cause of the crisis. In the samemanner, the two items relating to locus/intentionalitywere summarized to form an index (a .62). Theresults are illustrated in Figure 1.

Ideally, the three items relating to stability wouldhave been summarized in a similar way. Unfortunately,the analysis of the data revealed that this would notprovide a reliable index. The item labelled temporarydid not contribute to any factor. The two remaining

items, stable over time and changeable, did not forma reliable index and the decision was made to analysethese three items separately. This meant that instead ofhaving three indexes to proceed with, the followinganalyses were performed with two indexes and threeseparate items.

To investigate whether or not the three groupsdiffered in attributing external control across the threescenarios, an ANOVA was performed. The Scheffe posthoc analysis showed that the Accidental scenario was

Table 1. Factor Loadings for Attribution of Causality

Component

1 2 3

Not controllable .864Outside societys control .778Can handle .718Cause within .858Cause outside .829Cause stable .812Cause changeable .774




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significantly lower than the other two F(2,147)5.76,p .004. The index for locus/intentional showed thatthere were no significant differences between the three

scenarios. The means for the items measuring temporalstability are presented in Figure 2.

As for the three items measuring attributions ofstability, ANOVA was used in order to investigatewhether the ratings differed between the scenarios.The results show that there are significant differences inall three items: temporary F(2, 146)2.13, p .007;stable over time F(2,146)6.73, p .004; and change-able F(2, 147)10.43, p .000. The results for theScheffe post hoc test are presented in Table 2.

The results show that there are significant differ-ences in almost all cases, suggesting that the stability ofdifferent causes of crisis is judged differently.

Also, the consequences of the crisis were investigated.The same procedure was followed for the analysis of thefive items measuring this aspect as described above. Aprincipal component analysis with VARIMAX rotationrevealed two factors, explaining 72 % of the variance. Thefactor loadings are presented in Table 3.

These items were also summarized into two indexes:one representing Dreadful consequences (a .66)and one representing the moral aspects of the con-sequences (a .83). Again, ANOVAs were used to

determine whether the three scenarios differed fromeach other with regard to these two aspects ofconsequences. The results are presented in Figure 3.The differences were only significant concerning themoral aspects of the consequences of the crisis, wherethe consequences of the Terrorist-caused scenario wereseen to be more immoral (M6.35, SD2.13) thanthe case of the Unknown cause (M5.04, SD2.03)F(2,145)4.65, p .011.

There were no significant differences in eitherthe attribution indexes or the consequence indexes

between large and small municipalities. Women didreport a higher score for all indexes but these differ-ences were not significant.

The respondents were also asked to rate whatinformation they judged to be of importance to thepublic in this scenario. Figure 4 shows the mean ratingsof the five information items.

There was only one significant difference betweenthe scenarios, more specifically where informationconcerning who or what was responsible for causing

0

2

4

6

8

10

12

Accidental

Means

External Control Locus/Intention

Terrorist Unknown

Figure1. Means for Indexes of Control and Locus for the ThreeScenarios.

0

1

2

3

4

Accidental

Means

Temporary Stable Changeable

Terrorist Unknown

Figure 2. Means for Items Relating to Temporal Aspects of Crises.

Table 2. Scheffe Test of Significant Differences in Means forTemporal Aspects

Accidental Terrorist Unknown

Temporary 3.36a 2.64a 2.88Stable over time 3.04b 3.19a 2.48a,bChangeable 3.59a 3.71a 2.85a

a, differ at p .001; b, differ at p .005.

Table 3. Factor Loadings for Consequences

Component

1 2

Uncontrolled .834Unknown .776Dreadful .703Immoral .923Unfair .902

0

2

4

6

8

10

12

14

Accidental

Means

Dreaded Immoral

Terrorist Unknown

Figure3. Means for Implications of Consequences of the ThreeScenarios.

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the crisis, where the differences between the Terrorist(M3.07, SD1.04) and Accidental (M2.41,SD1.23) scenario differed F(2, 147)4.62, p .011.

6. Discussion and conclusions

The results presented here suggest that four conclusionscan be drawn regarding the perception of the crises:

First, the results from the study indicate that com-munication officers perceive crisis caused by accidentsas within the control of society to a greater extent thancrisis caused by terrorist attacks. Crises as a result of aterrorist attacks or where the cause is unknown are

judged to be farther from societys control, suggestingthat natural disasters are seen as more controllable.How does this affect the planning of crisis communica-tion? These results suggest that controlling accidental

events leading to a crisis is lower when compared withother types of events, implying perhaps that responsi-bility for these accidents will be judged as more diffuse.Perhaps this will lead to a lesser effort at establishingwho or what is responsible for the crisis, as is alsosuggested by the results presenting that the causes andresponsibilities of the event are not judged to be ofgreat importance in any of the cases.

Second, crises emerging from terrorist attacks areseen as a stable, but highly immoral, element in modernsociety. Even though the cause is judged to be morechangeable than the other two types of crises, it can behypothesized that this is due to the changeability or the

diversity of the nature of the attacks (e.g., diversity suchas suicide bombs, aerosol spread of a virus or large-scale attacks such as 11 September), rather than theevents themselves. Again, it is difficult to predictwhether or not this result would have a direct effecton the information provided to the public. It does,however, say something about how such attacks areperceived in a country that has not (yet?) experiencedany terrorist acts and about the resources that arespent trying to address such threats.

Third, the perception of dreadful consequences didnot differ over the three scenarios, suggesting that thisfactor does not, in a reliable way, at least as it is used inthis study, affect the judgement of the consequences.This could imply that the communication officers wouldnot specifically address or reduce specific outragefactors that influence individuals reactions to risks orcrises. This is unfortunate, especially since the conse-

quences of a terrorist attack often lead to feelings ofanger, frustration and fear. Also, even though a crisismight be the result of an accident, questions of fairnessand lack of control will certainly need to be addressed.

Finally, the information that is judged to be mostimportant to communicate to the public are facts aboutthe disease and protective measures that can be under-taken, followed by information on how to contact keypersonnel in the crisis management. This indicates thatfacts and emergency procedures continue to dominatethe communication strategies. The least importantquestions to communicate were the facts of how thishappened and what/who was responsible. Only in the

case where the crisis was caused by a terrorist act wasinformation regarding who or what was responsible

judged to be more important than in the other twoscenarios. Still, this information did not make the top-three list in any of the cases. Instead, it seems that thefocus is on facts, numbers and reassuring people,instead of sharing information on what caused this. Itcould be that the respondents thought that informationconcerning causes of the crisis is to be released at alater time, when the initial protective and emergencymeasures have been adopted. Of course, in the initialstages of a crisis, it might be difficult to find out exactly

what the cause is, making it impossible to communicate.However, once the cause is known and choosing not toemphasize the cause of what has just happened becauseit is judged not to be important does not have anysupport in research results, but could instead increasethe need for more information in order to providepeople with the complete picture.

What implications do these results have for crisiscommunication? The results presented here indicate thatcrisis communicators make their own judgements aboutwhat information the public needs, with the focus beingon delivering facts and contact information, and with theleast importance given to communicating the nature of

the event that caused the crisis. Of course, crisiscommunication must primarily focus on emergencyresponses and what measures individuals can take toprotect themselves and their loved ones. But crisesrarely erupt in a contextual vacuum and perhaps com-municators place too much emphasis on how centraltheir role will be during an actual crisis. Consider theimplications of providing the names and numbers ofcommunication officers in a municipality with a popula-tion of 200,000 during a crisis. Chances are that the

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

Facts and

disease

prevention

Contact

information

Reassuring

information

Facts about the

cause of crisis

Who or what

responsible for

crisis

Means

Accidental Terrorist Unknown

Figure4. Mean Ratings for Importance of Types of Information to thePublic for the Three Crises.




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municipalities switchboards as well as websites, wherecrisis information can be posted, would completelycollapse as the number of people searching for informa-tion on these two channels alone would increase.Perhaps setting up and distributing information on alter-native ways of gathering information should be provided,in order to relieve the strain on local resources.

These results further suggest that communication

between individuals and rumours are not judged tobe vital sources of information, at the same timeas communicating the unknown and uncertainties of acrisis situation is not made an explicit priority. This issomewhat surprising as crises are recognized for beingchaotic, where multiple sources are sought in order toobtain maximal information, and where rumours andmisconceptions have ample ground for flourishing(Reynolds, 2006). In the case of Hurricane Katrina,rumours regarding rape, murder and looting that laterturned out to be false were reported in the media,making citizens reluctant to help each other (Tierneyet al., 2006). Again, more sources of information need

to be developed and communication aimed at fulldisclosure concerning the events and consequencesshould be planned for. Perhaps the limited role thatthe interpersonal information networks and rumoursare given by the communication officers is a result ofwishful thinking, as this would make the control overinformation more easy to achieve. However, it can alsobe a result of a perception of the public as not beingeasily influenced by rumours or unverified information,but instead as rational individuals seeking information. Ifthis is the case, considerable progress has been made inmaking officials believe that the public are not prone to

panic or believe anything they read on the Internet.More research is needed to clarify this issue.

In conclusion, these findings suggest that crisis com-municators will focus on facts and on reassuring theaffected public. Further, it seems that in this case thewhat, why, when, where and how are instead whatand who with dont worry in third place. Last on thelist are the causes of the crisis, as well as thoseresponsible. This is particularly interesting because ithas been shown here that the cause of a crisis affectsthe perception of the professionals studied here. It canbe concluded that at the very least, communicationofficers should be encouraged to review their own

perception of various crises and how this can influencetheir communication strategies, focusing on how muchthese plans are influenced by previous experiences,observations or personal preferences and assumptions.This study adds further evidence to the discrepancybetween research and practice, something that shouldnot be insurmountable to achieve for communicationexperts. Still, perhaps one of the most intriguingquestions is whether or not these theories fit thepublics information needs and the media channels

that the public will actually prefer, depending of courseon the kind of crisis they are faced with.

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