Risk and Crisis Communications E-Book

Pamela (Ferrante) Walaski

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Wissenschaft und neue Technologien
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 439

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2011

Beschreibung

The go-to guide for learning what to say and how to say it

In this climate of near constant streams of media messages, organizations need to know how to effectively communicate risks to their audiences and what to say when a crisis strikes. Risk and Crisis Communications: Methods and Messages is designed to help organizations understand the essential components of communicating about risks during a crisis, and it carves out a role for safety health and environmental (SH&E) professionals in the process.

Covering common theoretical concepts and explaining the positions of noted experts in the field such as Peter Sandman and Vincent Covello, the book provides a fundamental understanding of the process behind crafting effective messages for a variety of different situations and explains the consequences of saying the wrong thing to an emotional audience. Incorporating numerous case studies—including the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and the 2010 H1N1 pandemic—it shows how messages can change the way an audience perceives an event and how they react to it, clearly demonstrating how ineffective messages can create untold difficulties for an organization's public image.

Savvy SH&E professionals know that their role in helping to craft risk and crisis messages as well as assisting in the execution of risk communication plans provides a critical path to becoming more valuable members of their organizations. Risk and Crisis Communications: Methods and Messages provides invaluable assistance in helping SH&E professionals add value to their organization.

Leseprobe

Table of Contents

Cover

Title page

Copyright page

LIST OF TABLES

PREFACE

1 INTRODUCTION

2 GENERAL CONCEPTS OF RISK AND CRISIS COMMUNICATIONS

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

KEY DEFINITIONS

THE STAGES OF A CRISIS

THE PROCESS OF COMMUNICATION

THE PURPOSE AND OBJECTIVES OF THE COMMUNICATION EVENT

3 COMMUNICATION FUNDAMENTALS AND THEORETICAL FOUNDATIONS

AUDIENCE PERCEPTIONS OF THE COMMUNICATOR

TRUST AND CREDIBILITY

FOUR THEORETICAL MODELS

RISK = HAZARD + OUTRAGE

MENTAL MODELS

FUNCTIONAL LINES OF COMMUNICATION

THE EXCELLENCE THEORY

THE “STICKINESS” OF MESSAGES

4 CRAFTING RISK AND CRISIS MESSAGES—SETTING GOALS AND OBJECTIVES AND AUDIENCE PROFILING

KEY SUCCESSFUL MESSAGE DEVELOPMENT CONCEPTS

MESSAGE CRAFTING—DETERMINING PURPOSE AND OBJECTIVES

MESSAGE DEVELOPMENT CONSTRAINTS

PROFILING AUDIENCES—WHO ARE THEY AND WHAT DO THEY WANT?

PROFILING AUDIENCES—HOW DO THEY PROCESS AND PERCEIVE THE RISK?

5 CRAFTING RISK AND CRISIS MESSAGES—DEVELOPING THE WORDS

CRAFTING MESSAGES—OVERARCHING PRINCIPLES

CONVEYING EMPATHY

AUDIENCE EMOTIONS—ANGER

AUDIENCE EMOTIONS—MISTRUST

AUDIENCE EMOTIONS—FEAR, PANIC, AND APATHY

MESSAGE-CRAFTING TECHNIQUES

INFLUENCE DIAGRAMS—THE MENTAL MODELS APPROACH

MESSAGE MAPPING

6 DELIVERING THE MESSAGE WHILE AVOIDING COMMON MISTAKES

MESSAGE DELIVERY TEMPLATES

THE USE OF VISUALS IN A COMMUNICATION EVENT

DELIVERING THE MESSAGE IN THE AGE OF THE INTERNET

COMMON MESSAGE DELIVERY MISTAKES AND EFFECTIVE CORRECTIONS

THE USE OF CONTENT ANALYSIS AND READABILITY ANALYSES

EVALUATING THE COMMUNICATION EVENT

7 WORKING WITH THE MEDIA

LEVEL OF ORGANIZATIONAL EXPERTISE

ADVANCE DEVELOPMENT OF RELATIONSHIPS WITH THE MEDIA

THE VARIOUS ROLES OF THE MEDIA

CONSTRAINTS OF THE MEDIA AND MEDIA REPRESENTATIVES

WHAT THE MEDIA NEEDS FROM AN ORGANIZATION

FAIR MEDIA COVERAGE

DEVELOPING A MEDIA COMMUNICATIONS PLAN

GETTING THE ACCURATE MESSAGE OUT

CHOOSING A SPOKESPERSON

PREPARING FOR AN INTERVIEW

AFTER THE INTERVIEW

8 DEVELOPING A RISK AND CRISIS COMMUNICATIONS PLAN

DEFINING ACCEPTABLE RISK

RISK ASSESSMENT TOOLS SUMMARY

KEY PLANNING GUIDELINES AND PROCESSES

KEY PLAN ELEMENTS

9 SPECIAL RISK AND CRISIS COMMUNICATION SITUATIONS

CRISIS COMMUNICATION PRINCIPLES

WORST-CASE SCENARIOS

DEALING WITH AN OUTRAGED AUDIENCE IN A CRISIS

DEALING WITH AN AMBIVALENT AUDIENCE IN A CRISIS

SOME ADDITIONAL GUIDELINES

DEALING WITH FATALITIES

DEALING WITH RUMORS

10 CASE STUDIES

THE H1N1 PANDEMIC OF 2009–2010

THE BP DEEPWATER HORIZON OIL SPILL

11 SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS

THEORETICAL MODELS AND FRAMEWORKS

CRAFTING RISK AND CRISIS MESSAGES

MESSAGE DELIVERY

WORKING WITH THE MEDIA AND CHOOSING A SPOKESPERSON

DEVELOPING A RISK/CRISIS COMMUNICATIONS PLAN

SPECIAL RISK AND CRISIS COMMUNICATIONS SITUATIONS

CASE STUDIES

WHAT IT ALL MEANS FOR YOU AND YOUR ORGANIZATION

Index

Copyright © 2011 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved

Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey

Published simultaneously in Canada

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Walaski, Pamela, 1959-

 Risk and crisis communications : methods and messages / Pamela Walaski.

p. cm.

 Includes index.

 ISBN 978-0-470-59273-1 (cloth)

 1. Risk communication. 2. Health risk communication. 3. Crisis management. 4. Public safety. 5. Industrial safety. I. Title.

 T10.68.W35 2011

 363.3401'4–dc22

2011008252

oBook ISBN: 978-1-118-09342-9

ePDF ISBN: 978-1-118-09345-0

ePub ISBN: 978-1-118-09344-3

LIST OF TABLES

Table 2.1. Differences between Risk Communications and Crisis Communications

Table 3.1. Covello’s 15 Risk Perception Factors

Table 3.2. Sandman’s Four Kinds of Risk Communications

Table 4.1. Questions to Ask When Completing an Audience Analysis

Table 4.2. Covello’s 15 Risk Perception Factors

Table 5.1. Using Covello’s Risk Perception Factors to Evaluate Audience Anger Potential

Table 5.2. Factors That Can Affect an Audience’s Emotional Level

Table 5.3. Message Map for Communicating Differences between Pandemic Influenza and Seasonal Influenza

Table 6.1. Effective Bridging Statements

Table 6.2. Strategies for Delivering Targeted Messages

Table 6.3. Options for Portraying Various Aspects of Risk Visually

Table 6.4. Comparison of Message Delivery Mechanisms

Table 6.5. Internet Availability of Risk Communication Messages During H1N1 Pandemic

Table 6.6. Evaluating Openness and Transparency of Communication

Table 6.7. Evaluating Listening

Table 6.8. Evaluating Clarity

Table 7.1. Personal and Professional Characteristics of a Designated Lead Spokesperson

Table 7.2. Preparing for an Interview

Table 7.3. Typical Trick Questions Asked by the Media

Table 7.4. Interview Do’s and Don’ts

Table 7.5. Correcting Errors in Media Reporting

Table 8.1. Comparison of Common Risk Assessment Methods

Table 9.1. Differences Between Risk Communications and Crisis Communications

Table 9.2. Possible Organizational Responses upon Discovery of a Rumor

Table 10.1. Seasonal Flu vs. Pandemic Flu

Table 10.2. Centers for Disease Control Pandemic Severity Index

Table 10.3. Applicability of Risk Factors to BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill

PREFACE

I wish I could take credit for the idea to write this book, but I can’t. Several years ago, I was in my office putting the finishing touches on some slides for an upcoming conference session on risk and crisis communications at the annual Professional Development Conference of the American Society of Safety Engineers (ASSE) in San Antonio, Texas. An e-mail popped up in my inbox from an unknown person, who happened to be Bob Esposito, an associate publisher at John Wiley & Sons. He noted that he had seen and heard about several other sessions where I had presented on this topic at other major national conferences and wondered if I had ever thought about writing a book about it. While the idea of writing a book was one of my long-term goals, it never occurred to me that a publisher would think me ready to write one now. I had just finished writing a chapter for a book published by ASSE and had also continued the practice of publishing articles for print and online newsletters for several different organizations and associations. While I enjoyed writing and had been pleased with the articles that I had published thus far, writing an entire book was not something I thought I was ready for.

And to this day, I’m still not sure I was ready for it. As I have joked several times over the past 24 months, writing a 10,000-word chapter or a 2,500-word newsletter article is actually pretty easy and had become easier each time I penned one. However, a book with nearly 100,000 words turned out to be an incredibly daunting task—one that has, at turns, energized me, challenged me, and beaten me down, sometimes during the same writing session. When Bob asked me to write this book, I was flattered and, without really understanding what it would take to get it done, said yes. While I never doubted that I had much to say on this topic and believed that my ideas and those of others that I have collected and utilized for this book would be beneficial to my fellow safety, health, and environmental (SH&E) professionals, there have been times when I have had the (probably) universal tinge of doubt about whether or not what I had to say would be interesting to anyone but me.

This book is not intended to be a significant seminal work on the topic of risk and crisis communications. It is, and always was, intended to bring the topic down to the level of general safety practitioners who are looking to add more value to their professional skill set and ultimately to their employers. It is written for safety professionals who, like me, are passionate about what they do and want to better understand how to bring the message of safety to the audiences that make up their specific work environment. This book is filled with general concepts, theories, and practical applications that can be used by anyone in the field with some basic management responsibilities, and even by those with no management level tasks who simply want to broaden their knowledge of this particular aspect of the practice of safety.

Everyone always has a list of people to thank and I am no exception. My first thanks go to Bob Esposito who, I think, took a bit of a leap with me and gave me a shot. My second thanks go to those who have been working in the area of risk and crisis communications for many more years than I and who have contributed greatly to the understanding of the practice. They include Peter Sandman, Vincent Covello, Kathleen Fearn-Banks, Regina Lundgren, and Andrea McMakin, whose body of work has contributed greatly to the pages that follow. I also want to thank Morgan Kelly for her invaluable assistance with designing some of the illustrations.

I also need to mention my children, Jason and Chloe, who have allowed me to hone my parenting skills on them. I am cautiously optimistic that I have gotten better at it over time; and I have learned more from them than I think they understand at this stage of their lives, although when they are parents, I do believe they will get it as well. And finally, yet most importantly, to my husband Jeff, the guy who fell in love with me while I was knee-deep in writing this book. Over the year and a half of our courtship and the early months of our marriage, he never failed to take a back seat without complaining when I needed to spend just one more evening (I promise!) or one more Saturday (I swear!) writing and editing it. When I almost gave up, he encouraged me to keep at it; and during the long hours of research, writing, and editing, he was always an unwavering guardian of my time, making sure the task never overwhelmed me. His patience, devotion, love, and support are gifts that I hold close in my heart.

PAMELA (FERRANTE) WALASKI

1

INTRODUCTION

More than 30 years ago, a seminal event in the field of crisis communications occurred at a nuclear power plant operated by Metropolitan Edison in Middletown, Pennsylvania, just outside of the state capital of Harrisburg. The plant, known as Three Mile Island (TMI), was the scene of an incident involving a stuck valve that resulted in the partial meltdown of a nuclear reactor. While TMI was not a serious accident in terms of human fatalities or injuries or release of dangerous radioactivity, it did identify serious gaps in the nuclear industry’s ability to communicate during critical events and led to the establishment of the Kemeny Commission, whose tasks included writing recommendations on how nuclear utilities should improve their ability to communicate in the event of an accident.

As a young undergraduate student attending Shippensburg State College (now University), just outside of Harrisburg and Middletown, I remember the difficulties we had in understanding what was happening and how it might affect us at that time and in the future. Living in a college dormitory equipped with pay phones only in the main lobby and one television set for the entire residence of 200-plus students, the methods of communication available to let us know what was happening were extremely limited, leaving us in the dark, while National Guard troops pulled up on our campus as we prepared to take in evacuees.

Imagine how that lack of information would play out if TMI happened today. Our current culture and society relies increasingly on written and verbal messages on a near-constant basis to evaluate the world and the risks associated with living in it. These messages do more than simply provide information; they can cause large groups of people to behave in certain ways as well as change their perceptions of the world around them. As part of their functional responsibilities, safety, health, and environmental (SH&E) professionals are being called upon more frequently to develop the means and the messages to assess and communicate risks to the audiences of their organizations that include their internal workforce, the general public, vendors, suppliers, and other organizations within their field.

Risk and crisis communications is a process of communicating information by a public or private organization to an audience. The information is typically communicated following a formal or informal risk assessment process that delineates hazards that may occur to the organization and require some level of knowledge imparted to the audience on how the hazards will impact them and how they can prepare for the hazard. The process most often occurs when hazards are already occurring, are about to occur, or being planned for as part of an overall emergency response preparedness process.

In most literature, the terms “risk communications” and “crisis communications” are used to describe both the process of developing a relationship with key audiences in which information is communicated about the hazard, as well as the specific messages that are crafted and delivered by various organizational representatives. Risk communications is most often the process and the messages that occur prior to the occurrence of a hazard. Risk communications helps audiences understand their risk as well as what activities they can undertake to prepare for the hazard situation. Crisis communications is the process and messages that are delivered at times of high stress, either because the hazard is already occurring or is imminent.

This book provides readers with a fundamental understanding of the process of developing and delivering risk and crisis communications and has been written to provide a means for SH&E professionals to develop a foundational understanding of risk and crisis communications and use that information to assess the needs of their organization.

In recent years the roles of SH&E professionals have been expanding into new and different arenas. SH&E professionals need to provide value to their organizations by increasing their skill set and the roles they can play in the overall functioning of the organization. The ability to do so will provide a key to their success, both individually and to the profession as a whole. This need to become more valuable to an organization is coupled with the increasing role of media and communication methods in the provision of information to the public at large. Organizations must respond to this need for information in a way that is accurate and timely and is structured in such a way as to be successful. This book will provide the information SH&E professionals need to assure their success in this process.

While the bulk of the earliest history of the development of formal risk and crisis communications techniques centered on the environmental remediation and clean-up arena, more recent efforts have broadened into multiple arenas. The use of the techniques and activities described in this book, as well as others, now commonly cover events such as natural disasters; security incidents; public health crises; and workplace catastrophes, including fatalities and major incidents. Some threads of the theoretical foundations of risk and crisis communications can even be woven into much of occupational safety and health training classes that occur in just about every workplace.

The methods used to communicate risk and crisis information also vary from oral methods such as press conferences, broadcast interviews, public meetings, and safety meetings. Written communication methods range from the traditional press release to brochures, safety posters, and newsletters. Newer methods include robocalls, podcasts, websites, blogs, and social networking sites.

This book will take the reader through the fundamentals of risk and crisis communications and begins by providing a common set of working definitions for a variety of terms used throughout the book, including “risk,” “crisis,” “risk communications,” and “crisis communications.” Later chapters review the current theoretical foundations that have been developed by such leading experts in the fields such as Vincent Covello and his colleagues at The Center for Risk Communication; Peter Sandman; and Regina Lundgren and Andrea McMakin. Some limited review of research conducted to ascertain the validity of risk and crisis messages will also be addressed.

Information will also be presented that will guide readers through the steps of developing risk and crisis messages, including understanding the constraints of the organization; the audience and communication topic; the goals and objectives of the messages; how to profile the intended audience; and how to successfully deal with strong audience emotions such as anger, mistrust, fear, and apathy. Additional information on avoiding common mistakes made during risk and crisis communication situations will be identified.

Several chapters will address the crafting of the actual messages that are delivered and will include two current techniques for message crafting: influence diagrams, developed by M. Granger Morgan at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; and message maps, developed by Vincent Covello at The Center for Risk Communication. Vital for the successful delivery of messages is the ability to demonstrate empathy to the audience. This will be discussed as will the method for choosing an effective organizational spokesperson.

Other chapters will look at several models for crisis communications plans that can be used as templates for an organization, which will allow it to be prepared to respond quickly to crisis situations. Working with the media, including successful press conferences and media interviews, will be covered as well. Finally, the use of crisis communications when an organization encounters a fatality or a rumor will be examined in greater detail.

The text will close with case studies of two recent public events that provide a wealth of information to study the actual process: the worldwide H1N1 pandemic of 2009–2010 and the BP Deepwater Horizon explosion and oil spill of 2010, which killed 11 oil rig workers and caused unprecedented environmental damage throughout the Gulf of Mexico. The case studies will analyze comments made by various organizational representatives, politicians, and governmental authorities with regard to some of the theoretical foundations and message-crafting concepts discussed in the earlier portions of the text. Comments will be given related to the relative success or failure of the messages delivered. A final chapter will summarize the entire text and offer closing comments.

It is hoped that this text will provide readers with a solid foundation and increase their skill set for immediate use within their organizations. It will also provide additional questions that may lead to a more in-depth study of the topic by reading some of the reference material used.

2

GENERAL CONCEPTS OF RISK AND CRISIS COMMUNICATIONS

This chapter will provide a general understanding of the field of risk and crisis communications by looking at the history of the practice. Subsequently, some working definitions will be provided to establish common terms that will be used throughout the remainder of the book. Additional sections will review a basic model of communication and the chapter will end with some comments about the purpose and objectives of risk and crisis communication events.

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

The use of oral and written communication techniques can be dated as far back as human existence and were used to communicate a variety of needs, wishes, commands, and information, including the types of risks humans were exposed to and as a means to warn of impending crises. However, the science, practice, and specific techniques that form what is currently known as risk and crisis communications have a much shorter history. Not much has been written to accurately date the earliest forms of risk and crisis communications, but many in the field would hesitate to go back any further than 25 or 30 years. Attributions often identify the introduction of the World Wide Web and other forms of digital communication as a turning point in the need to provide messages to audiences that help them understand the risks of their lives due to the sheer speed of Internet messages as well as the substantial increase in the volume and type of messages available to the general public (Fearn-Banks 2007).

Much of what are considered contemporary risk and crisis communication activities have stemmed from environmental clean-up efforts that began in the United States with legislation in the 1980s. Vincent Covello and Richard Peters at The Center for Risk Communication in New York, along with David McCallum from Focus Group in Maryland, trace the terms “risk communications” and “crisis communications” and their widespread use back to William Ruckelshaus (Fig. ), the first administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), a federal agency formed in 1970 by President Richard Nixon (Peters 1997).