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The Handbook of International Crisis Communication Research

Handbooks in Communication and Media

This series aims to provide theoretically ambitious but accessible volumes devoted to the major fields and subfields within communication and media studies Each volume sets out to ground and orientate the student through a broad range of specially commissioned chapters while also providing the more experienced scholar and teacher with a convenient and comprehensive overview of the latest trends and critical directions

The Handbook of Children Media and Development edited by Sandra L Calvert and Barbara J WilsonThe Handbook of Crisis Communication edited by W Timothy Coombs and Sherry J HolladayThe Handbook of Internet Studies edited by Mia Consalvo and Charles EssThe Handbook of Rhetoric and Public Address edited by Shawn J Parry‐Giles and J Michael HoganThe Handbook of Critical Intercultural Communication edited by Thomas K Nakayama and Rona Tamiko HalualaniThe Handbook of Global Communication and Media Ethics edited by Robert S Fortner and P Mark FacklerThe Handbook of Communication and Corporate Social Responsibility edited by Oslashyvind Ihlen Jennifer Bartlett and Steve MayThe Handbook of Gender Sex and Media edited by Karen RossThe Handbook of Global Health Communication edited by Rafael Obregon and Silvio WaisbordThe Handbook of Global Media Research edited by Ingrid VolkmerThe Handbook of Global Online Journalism edited by Eugenia Siapera and Andreas VeglisThe Handbook of Communication and Corporate Reputation edited by Craig E CarrollThe Handbook of Media and Mass Communication Theory edited by Robert S Fortner and P Mark FacklerThe Handbook of International Advertising Research edited by Hong ChengThe Handbook of Psychology of Communication Technology edited by S Shyam SundarThe Handbook of International Crisis Communication Research edited by Andreas Schwarz Matthew W Seeger and Claudia Auer


Edited by

Andreas Schwarz Matthew W Seeger and

Claudia Auer

This edition first published 2016copy 2016 John Wiley amp Sons Inc

Registered OfficeJohn Wiley amp Sons Ltd The Atrium Southern Gate Chichester West Sussex PO19 8SQ UK

Editorial Offices350 Main Street Malden MA 02148‐5020 USA9600 Garsington Road Oxford OX4 2DQ UKThe Atrium Southern Gate Chichester West Sussex PO19 8SQ UK

For details of our global editorial offices for customer services and for information about how to apply for permission to reuse the copyright material in this book please see our website at wwwwileycomwiley‐blackwell

The right of Andreas Schwarz Matthew W Seeger and Claudia Auer to be identified as the authors of the editorial material in this work has been asserted in accordance with the UK Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988

All rights reserved No part of this publication may be reproduced stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic mechanical photocopying recording or otherwise except as permitted by the UK Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988 without the prior permission of the publisher

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Designations used by companies to distinguish their products are often claimed as trademarks All brand names and product names used in this book are trade names service marks trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners The publisher is not associated with any product or vendor mentioned in this book

Limit of LiabilityDisclaimer of Warranty While the publisher and authors have used their best efforts in preparing this book they make no representations or warranties with respect to the accuracy or completeness of the contents of this book and specifically disclaim any implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose It is sold on the understanding that the publisher is not engaged in rendering professional services and neither the publisher nor the author shall be liable for damages arising herefrom If professional advice or other expert assistance is required the services of a competent professional should be sought

Library of Congress Cataloging‐in‐Publication data applied for

9781118516768 (hardback)

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Cover image Vadven Tigeryan blackdovfx TrailHikersGetty

Set in 95115pt Galliard by SPi Global Pondicherry India

1 2016

Contents

Notes on Contributors ix

Introduction Searching for an Integrative Approach to International Crisis Communication Research1 Significance and Structure of International Risk and

Crisis Communication Research Toward an Integrative Approach 1Andreas Schwarz Matthew W Seeger and Claudia Auer

Part I Disciplinary Foundations for International Crisis Communication Research 11

Political Science2 Political Science Research on Crises and Crisis Communications 13

Saundra K Schneider and Marty P Jordan

Management and Economics3 Delving into the Roots of Crises The Genealogy of Surprise 24

Christophe Roux‐Dufort

Psychology4 The Psychology of Crisis Communication 34

M Brooke Rogers and Julia M Pearce

Sociology5 Sociological Foundations of Crisis Communication 45

Martin Voss and Daniel F Lorenz

Anthropology6 ldquoCrisisrdquo in Social Anthropology Rethinking a Missing Concept 56

Stefan Beck and Michi Knecht

Communication Toward an Integrative Approach7 Communication ndash Conclusions for an Integrative Approach to International

Crisis Communication Research 66Claudia Auer Andreas Schwarz and Matthew W Seeger

Part II Actors and Institutional Communicators in International Crises 73

War8 Military Government and Media Management in Wartime 75

Kathrin Schleicher

vi Contents

Terrorism 9 Crisis Communication and Terrorist Attacks 85

Owen Hargie and Pauline Irving

Natural DisastersPandemia10 Communication Concerning Disasters and Pandemics Coproducing

Community Resilience and Crisis Response 96Jenni Hyvaumlrinen and Marita Vos

Organizational Crisis11 International Organizational Crisis Communication A Simple Rules

Approach to Managing Crisis Complexity 108Robert R Ulmer and Andrew S Pyle

Political Crisis12 Conceptualizing Political Crisis and the Role of Public Diplomacy

in Crisis Communication Research 119Claudia Auer

Part III The Role of the Media in the Construction of International Crises 133

War13 The Role of the Media in the Discursive Construction of Wars 135

Stig Arne Nohrstedt

Terrorism14 Terrorism and the Role of the Media 145

Liane Rothenberger

Natural DisastersPandemia15 Media Framing of Disasters Implications for Disaster Response Communicators 155

J Suzanne Horsley

Organizational Crisis16 Organizational Crisis and the News Media 165

Mario Schranz and Mark Eisenegger

Political Crisis17 Political Social and Economic Crises in Public Communication 175

Kurt Imhof

Part IV Domestic and International Audiences in the Context of Crisis Communication 189

War18 War Media and Public Opinion A Battle for Hearts and Minds 191

Michel M Haigh

Terrorism19 Terrorism ndash Orchestrated Staging and Indicator of Crisis 200

Wolfgang Frindte Daniel Geschke and Sebastian Wagner

Natural DisastersPandemia20 Reoccurring Challenges and Emerging Threats Crises and the New Millennium 212

Patric R Spence and Kenneth A Lachlan

Contents vii

Organizational Crisis21 Domestic and International Audiences of Organizational Crisis Communication

State of the Art and Implications for Cross‐Cultural Crisis Communication 224An‐Sofie Claeys and Andreas Schwarz

Political Crisis22 Environmental Crises and the Public Media Audiences in the Context of

Environmental and Natural Threats and Disasters 236Jens Wolling

Part V The State of Crisis Communication Research Around the Globe 249

Crisis Communication Research in Africa23 Crisis Communication Research in South Africa 251

Herman Wasserman and Nathalie Hyde‐Clarke

24 Crisis Communication Research in Nigeria 259Amiso M George

Crisis Communication Research in Asia25 Crisis Communication Research in the Chinese Mainland 269

Yi‐Hui Christine Huang Fang Wu Yang Cheng and Joanne Chen Lyu

26 Crisis Communication Research in Singapore 283Augustine Pang

27 Crisis Communication Research in South Korea 292Sora Kim

28 Risk and Crisis Communication Research in India 302Ganga S Dhanesh and Krishnamurthy Sriramesh

Crisis Communication Research in the Middle East29 Crisis Communication Research in the Middle East amp North Africa (MENA)

Echoes of Normalizing Historical Crisis 313Ibrahim Saleh

30 Crisis Communication Research in Israel Growth and Gaps 327Eytan Gilboa and Clila Magen

Crisis Communication Research in Australia and Oceania31 Crisis Communication Research in Australia 337

Chris Galloway

32 Crisis Communication Research in AotearoaNew Zealand 347Ted Zorn Margie Comrie and Susan Fountaine

Crisis Communication Research in Western Europe33 Crisis Communication Research in Germany 357

Andreas Schwarz

34 Crisis Communication Research in Northern Europe 373Finn Frandsen and Winni Johansen

viii Contents

Crisis Communication Research in Eastern Europe35 Crisis Communication Research in Eastern Europe The Cases of

Poland and Hungary 384Gyorgy Szondi and Paweł Surowiec

36 Crisis Management and Communication Research in Russia 397Sergei A Samoilenko

Crisis Communication Research in Latin America37 Crisis and Risk Communication Research in Colombia 411

Jesuacutes Arroyave and Ana Mariacutea Erazo‐Coronado

Crisis Communication Research in North America38 Crisis Communication Research in the United States 422

Matthew W Seeger Alyssa Grace Sloan and Timothy L Sellnow

Part VI Challenges and Topics of Future Research on Crisis Communication 435

Conceptual and Methodological Challenges of Risk and Crisis Communication in the Twenty-first Century39 Paradigms of Risk and Crisis Communication in the Twenty‐first Century 437

Robert L Heath and Michael J Palenchar

40 Global Product Recall Communications and Regulatory Focus Theory 447Daniel Laufer

41 Methodological Challenges of International Crisis Communication Research 456W Timothy Coombs

New Technologies in International Crisis Communication42 New Technologies and Applications in International Crisis

Communication and Disaster Management 465Andreas Schwarz Jean‐Christophe Binetti Wolfgang Broll and Andreas Mitschele‐Thiel

43 The Future Role of Social Media in International Crisis Communication 478Chiara Valentini and Dean Kruckeberg

Preparation for International and Cross-cultural Crises44 Preparing for International and Cross‐cultural Crises The Role of Competing

Voices Inclusivity and the Interplay of Responsibility in Global Organizations 489Timothy L Sellnow and Shari R Veil

45 Putting Research into Practice Models for Education and Application of International Crisis Communication Research 499Alice Srugies

Summing Up and Looking Ahead The Future of International Crisis Communication Research46 Risk Crisis and the Global Village International Perspectives 510

Matthew W Seeger Claudia Auer and Andreas Schwarz

Index 518

Notes on Contributors

Jesuacutes Arroyave earned his PhD in Communication from the University of Miami He is the Director of the PhD Communication Program and Associate Professor at the Universidad del Norte in Barranquilla Colombia His professional interest focuses on health communication and development risk communication and journalism and media studies He is the author and coauthor of 3 books and several journal articles and book chapters

Claudia Auer (MA) is a doctoral candidate in the Institute of Media and Communication Science at the Technische Universitaumlt Ilmenau Germany In her doctoral thesis she develops a theory of public diplomacy Her research interests include crisis communication public diplomacy strategic communication political communication and metatheory She is a member of the International Research Group on Crisis Communication

Stefan Beck was Professor of European Ethnology (social anthropology) at the Humboldt University in Berlin Germany His research focused on knowledge practices in medicine and their social and cultural implementation as well as on systems of expertise in the sciences and modern life‐world(s) Sadly he passed away in March 2015 before the jointly written article in this collection was published

Jean‐Christophe Binetti is the founder and director of Convis Consult amp Marketing Ltd in Berlin and Paris His company offers services in communication project consultation engineering software development and training in risk and crisis management Based on his long experience in consulting on and auditing management systems and crisis communication in the government industry and service sectors he developed a web application for crisis communication in cooperation with his team and practitioners wwwcrcmeu

Wolfgang Broll is a Full Professor at Technische Universitaumlt Ilmenau where he holds the chair in Virtual Worlds and Digital Games He is CEO and cofounder of fayteq a company concerned with advanced video manipulation technologies He received a PhD in Computer Science from Tuumlbingen University in 1998 He was a lecturer at the RWTH Aachen University from 2000 to 2009 From 1994 to summer 2012 he headed the VR and AR activities at Fraunhofer FIT in Sankt Augustin He has been doing research in the area of augmented reality (AR) shared virtual environments multi‐user VR and 3D interfaces since 1993

Yang (Alice) Cheng is a PhD student at the School of Journalism University of Missouri‐Columbia Her research interests include new media effects public relations effectiveness and value crisis

x Notes on Contributors

communication and management conflict resolution and cross‐cultural communication Some of her other publications have appeared in the New Media amp Society Encyclopedia of Public Relations and the Journal of Radio amp Television Studies among others She has received a Master of Arts degree in Global Communication from the Chinese University of Hong Kong

An‐Sofie Claeys (PhD 2012 Ghent University and Royal Military Academy) is Assistant Professor at KU Leuven She works at the Faculty of Social Sciences and is part of the Institute for Media Studies Her research and teaching focuses on public relations and crisis communication She has examined the impact of stealing thunder and nonverbal cues by organizational spokespersons in crisis communication Her work has appeared in international journals such as Public Relations Review Journal of Business Research Journal of Applied Communication Research and Journal of Communication

Margie Comrie is an Associate Professor in the School of Communication Journalism and Marketing at Massey University in New Zealand She is a Fellow of the Public Relations Institute of New Zealand Her research interests include news media public broadcasting political communication and health communication

W Timothy Coombs (PhD Purdue University in Public Affairs and Issues Management) is a Full Professor in the Department of Communication at Texas AampM University He received the 2002 Jackson Jackson amp Wagner Behavioral Science Prize from the Public Relations Society of America and the 2013 Pathfinder Award from the Institute of Public Relations for his research contributions to research and the practice

Ganga S Dhanesh is Assistant Professor in Communication Management at the Department of Communications and New Media National University of Singapore She has had experience in corporate and nonprofit organizations and has published in the areas of corporate social responsibility and internal relations in books and journals such as Management Communication Quarterly Public Relations Review and the Journal of Communication Management

Mark Eisenegger is a Full Professor at the Department of Communication Studies at the University of Salzburg in Austria he is also President of the Research Institute for the Public Sphere and Society (foumlg) at the University of Zurich in Switzerland His research interests include reputation analysis organizational and business communication PR research and change in the media

Ana Mariacutea Erazo-Coronado is a dentist who has carried out postgraduate studies in endodontics at the Universidad Stadual of Campinas Brazil She is Assistant Professor at the Universidad Metropolitana in Barranquilla Colombia She is a PhD candidate at the School of Communication at the Universidad del Norte Her professional interest focuses on interpersonal health communication and risk and crisis communication She is the author and coauthor of several journal articles

Susan Fountaine teaches public relations in the School of Communication Journalism and Marketing at Massey University New Zealand

Finn Frandsen (Mag Art Aarhus University) is Professor of Corporate Communication and Director of the Center for Corporate Communication in the School of Business and Social Sciences Aarhus University Denmark His research interests include organizational crises crisis management and crisis communication His research has appeared in international academic

Notes on Contributors xi

journals and handbooks such as Corporate Communications An International Journal International Journal of Strategic Communication Management Communication Quarterly Public Relations Review and The Handbook of Crisis Communication His most recent book is Organizational Crisis Communication A Multi‐vocal Approach (Sage 2016 coauthored with W Johansen)

Wolfgang Frindte is Professor of Communication Psychology at the Institute of Communishycation Research head of the Department of Communication Psychology at Friedrich‐Schiller‐University in Jena Germany and scientific head of the ldquoHuman Communication Sectionrdquo at Dresden International University His work focuses on attitudes and communication in intercultural and intergroup‐specific contexts (prejudice xenophobia anti‐Semitism group specific violence and intergroup threats macro‐social stress and terrorism) He is the author of numerous books and articles about xenophobia violence anti‐Semitism and communication psychology

Chris Galloway is a Senior Lecturer in Public Relations at Massey University Auckland New Zealand He previously held a similar position at Swinburne University of Technology Melbourne Australia His research interests include issues crisis risk and emergency commushynication He is the coeditor of Public Relations Issues and Crisis Management (2005) and his work has been published in a number of leading PR and communication journals

Amiso M George (PhD Ohio University APR Fellow PRSA) is Associate Professor and former Chair of the Department of Strategic Communication Bob Schieffer College of Communication Texas Christian University She developed and taught the first course in crisis communication at the University of Nevada Reno A visiting Associate Professor of Strategic Communication at Swinburne University in Australia in 2012 George has worked as a journalist and broadcaster in Nigeria and the United States She is the coeditor of two books including Case Studies in Crisis Communication International Perspectives on Hits and Misses (Routledge 2012)

Daniel Geschke is Lecturer in Social and Communication Psychology and researcher at the Institute of Communication Research at Friedrich‐Schiller‐University in Jena Germany His work and publications focus on intergroup relations prejudice and discrimination as well as acculturation and integration of minorities

Eytan Gilboa (PhD Harvard University) is Professor of International Communication founder and first Director of the School of Communication and Director of the Center for International Communication at Bar‐Ilan University in Israel He has been a visiting professor at several leading American and European universities He has published several books including American Public Opinion toward Israel and Media and Conflict and numerous articles and book chapters on international communication and public diplomacy He has been an adviser to several ministries and NGOs and a commentator on television and radio networks

Michel M Haigh (PhD University of Oklahoma 2006) is an Associate Professor in the College of Communications at the Pennsylvania State University Her research interests are mass media influence and strategic communications

Owen Hargie is Professor of Communication at Ulster University He has been Associate Professor at a number of UK and European universities He has published 70 book chapters 126 articles in refereed journals 11 major research reports and 22 books including Key Issues in Organizational Communication and Auditing Organizational Communication A Handbook

xii Notes on Contributors

of Research Theory and Practice He acts as consultant on communication for numerous public and private sector organizations In 2007 he was awarded a Senior Distinguished Research Fellowship by the University of Ulster in recognition of his research contributions over three decades

Robert L Heath (PhD University of Illinois) Professor Emeritus at the University of Houston has published extensively in journals and book chapters and has presented his research around the world to both industry and the academy He has published 17 books including Handbook of Crisis and Risk Communication (2009) Strategic Issues Management (2nd edn 2009) Terrorism Communication and Rhetorical Perspectives (2008) Encyclopedia of Public Relations (2005) and Responding to Crisis A Rhetorical Approach to Crisis Communication (2004)

J Suzanne Horsley (PhD UNC Chapel Hill) is an Associate Professor in the Department of Advertising and Public Relations at the University of Alabama She is also a Fellow in the Plank Center for Leadership in Public Relations Her research interests include crisis and disaster communication government communication and qualitative fieldwork methods for disaster research

Yi‐Hui Christine Huang is Professor of the School of Journalism and Communication at the Chinese University of Hong Kong She received her PhD in mass communication from the University of Maryland Dr Huangrsquos research interests include public relations management crisis communication conflict and negotiation and cross‐cultural communications and relationships She has served on the editorial board of Journal of Communication Communication Theory Public Relations Review Journal of Public Relations Research Asian Journal of Communication Communication Studies Journal of Business Ethics and International Journal of Strategic Communication

Nathalie Hyde‐Clarke (PhD) is Head of the Department of Culture and Communication Arcada University of Applied Sciences Finland and Docent of Media and Communications University of Helsinki In 2012 she coedited and contributed to the publication of a Special Edition of Communicare on Peace Journalism in South Africa the culmination of an exciting two‐year project in the field

Jenni Hyvaumlrinen (MA) is a Student Recruitment Specialist of Student Affairs and Services of the University of Jyvaumlskylauml Finland As a Doctoral Researcher she worked for the EU‐funded project Public Empowerment Policies for Crisis Management of the Agora Center of the University of Jyvaumlskylauml

Kurt Imhof was Professor of Mass Communication and Sociology at the Institute of Mass Communication and Media Research and at the Institute of Sociology of the University of Zurich as well as Director of the foundation board of the Research Institute for the Public Sphere and Society (foumlg) at the University of Zurich Sadly he passed away in March 2015 before the article in this collection was published

Pauline Irving is Senior Lecturer in Communication at Ulster University Her main research and teaching interests are in crisis management at personal and organizational levels Recently she was part of a pan‐European project aimed at developing effective crisis communication strategies in the aftermath of terrorist attacks The resultant strategy was disseminated in the form of a crisis communication manual which is now in use by public authorities throughout Europe She has a wide range of research publications and has been an invited speaker at both national and international conferences

Notes on Contributors xiii

Winni Johansen (PhD Aarhus School of Business Denmark) is Professor of Corporate Communication and Director of the Executive Masterrsquos Program in Corporate Communication in the School of Business and Social Sciences Aarhus University Her research interests include organizational crises crisis management and crisis communication Her research has appeared in international academic journals and handbooks such as Corporate Communications An International Journal International Journal of Strategic Communication Management Communication Quarterly Public Relations Review and The Handbook of Crisis Communication Her most recent book is Organizational Crisis Communication A Multi‐vocal Approach (Sage 2016 coauthored with F Frandsen)

Marty P Jordan is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Political Science and a recipient of a University Enrichment Fellowship at Michigan State University He spent several years advocating on behalf of and administering humanitarian and development assistance to impoverished communities in El Salvador and Guatemala still recovering from decades‐long civil wars

Sora Kim is an Associate Professor in the School of Journalism and Communication at the Chinese University of Hong Kong She earned her PhD degree from the University of Tennessee Her research interests include crisis communication management corporate social responsibility communication and corporate communication Her work has been published in the Journal of Public Relations Research Journal of Advertising Journalism amp Mass Communication Quarterly Journal of Business Ethics Public Relations Review and other international communication‐related journals

Michi Knecht is Professor of Anthropology and Cultural Research at the University of Bremen Germany She coedited ldquoReproductive Technologies as Global Formrdquo (2012 with S Beck and M Klotz) and has published widely within the field of the anthropology of life sciences knowledge and technologies Her most recent work focuses on regimes of anonymity in transformation

Dean Kruckeberg (PhD APR Fellow PRSA) is a Professor in the Department of Communication Studies University of North Carolina at Charlotte He is coauthor of This Is PR The Realities of Public Relations and of Public Relations and Community A Reconstructed Theory He is the author and coauthor of many book chapters and journal articles about international public relations ethics and about the ramifications of evolving communication technology for public relations practice

Kenneth A Lachlan is Associate Professor and Chair of the Communication Department at the University of Massachusetts Boston His research interests include crisis and risk communication new media technologies and their utility during crises and emergencies and the psychological effects of mass media Recent research has appeared in Journal of Applied Communication Research Journal of Communication and Computers in Human Behavior He currently serves on the editorial boards of Media Psychology Communication Studies and Communication Research Reports

Daniel Laufer is an Associate Professor of Marketing and the head of the School of Marketing and International Business at Victoria University of Wellington in New Zealand His articles have appeared in leading journals in the fields of both public relations and marketing and his main focus over the past few years has been on topics relating to the psychology of blame and crisis communications His research incorporates data collected from consumers around the world and he has taught executive‐level courses on crisis management at leading universities in both North America and Europe

xiv Notes on Contributors

Daniel F Lorenz is a social scientist and research associate of the Disaster Research Unit (Katastrophenforschungsstelle) at the Freie Universitaumlt Berlin Germany His research focuses on the sociology of disasters social vulnerability and resilience critical infrastructures disaster management as well as crisis and risk research

Joanne Chen Lyu is a PhD candidate in the School of Journalism and Communication at the Chinese University of Hong Kong Her research interest includes public relations crisis communication and management relationshipguanxi management and Chinese communication

Her research work has been published in Public Relations Review and Chinese scholarly journals Previously she worked for some years in the public relations department of a transnational media corporation

Clila Magen is a lecturer in Public Relations at the School of Communication and a research fellow at the Center for International Communication at Bar‐Ilan University in Israel Prior to joining academia she served as a spokesperson for the Chair of the Committee of Defense and Foreign Affairs of the Knesset (Parliament) From 2009 to 2011 she was a visiting scholar at the Communication Research Center College of Communication Boston University Her fields of research include public relations crisis communication and nation branding She is the author of a forthcoming book on intelligence services and the media in Israel

Andreas Mitschele‐Thiel is a Full Professor at the Technische Universitaumlt Ilmenau Germany and head of the Integrated Communication Systems group as well as of the International Graduate School on Mobile Communications of the university In addition he is cofounder of two research spin‐offs Cuculus (wwwcuculusnet) a leader in open service platforms for smart metering and home automation and IDEO Laboratories focusing on VoIP‐based telecommunications and now part of Telegant (wwwteleganteu) He received a Diploma in Computer Engineering from the Fachhochschule Esslingen in 1985 an MS in Computer and Information Science from the Ohio State University in 1989 and a doctoral degree in computer science from the University of Erlangen in 1994 He completed his habilitation in computer science at the University of Erlangen in 2000

Stig Arne Nohrstedt is Professor Emeritus in Media and Communication Studies at the School of Humanities Oumlrebro University Sweden and a former guest professor in journalism at the Linnaeus University Sweden He has a PhD in political science from Uppsala University and a Docentship (assistant professorship) in Journalism and Mass Communication at Goumlteborg University His primary research interests include war and conflict journalism journalistic ethics and roles risk and crisis communication as well as media and structural discrimination Recent publication Communicating Risks ndash Towards the Threat Society (Nordicom 2011)

Michael J Palenchar (PhD University of Florida) Associate Professor in Public Relations conducts research in the areas of risk communication and issues management He has presented his research around the world at academic conferences and in industry settings published in numerous journals and edited books and coauthored Strategic Issues Management (2nd edn)

Augustine Pang (PhD) is an Associate Professor and Program Director of Master of Mass Communication program at Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information Nanyang Technological University Singapore He specializes in crisis management and communication image management and repair media management and corporate communication management Besides contributing book chapters to leading communication

Notes on Contributors xv

books like the Handbook of Crisis Communication (2010 Wiley‐Blackwell) SAGE Handbook of Public Relations (2010) Handbook of Communication and Corporate Social Responsibility (2011 Wiley‐Blackwell) and Handbook of Research on Crisis Leadership in Organizations (2013 Edward Elgar) his works have appeared in peer‐reviewed journals such as the Journal of Public Relations Research Public Relations Review Journal of Business and Technical Communication Journal of Contingencies and Crisis Management Public Relations Journal and Journal of Communication Management

Julia M Pearce is a Research Fellow in the Department of War Studies at Kingrsquos College London Her research focuses on the impact of perceived moral cultural and health threats on behavior Her recent work examines the impact of risk and crisis communication on risk perception and behaviors with a particular focus on extreme events (eg chemical biological radiological or nuclear terrorism)

Andrew S Pyle is Assistant Professor of Strategic Communication in the Department of Communication Studies at Clemson University South Carolina He studies the intersection of crisis communication and intercultural communication Much of his current research focuses on the challenges emergency responders face when deploying to diverse cultural contexts He also studies the scholarship of teaching and learning seeking methods for enhancing the classroom experience for students and faculty alike Most recently he has begun studying how organizations utilize social media platforms to engage key stakeholders during and after crisis events He teaches courses in public relations and intercultural communication

M Brooke Rogers is a Reader in Risk and Terror in the Department of War Studies at Kingrsquos College London Her projects investigate public and practitioner psychological and behavioral responses to extreme events including CBRN terrorist incidents (eg PIRATE CIE Toolkit PRACTICE Deloitte Resilient Futures and the NIHR Emergency Preparedness and Response Health Protection Research Unit) She chairs the Cabinet Office National Risk Assessment Behavioural Science Expert Group She advises multiple national and international organizations and teaches and trains organizations including NATO the IAEA Home Office MOD ACPO Metropolitan Police Police National CBRN Centre and others

Liane Rothenberger (Dr phil) is a Senior Researcher and Lecturer at the Institute of Media and Communication Science Technische Universitaumlt Ilmenau Germany She earned her doctorate at the Catholic University of Eichstaumltt‐Ingolstadt Germany in 2008 Her research interests include crisis communication journalism studies and intercultural and international communication She is a member of the International Research Group on Crisis Communication

Christophe Roux‐Dufort is a professor of strategic management in the department of management at Laval University Quebec Canada where he teaches crisis management and crisis communication in regular and executive programs He has also written about thirty scientific and professional articles and five books on crisis management He works as a consultant for multinational companies around the world His comments on corporate crises are regularly published in national newspapers in France and Canada His research interests lie in risk and crisis management organizational learning and the management of change

Ibrahim Saleh (PhD) is a Senior Lecturer at the University of Cape Town Chair of Journalism Research amp Education Section International Association for Media amp Communication Research (IAMCR) amp Editor of the Journal of Transnational lsquoWorlds of Powerrsquo Proliferation of Journalism amp Professional Standards amp the Global Media Journal African Edition Saleh is the linchpin editor of the Book Series ldquoVisualization of War on Terrorrdquo Political communication

xvi Notes on Contributors

in particular in the areas of political journalism and crisis management Securitization of the Environment in particular climate reporting and representation of disasters Middle East amp North Africa (MENA) in particular the engagement of citizens with supranational political processes media and democratization in transitional society the impact of media violence on public opinion effects of media representations and framing on policyshymaking in the areas of social policy foreign policy and international relations digital inequalities in crossshynational contexts

Sergei A Samoilenko is a public relations instructor in the Department of Communication at George Mason University Fairfax Virginia He is the past president of the Eurasian Communication Association of North America His professional service is focused on bridging academic and professional communities in the areas of crisis communication public relations and Eurasian studies He has developed and held numerous workshops and webinars on strategic communication in the United States and internationally His new research focuses on issues in character assassination and reputation management in public relations

Kathrin Schleicher is a research assistant in the Institute of Media and Communication Science at the Technische Universitaumlt Ilmenau She is a member of the International Research Group on Crisis Communication Her research interests include crisis communication strategic communication and (military) organizational communication

Saundra K Schneider is Professor in the Department of Political Science at Michigan State University and the Director of the Interuniversity Consortium for Political and Social Research Summer Program in Quantitative Methods Her research focuses on disaster relief social welfare and health care policy She is the author of Flirting with Disaster Public Management in Crisis Situations (1995) and Dealing with Disaster Public Management in Crisis Situations (2011) Her work has appeared in a number of leading professional journals including Political Analysis Public Administration Review Journal of Administration Research and Theory The Journal of Politics State Politics and Policy Quarterly Political Research Quarterly The British Journal of Political Science and Publius The Journal of Federalism

Mario Schranz (PhD University of Zurich) is head of the Research Institute for the Public Sphere and Society (foumlg) at the University of Zurich in Switzerland His research interests center on corporate reputation corporate social responsibility and crisis communication

Andreas Schwarz (PhD 2009 Technische Universitaumlt Ilmenau) is Senior Lecturer at the Technische Universitaumlt Ilmenau in Germany His research and teaching focuses on crisis communication public relations journalism and cross‐cultural communication His work has appeared in international peer‐reviewed journals such as Public Relations Review the Journal of Public Relations Research the International Journal of Strategic Communication and Communications Since 2006 Andreas Schwarz has been the Managing Director of the International Research Group on Crisis Communication (wwwcrisis‐communicationde) He is the Founding Chair of the Temporary Working Group on Crisis Communication at the European Communication Research and Education Association as well as the biennial international conference series ldquoCrisis Communication in the 21st Centuryrdquo which began in 2009

Matthew W Seeger is Dean of the College of Fine Arts Performing and Communication Arts and Professor of Communication at Wayne State University in Detroit Michigan He earned his doctorate in 1982 from Indiana University His influential research in crisis communication scholarship has led to over 100 journal articles handbook entries chapters and other contributions He has coauthored six books on crisis communication and organizational communication ethics He regularly serves as a consultant to government

Notes on Contributors xvii

agencies and automotive companies who seek assistance in applied crisis communication and has worked closely with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on several projects

Timothy L Sellnow is Professor of Strategic Communication at the University of Central Florida He earned his doctorate from Wayne State University in 1987 his Masterrsquos from North Dakota State University and his Bachelorrsquos from Saint Cloud State University in Minnesota His crisis communication research appears in academic journals handbooks and volume contributions around the world He has coauthored five books on risk and crisis communication and acts as a crisis consultant and grant director for larger companies and government organizations such as the National Center for Food Protection and Defense

Alyssa Grace Sloan is Associate Professor of Communication and Program Director at King University in Knoxville Tennessee She earned her doctorate from the University of Kentucky in 2011 her Masterrsquos from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock and Bachelorrsquos degree from the University of Central Arkansas Dr Sloanrsquos publications explore ways to improve crisis communication before during and after disastrous events She was a contributing scholar to grant research for the National Center for Food Protection and Defense a Department of Homeland Security center of excellence Her scholarship also includes contributions to the field of communication ethics and health communication

Patric R Spence is an Associate Professor in the School of Information Science at the University of Kentucky His research focuses on crisis and risk communication examining audience perceptions of risk and emergency messages produced by emergency management organizations and government and news agencies He has written widely on the issues of race and class surrounding extreme events and issues of gender and information‐seeking in disasters He is a research affiliate with the Center for Rebuilding Sustainable Communities after Disasters at the University of Massachusetts Boston

Krishnamurthy Sriramesh is Professor and University Faculty Scholar at the Brian Lamb School of Communication Purdue University His program of research has focused on global public relations and the need to reduce ethnocentricity in the public relations body of knowledge by including culture into public relations scholarship He has taught at ten universities in North America Europe Asia and Australasia and has won several awards for teaching and research He has coedited two volumes of The Handbook of Global Public Relations Theory Research and Practice He also has presented over 110 research papers seminars and talks in over 30 countries and published over 65 refereed journal articles and book chapters He serves as the Assistant Editor of Public Relations Review and is Associate Editor of the Journal of Communication Management He is a member of the editorial board of several other journals

Alice Srugies (MA) is a research assistant at the Institute of Media and Communication Science at the Technische Universitaumlt Ilmenau Germany As a member of the International Research Group on Crisis Communication she particularly focuses on the crisis communication of public organizations As part of the Ilmenau Center of Public Diplomacy Research and Training she engages in research on public diplomacy of international organizations and internationally comparative public diplomacy research In her doctoral thesis she conducts an empirically grounded analysis of the public diplomacy strategies of the European Union and its member states

Paweł Surowiec (PhD) is a Senior University Lecturer at the Faculty of Media and Communication Bournemouth University United Kingdom and a Research Fellow at the Charles University in Prague His research is intrigued by questions relating to the reinvention of classical models of propaganda praxis and sociocultural changes in European politics

xviii Notes on Contributors

His research monograph Nation branding public relations and soft power Corporatizing Poland is due to be published by Routledge in 2016 His second book Social media and politics in Central and Eastern Europe addresses the transformative power of social media in political communication in the region He has published academic articles and book chapters on nation branding soft power political communication and social movements

Gyoumlrgy Szondi is a Senior Associate Lecturer in Public Relations at Leeds Beckett University United Kingdom He has lectured at several universities across Europe including the UK Austria Hungary Poland and Estonia He holds a PhD from the University of Salzburg Austria and an MSc in Public Relations from the University of Stirling United Kingdom His interest and publications include international public relations public diplomacy place branding risk and crisis communication His articles and book chapters appeared in the Journal of Public Affairs Place Branding and Public Diplomacy The Routledge Handbook of Public Diplomacy The Global Public Relations Handbook and the Encyclopedia of Public Relations He has designed and led training courses for the Health and Safety Executive the National School of Government in the United Kingdom the Government of Estonia and several for‐profit organizations in various European countries Prior to academia he worked for Hill and Knowlton in Budapest Hungary and in its headquarters in London

Robert R Ulmer is Dean of the Greenspun College of Urban Affairs at the University of Nevada Las Vegas His interests focus on creating renewal growth and opportunity through effective risk and crisis communication He has published six books and over 50 articles on the topic and has secured numerous grants and contracts to support his research He has served as a consultant working with a wide variety of organizations on how to prepare for and manage risk and crises effectively

Chiara Valentini (PhD) is Associate Professor in Public Relations and Corporate Communication at Aarhus University School of Business and Social Sciences Denmark Her research interests have focused on public relations corporate communication crisis communication political communication and social media Her work has appeared in international peer‐reviewed journals international handbooks and volume contributions such as Public Relations Review Corporate Communication An International Journal Journal of Communication Management Journal of Public Affairs International Journal of Strategic Communication International Journal of PressPolitics and The SAGE Handbook of Public Relations She serves as a reviewer for several international peer‐review journals and is a member of the editorial board of Corporate Communication An International Journal and Journal of Public Relations Research

Shari R Veil (PhD North Dakota State University) is Associate Professor of Communication and Associate Dean for Undergraduate Affairs in the College of Communication and Information at the University of Kentucky Her research focuses on public relations and reputation management in crisis contexts

Marita Vos (PhD) is Professor of Organizational Communication and PR at the University of Jyvaumlskylauml Finland She was consortium coordinator of the EU‐funded projects ldquoPublic Empowerment Policies for Crisis Managementrdquo and ldquoDeveloping a Crisis Communication Scorecardrdquo

Martin Voss is a sociologist professor for socio‐scientific disaster research and director of the Disaster Research Unit (Katastrophenforschungsstelle KFS) at the Freie Universitaumlt Berlin in Germany His research foci are the sociology of catastrophes and the question why cultures fail

Notes on Contributors xix

on disaster policy disaster management crisis and risk vulnerability and resilience evaluation and capacity building in development contexts environmental and climate change and security research

Sebastian Wagner (MA) was a student in the Masterrsquos course in Public Communication and a research assistant at the Institute of Communication Research at Friedrich‐Schiller‐University in Jena Germany

Herman Wasserman is Professor of Media Studies University of Cape Town South Africa He has published widely on media in post‐apartheid South Africa His books include the edited collections Press Freedom in Africa Comparative Perspectives (Routledge 2013) Popular Media Democracy and Development in Africa (Routledge 2011) and Media Ethics Beyond Borders (with Stephen J Ward Routledge 2010) as well as the monograph Tabloid Journalism in South Africa True Story (Indiana University Press 2010) Herman edits the academic journal Ecquid Novi African Journalism Studies and sits on the editorial boards of eight other international journals He heads the International Communication Section of the International Association for Media and Communication Research

Jens Wolling is Professor for Communication Research and Political Communication at the Technische Universitaumlt Ilmenau From 1987 to 1993 he studied Communication Science at the Freie Universitaumlt Berlin in Germany and from 1993 to 1998 he was research assistant at the University of Dresden His doctoral thesis was on media effects on political alienation From 1999 to 2003 he was Assistant Professor at the University of Ilmenau and from 2003 to 2006 Professor at the University of Munich His research focuses on media effects media use political communication media quality and sustainability communication

Fang Wu is a PhD student in the School of Journalism and Communication at the Chinese University of Hong Kong Her research interests include public relations crisis communication intercultural communication and international journalism She has received a Master of Social Science degree in Corporate Communication from the Chinese University of Hong Kong

Ted Zorn is Pro Vice‐Chancellor and Dean of the Massey Business School at Massey University in New Zealand Professor Zorn has published extensively in the areas of organizational communication and organizational change including more than 50 articles in refereed journals He is former editor of Management Communication Quarterly and former Chair of the Organizational Communication divisions at both the International Communication Association and National Communication Association

The Handbook of International Crisis Communication Research First Edition Edited by Andreas Schwarz Matthew W Seeger and Claudia Auer copy 2016 John Wiley amp Sons Inc Published 2016 by John Wiley amp Sons Inc

1

Significance and Structure of International Risk and Crisis Communication Research

Toward an Integrative Approach

Andreas Schwarz Matthew W Seeger and Claudia Auer

The Significance of International and Cross‐Cultural Crisis Communication

In recent decades communication scholars have increasingly recognized that the study of communication processes can no longer be restricted to national contexts (Bruumlggemann amp Wessler 2014) This has been linked to the ongoing process of globalization that affects social political and economic activities across the planet Castells (2010) argues ldquoNot everything or everyone is globalized but the global networks that structure the planet affect everything and everyone This is because all the core economic communicative and cultural activities are glob-alizedrdquo (p 38) He further relates the increasingly networked and globalized society to a number of emerging issues that are global in their manifestation and treatment including environmental threats (eg global warming) the globalization of human rights and social justice as well as global security as it is linked to international arms trade war and terrorism Between 2003 and 2012 an annual average of 106654 people were killed and 216 million were affected by natural disasters worldwide most from floods and storms (Guha‐Sapir Hoyois amp Below 2014) In 2013 the US National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (2014) reported a total of 9707 terrorist attacks worldwide resulting in more than 17800 deaths more than 32500 injuries and more than 2990 people kidnapped Although the number of armed conflicts and wars as well as the number of battle fatalities has been decreasing since World War II the Department of Peace and Conflict Research at Uppsala University (Uppsala Conflict Data Program 2014) reported a growing share of intrastate conflicts with intervention from other states or secondary parties outside the country Other types of crises with increasingly international causes and impact are public health crises and pandemia (eg Ebola H1N1 SARS) economic and financial crises and several crises involving large transna-tional organizations such as British Petroleum Toyota and the European Union (eg the European debt crisis)

Risks and crises are becoming more and more international in at least two respects First crises are physically transcending national and cultural boundaries in terms of their causes and consequences The causes of global warming for example are related to the global increase of carbon dioxide emissions caused by the combustion of fossil fuels transportation and industrial

2 Schwarz Seeger and Auer

production as well as transnational deforestation Global warming has been associated with more and more deadly natural disasters with international impact Second crises are symbolically transcending national and cultural boundaries in terms of international public discourses on potential crises (risks) ongoing crises and post‐crises (commemoration learning) The increas-ingly important role of international media organizations and news agencies and the rise of networked web‐based and mobile communication infrastructures and their growing use by ordinary people professional communicators and organizations have made many crises global

Besides domestic actors in specific national environments and media organizations the agents that play an important role in international risk and crisis communication are also multinational or transnational in terms of their organizational structures and operations In the business sec-tor for instance there are a reported total of 82000 transnational corporations (TNCs) with 810000 foreign affiliates worldwide which account for one third of total world exports of goods and services and employ about 77 million people (United Nations Conference on Trade and Development 2009) Others have described the rise of a global civil society where especially international nongovernmental organizations establish a ldquoglobal or international frame of refer-ence in their action and goalsrdquo (Castells 2010 p 40) These NGOs are increasing in number and in influence on national and international political agendas and they constantly profession-alize their efforts in strategic communication including crisis communication across borders media channels and target groups (Schwarz amp Fritsch 2014) NGOs are actively raising aware-ness of international risks and even create public pressure and crises for domestic governments or private companies But they are also increasingly affected by crises themselves due to cases of embezzlement corruption or misperception in foreign countries where they often operate according to western standards (salaries values etc) (Tkalac amp Pavicic 2009) In addition to civil society actors several transnational political entities such as the European Union or the United Nations are practicing international risk and crisis communication in the context of public diplomacy development aid or disaster relief activities

Within such organizations professionals who are in charge of managing communication processes between the organization and its stakeholders are reporting a growing importance in both international communication and crisis communication According to a survey of more than 2000 European communication professionals in 43 countries (Zerfass et al 2013) 45 of the practitioners communicate internationally across different countries on a regular basis whereas only fewer than one fifth (18) stated that they do not engage at all in international communication in their daily work This validates the assumption that ldquo[i]t is increasingly impos-sible [for communication practitioners] to escape communicating across national cultural and linguistic bordersrdquo (Hallahan et al 2007 p 27) The survey also revealed that almost 70 of European communication managers in private companies government organizations nonprofit organizations and consulting firms had to deal with one or even several crisis situations (including natural disasters) in the year preceding the survey (Zerfass et al 2013)

Despite the importance of international dimensions of communication scholars have only recently begun to explore international or cross‐cultural dimensions of crisis communication The authors of the few existing publications on this topic largely agree that the internationaliza-tion of companies NGOs political organizations and the media are linked to a growing number and a growing relevance of crises with cross‐border impact which significantly increase the complexity and needed skills of strategic crisis communication practice (Coombs 2008 Frandsen amp Johansen 2010 Lee 2005) However the academic state of the art in this respect has been assessed rather pessimistically ldquoThat international crisis communication is underdeveloped if not undeveloped reflects either insensitivity or ethnocentrism in the current crisis communication fieldrdquo (Lee 2005 p 286) This raises serious questions concerning the external validity of the established theoretical frameworks concepts and practice recommendations in the crisis commu-nication literature which in most cases implicitly claim to be universally valid across national or cultural boundaries However the conceptual foundations of crisis and crisis communication

International Risk and Crisis Communication Research 3

imply a highly culture‐sensitive character in crises and related communication processes Crises as social constructs emerge in social negotiation processes where (the violation of) societal values beliefs expectancies and norms serve as a fundamental reference for crisis stakeholders to decide whether a certain event behavior or process is labeled as crisis This is more or less explicitly stated in many definitions of the crisis concept (Coombs 2012 Falkheimer 2013 Hearit amp Courtright 2004 Pearson amp Clair 1998 Schwarz 2010 Seeger Sellnow amp Ulmer 2003) On the other hand such values and beliefs are assumed to be one of the core elements of the complex construct of culture (Hofstede 1980 House et al 2002 Schwartz 2006) Schwartz (2006) defines cultural values as ldquoshared conceptions of what is good and desirable in the culturerdquo (p 139) In addition he argues that cultural values ldquoshape and justify individual and group beliefs actions and goals Institutional arrangements and policies norms and everyday prac-tices express underlying cultural value emphases in societiesrdquo (p 139) This suggests that the way organizations plan organize perceive and practice crisis communication as well as the way stakeholders engage in ldquoco‐creating the meaning of crisesrdquo (Coombs 2012 p 19) is highly contingent on the cultural context and cultural value emphases that shape perception communication and behavior of these social entities

Categories of International Cross‐Cultural and Comparative Crisis Communication Research

The state of research in international crisis communication including comparative and contex-tual research is still limited in quantity and scope which was also attributed to the relatively recent emergence of the field as topic of academic inquiry (see chapter 40 Coombs) According to Schwarz (2013) studies on international andor cross‐cultural crisis communication can be categorized by two dimensions (1) the consideration of national or cultural context factors as independent or explaining sets of variables and (2) the observation of crisis communication as a cross‐national or cross‐cultural communication process

The first dimension has two categories (1a) The first category includes studies that use respectively the national and the cultural context as a variable (or set of variables) to explain similarities and differences of certain aspects of risk or crisis communication (eg perceptions of risk attributions of crisis responsibility etc) The identification of such context variables can be more theory‐driven by deducing these factors from the state of research or established the-oretical frameworks (eg cultural values) For the purpose of explaining international variation and similarities in public relations for example Sriramesh and Verčič (2003) proposed a frame-work of three factors that comprise further variables the infrastructure of a country (including the political system the level of economic development the legal environment and the role of activism in a country) the media environment (including media control media outreach and media access) and culture (referring to societal culture and corporate culture) In the broader field of comparative communication research (Hanitzsch amp Esser 2012) frameworks such as political communication systems communication cultures media systems media markets media cultures or journalism cultures were mentioned as being valuable explanatory constructs that can guide theory‐driven comparative research In most studies related to crisis communi-cation however context factors are used in a more explorative way to interpret differences on a post‐hoc basis (1b) The second category of the first dimension refers to studies that do not involve context variables to explain differences or similarities or they do not involve any systematic variation of these context factors to explain domestic cross‐national or cross‐cultural crisis communication processes Thus these studies are either not theory‐driven in terms of the explanation of dependent variables or sampling strategies or they simply do not intend any cross‐nationalcross‐cultural comparison


The second dimension can be divided into (2a) perceived risks or crises that transcend national or cultural boundaries in physical andor symbolic terms and (2b) crises that are largely limited to national or regional contexts in terms of scope effects and visibility In addition this can refer to studies that focus on either (2a) cross‐border or (2b) context‐specific activities or communica-tions of institutionalized actors media or stakeholders in the context of crises This results in four analytical categories of international crisis communication research namely (I) international‐comparative or cross‐cultural‐comparative crisis communication research (II) comparative crisis communication research (III) international or cross‐cultural crisis communication as object of study and (IV) context‐specific or country‐specific crisis communication research (see Table 11)

Most crisis communication research that deals with international dimensions or at least claims to do so is limited to the analysis and contextualization of crisis communication practices in a certain country (Coombs 2013) mostly by using some kind of framework or theory that was developed by Western‐based scholars (category IV) Often the goal was to test the external validity of a model or theory by applying it to a different population or to a different (nationalcultural) context In the field of corporate crisis communication research for example scholars have applied the widely cited situational crisis communication theory (SCCT) in different national contexts to test its basic assumptions (see Claeys amp Schwarz chapter 21) Other studies focused on identifying and validating existing typologies of crisis response strategies based on Corporate Apologia Impression Management Image Repair Theory or SCCT in nations outside the US (see for example Huang Lin amp Su 2005) In addition case studies from various countries that contextualize crisis communication practices perceptions or effects to some extent can be placed in this category (George amp Pratt 2012) However such studies often do not apply any theoret-ical framework or do not include any systematic comparison across nations or cultures

Table 11 Categories of international and cross‐cultural crisis communication research based on Schwarz (2013) and context factors based on Sriramesh and Verčič (2003)

Risk and crisis communication across national or cultural boundaries

National andor cultural context as explaining variable(s) Yes No

Yes bull National infrastructure

bull Media environment

bull Societal culture bull Organizational culture

bull Crisis history bull etc

IInternational‐comparative or cross‐cultural‐comparative crisis communication research eg

bull Comparison of international media coverage on international crises

bull Comparison of local crisis response managed by a transnational organization in different regions

II Comparative crisis

communication research eg bull Comparison of crisis preparedness of different national disaster protection agencies

bull Comparison of the media coverage on armed conflicts in different countries

NoIII

International or cross‐cultural crisis communication as object of study eg bull Analysis of coordination and control of risk and crisis communication in transnational corporations or nongovernmental organizations

IV Context‐specific or country‐specific crisis communication

(research) eg bull Validation of crisis commu-nication theory in specific contexts

bull Case study of the government response to a terrorist attack in country A


Comparative crisis communication studies where context factors are used to explain applications effects messages or media frames of cross‐national or cross‐cultural crisis communication processes are rare (category I) In most cases multinational or international organizations being involved in cross‐border crisis were observed Usually these studies do not test hypotheses or well‐established theoretical frameworks but are of explorative character and use context‐factors only as post‐hoc explanations for differences or similarities that were found in advance An often cited study in this category is Taylorrsquos (2000) analysis of an international crisis for Coca‐Cola in 1999 Other studies in this category compared the international media coverage of international crises such as the Fukushima crisis in 2011 when several nuclear reactors experienced a nuclear meltdown as a consequence of a major tsunami in Japan Schwarz (2014) for example applied framing crisis communication concepts and attribution theory and identified eight different frames in the inter-national media coverage of six countries and some significant differences between these countries in terms of the prominence of these frames These differences were explained by variations in cultural value emphases of these countries based on Schwartzrsquos (2006) value dimensions of autonomy embeddedness harmony mastery egalitarianism and hierarchy

Comparative crisis communication research without consideration of cross‐border communi-cation processes (category II) refers to studies where for instance country‐specific characteris-tics or perceptions of crisis communication are compared across countries and possible differences are explained by specific context variables Other examples would be studies comparing the extent and characteristics of crisis management or civil protection measures in different nation‐states depending on their political system or cultural factors This kind of research represents a significant desideratum of the crisis communication literature One of the few quasi‐experi-mental studies that applied an actual cross‐cultural research design was conducted by An et al (2010) The study indicated that cultural (or national) differences namely the difference bet-ween individualist culture (American students) and collectivist culture (Korean students) have an impact on both perceptions of crisis responsibility and crisis‐related emotions

Category III refers to studies that treat cross‐national or cross‐cultural crisis communication as object of study without any intention to explain differences across boundaries by context var-iables This kind of research is rare in the crisis communication literature As an example studies would be needed that analyze the coordination of crisis communication in or between transna-tional organizations (eg centralization vs decentralization) or studies that deal with the design of cross‐national crisis communication messages or strategies (eg standardization vs differentiation) A survey of communication professionals at international NGOs revealed that 71 percent of the organizations actually have an international crisis communication function In most cases this function was coordinated centrally by the NGOsrsquo headquarters (50) or in a collaborative way between headquarters and local offices (25) (Schwarz amp Fritsch 2015) Another contribution to this research category is the concept of cross‐national conflict shifting by Molleda and Connolly‐Ahern (2002) who argue that ldquo[d]omestic conflicts are increasingly shifting worldwide because of the growth of international transactions transportation and communication especially information technologyrdquo (p 4) The authors introduced several propositions with regard to the nature of domestic conflicts affecting transnational organizations and how these conflicts may shift across national borders and by that tarnish international orga-nizational reputation (Molleda amp Quinn 2004) So far this framework has primarily been applied to individual case studies

The still limited state of research on international and comparative crisis communication under-lines the urgent need for more academic efforts in the field Also governmental institutions responsible for disaster protection disease control or terrorism become increasingly aware of the challenges of addressing multicultural publics within domestic or international crises Multicultural stakeholders affected by crises are likely to differ with regard to their perception and evaluation of risks their preferred communication channels or how much they trust in different institutions involved in crisis communication (eg Falkheimer 2013 Lachlan et al 2009 Renn 2009)


Social psychology has produced some evidence that attributions of cause and responsibility are highly culture‐dependent (Choi Nisbett amp Norenzayan 1999) Given the importance of attributions as found in crisis communication research this points to the urgency of testing the established frameworks such as SCCT across cultural settings Also with regard to the institutional perspective of crisis communication research more international comparative studies are needed Management scholars for example have shown that organizational cultures and preferred lead-ership attributes are heavily influenced by the dominating national culture though they are not equivalent (Quigley Sully de Luque amp House 2005) That means that organizations with strong roots in countries with high levels of power distance are more hierarchic more bureaucratic and less transparent in handling information as compared to countries with low power distance (Quigley Sully de Luque amp House 2005) Considering the findings on organizational culture for crisis management this raises important questions concerning cross‐national differences between the crisis communication practices and structures of organizations Earlier research in domestic contexts revealed that more open and participative organizational cultures with less rigid hierarchical structures are less vulnerable to crisis put more emphasis on crisis preparation and are more effective in recognizing emerging issues in their social environment (eg Ingenhoff 2004 Marra 1998 Pauchant amp Mitroff 1988) Research on such aspects from an international perspective has only just begun if at all

In other words to date transnational corporations political institutions disaster relief organizations and other actors involved in cross‐cultural crises and communication have almost no evidence‐based and well‐established guidelines they can use to organize or coordinate inter-national crisis communication or to develop culture‐sensitive crisis communication strategies or messages (instruction adjusting information etc) Sound theoretical approaches that try to conceptualize international or cross‐cultural risk and crisis communication are also rare and the few that have been proposed (eg Aldoory 2010 Falkheimer 2013 Frandsen amp Johansen 2010 Lee 2005) are in an initial stage in terms of their empirical basis and the embeddedness in the existing body of knowledge in risk and crisis communication theory

The International Handbook of Crisis Communication Research was conceptualized to give a first comprehensive overview of the state of research in crisis communication from an interna-tional perspective This included understanding the regional nature of the research as well as the larger contextual grounding The main goals and the handbook structure we deduced from these goals are explained in the next section

Goals and Structure of the Handbook

Previous handbooks on risk and crisis communication have contributed important overviews of the body of knowledge in the field (Coombs amp Holladay 2010 Heath amp OrsquoHair 2009 Thieszligen 2014) However each suffers from at least one of the following limitations (a) the predominant focus on organizational andor corporate crises (b) the missing consideration of international andor cross‐cultural dimensions of crisis communication and (c) the missing representation of crisis communication scholarship in terms of its disciplinary and international diversity With the present handbook we intend to broaden the perspective on risk and crisis communication First this handbook widens the scope of crisis types that are analyzed including armed conflicts ter-rorism natural disasters and pandemia organizational crises as well as societal and political crises Second international contexts and dimensions of crises and crisis communication are considered in most of the chapters Third the project assembled contributions from a very broad spectrum of national and disciplinary backgrounds in crisis communication

Identifying international crisis communication authors and bodies of relevant research and compiling their contributions in a consistent manner was challenging Many scholars for example do not regard risk and crisis communication as their main field of study and only


explore crisis topics on a sporadic basis Many relevant publications have not been written in English and are hardly accessible by the international academia With regard to the study of crisis types and disciplinary foundations different research traditions different scientific communities and separate publication channels emerged which in part explains the fragmented nature of the field Therefore we conceptualized this handbook as a starting point for establishing a more interdisciplinary and international conversation about crisis communication as an emerging cross‐cutting subdiscipline in communications that in addition seeks stronger links to other social science fields

To explore the different roots of conceptualizing crisis and communication within the context of crisis we therefore invited authors from different social sciences to offer disciplinary perspec-tives of the field these are to be found in the first section of this handbook Without any claim to representing an exhaustive overview of the disciplinary treatment of crisis this section outlines the theoretical contributions from different perspectives such as psychology sociology cultural anthropology political science as well as management and economics The chapters summarize how crises as social phenomena on different levels of global society (macro meso micro) are cap-tured by theories and the state of research in their respective fields The last chapter in this section builds on the previous disciplinary overviews and discusses their contribution to understanding communication in the context of crisis as an integrative and interdisciplinary field of study

Building on this integrative understanding of risk and crisis communication the second third and fourth sections of the handbook treat crisis communication based on a two‐dimen-sional matrix (see Table 12) The first dimension refers to the most important social entities that are involved in cocreating the meaning and significance of risk and crisis in specific societal contexts These are (1) different institutionalized communicators who usually engage in crisis communication processes on a more strategic basis (2) the media and the field of journalism who are still important gatekeepers and mediators in the process of publicly framing risks and crises in different national and cultural settings and (3) a broad array of crisis stakeholders andor media audiences that for different reasons and with different motives actively or passively seek and disseminate information on risks and crises By using this distinction we intend to bring together authors from different subdisciplines such as public relations political communication science communication journalism and audience research In addition as in each of these fields specific crisis types have been focused (eg corporate crises in public relations research disasters and war in journalism research etc) we included five chapters in each of these three sections with each chapter covering a specific crisis type (the second dimension in the matrix as shown in Table 12) Obviously these crisis types are not mutually exclusive (eg organizational crises also occur in the context of natural disasters) but still represent typical categories of crises that are emphasized in different countries and subdisciplines

Table 12 Rationale and structure of sections II III and IV of the handbook

Crisis type

Main object andor perspective of study

War Terrorism Natural disasters pandemia

Organizational crisis

Societal political crisis

Institutionalized communicators

Section II of the handbook

Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12

Mediajournalism Section III of the handbook


Audiencestakeholders

Section IV of the handbook



For the fifth section we asked contributors from different countries around the globe to present the state of research in crisis communication in their respective contexts including countries in Africa Asia the Americas Australia Europe and the Middle East By providing a comprehensive overview on the state of international research this section allows readers to compare conceptual frameworks and findings of crisis communication research in different coun-tries Thus this section reflects the category of context‐specific or country‐specific crisis commu-nication research (see Table 11) In many cases understanding the specific nature of a field of study in a specific country is an indispensable step to prepare cross‐cultural comparative research projects where scholars from different countries have to find feasible ways to develop common frameworks and methodologies based on their heterogeneous cultural and academic backgrounds Several chapters in this section also include case studies of crises in specific countries that gained some kind of paradigmatic status While in the past mostly the same US crisis cases were used repeatedly as a scheme to evaluate crisis communication (eg Exxon Valdez Johnson and Johnson) the respective chapters refer to crisis cases in various countries and contextualize them

In the last section several chapters discuss emerging topics and challenges in the field of international crisis communication research This refers to theoretical challenges and frame-works (eg chapters 39 and 43) methodological challenges for cross‐national or cross‐cultural comparative crisis communication research (chapter 40) the role of new technologies and new media in crisis communication (chapter 41 and 42) and didactic aspects of international crisis communication by exploring educational models (chapter 45) and the role of intercultural competence (chapter 44) Finally the editors will summarize the main insights of the Handbook of International Crisis Communication Research and deduce main topics challenges and trends in future research on cross‐cultural and cross‐national risk and crisis communication (chapter 46)

Although there is still a long way to go to arrive at a theoretically and empirically valid integrative approach to international risk and crisis communication this handbook is a valuable first step as it offers a broad and comparative perspective on different dimensions that so far have been dealt with in rather fragmented scientific communities The ingredients of such an integrative approach will have to be different disciplinary approaches the comparison of different risk and crisis types and the consideration of cross‐national as well as cross‐cultural context factors Though still not well integrated these ingredients are included in this Handbook of International Crisis Communication Research

References

Aldoory L (2010) The ecological perspective and other ways to (re)consider cultural factors in risk communication In R L Heath amp H D OrsquoHair (eds) Handbook of risk and crisis communication (pp 227ndash246) New York and London Routledge

An S‐K Park D‐J Cho S amp Berger B (2010) A cross‐cultural study of effective organizational crisis response strategy in the United States and South Korea International Journal of Strategic Communication 4 225ndash243

Bruumlggemann M amp Wessler H (2014) Transnational communication as deliberation ritual and strategy Communication Theory 24(4) 394ndash414

Castells M (2010) The new public sphere Global civil society communication networks and global governance In D K Thussu (ed) International communication A reader (pp 36ndash47) London and New York Routledge

Choi I Nisbett R E amp Norenzayan A (1999) Causal attribution across cultures Variation and univer-sality Psychological Bulletin 125 47ndash63

Coombs W T (2008) The future of crisis communication from an international perspective In T Nolting amp A Thieszligen (eds) Krisenmanagement in der Mediengesellschaft Potenziale und Perspektiven der Krisenkommunikation [Crisis management in media society Potentials and perspectives of crisis communication] (pp 275ndash287) Wiesbaden VS Verlag fuumlr Sozialwissenschaften






Edited by


Claudia Auer











9781118516768 (hardback)




1 2016

Contents



















Kathrin Schleicher

vi Contents











Stig Arne Nohrstedt


Liane Rothenberger


J Suzanne Horsley




Kurt Imhof



Michel M Haigh





Contents vii


















Chris Galloway



Andreas Schwarz


viii Contents





















Index 518





























































































1

































NoIII






















Crisis type

















References

















9781118516768 (hardback)




1 2016

Contents



















Kathrin Schleicher

vi Contents











Stig Arne Nohrstedt


Liane Rothenberger


J Suzanne Horsley




Kurt Imhof



Michel M Haigh





Contents vii


















Chris Galloway



Andreas Schwarz


viii Contents





















Index 518





























































































1

































NoIII






















Crisis type

















References







Contents



















Kathrin Schleicher

vi Contents











Stig Arne Nohrstedt


Liane Rothenberger


J Suzanne Horsley




Kurt Imhof



Michel M Haigh





Contents vii


















Chris Galloway



Andreas Schwarz


viii Contents





















Index 518





























































































1

































NoIII






















Crisis type

















References







vi Contents











Stig Arne Nohrstedt


Liane Rothenberger


J Suzanne Horsley




Kurt Imhof



Michel M Haigh





Contents vii


















Chris Galloway



Andreas Schwarz


viii Contents





















Index 518





























































































1

































NoIII






















Crisis type

















References







Contents vii


















Chris Galloway



Andreas Schwarz


viii Contents





















Index 518





























































































1

































NoIII






















Crisis type

















References







viii Contents





















Index 518





























































































1

































NoIII






















Crisis type

















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1

































NoIII






















Crisis type

















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NoIII






















Crisis type

















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Crisis type

















References











References







thumbnail handbook of gender, sex, and media, edited by karen ross the handbook of global health...

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