Stategic risk communication: Adding value to society

Palenchar, M., & Heath, R. (2007). Stategic risk communication: Adding value to society. Public Relations Review , 120-129.

This article caught my attention because of the title. I participated in a public meeting this week with the North Dakota congressional delegation and they consistently wanted to know what type of risk they are facing for spring flooding. I then began to think of measures I could take to effectively communicate that risk to the public in a manner that would be well received.

Purpose and Audience:
The article examines how communication risk is presented to the public in the wake of modern-day media scrutiny. The authors look at people that work or live near energy facilities. The audience for this article is communication students, communications professionals and anyone interested in learning about how risk is communicated and areas for improvement.

Organization:
The paper has a standard organization that begins with an introduction and background, followed by an analysis and conclusions.

·         Risk communication
Risk is often defined by several different ideas and thoughts. More importantly, government agencies and businesses often define risk differently, too. This leads to a challenge to define, evaluate and manage risk communication.

·         Insight from a decade of research
“In times of crisis, members of society are likely to turn to one or more individuals or organizations for answers (123).”

o   Strategic risk communication: ideas and meaning count
“Formative research prior to developing and implementing a risk communication campaign is essential (123).” Early research indicated that people appreciated and accepted risk communication from and organization and the research found that the brand received an increase in favorability as a result. New research suggests that continued risk communication can be damaging due to a feeling that the organization isn’t taking necessary steps to fix the problems.

o   Transparency
The authors look at transparency as a means to develop relationships while not disclosing every detail to the public. “According to Gower (2006), the Internet has shaped the expectation of transparency and provided the facility to be transparent.”

o   Build trust over time community outreach and collaborative decision making
People tend to view risk and trust by who is presenting the information. If the speaker is someone that is well respected within the community, then he/she will likely have a greater influence on build that trust. Organizations need to build this trust over time with effective community outreach.

o   Acknowledge the uncertainty in risk assessments
The most important aspect of discussing risk and building trust is acknowledging the level of uncertainty. “The very nature of risk prohibits absolute definitions and knowledge (125).”

o   Risk communication is carried out as narrative enactment
The groups that have the ability to shape the conversation and form power have the best chance to control the communication during a crisis. It is here that trust needs to begin and an organization should focus on communicating beyond its core and become a community leader. This can be accomplished through the use of a narrative communication practice.

·         Risk communication can add value to society
“A ‘good’ organization can utilize risk communication to empower relevant publics by helping them to develop and use emergency responses that can mitigate the sever outcomes in the event of a risk event (127).” This can be done if an organization places the needs, goals and values into the planning process.

Conclusion:
Risk communication is a balancing act that needs to focus on ensuring people have enough accurate information to make informed decisions while trying to not be too quick to jump to conclusions on untested science.

The end result is the necessary need to build relationships that will allow for uncertainty and understanding in a crisis.

Organizaing Chaos: Crisis Management in the Wake of Hurricane Katrina. Professional Psychology: Research and Practice

Rizzuto, T. E., & Maloney, L. K. (2008). Organizaing Chaos: Crisis Management in the Wake of Hurricane Katrina. Professional Psychology: Research and Practice , 77-85.

The article explores how the Louisiana Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals used the Hurricane Katrina disaster as an avenue to increase their organization communication.  It focuses on the psychology, communication and organizational crisis management.

Purpose and Audience:

The intended audience is anyone looking to understand what dynamics go into providing effective communication in the wake of a natural disaster. This could include psychology students and practitioners, technical communicators and business professionals that have a vested interest in providing successful communications.

Organization:

The article is broken into three parts. It begins with an overview, then a definition of a multidisciplinary perspective of crisis management success and it concludes with a lessons learned segment

·         Theoretical Considerations in Organizational Crisis Management:
Most of the research shares the belief that a crisis has a pre, during and post stage. The authors cite D. Smith as stating the first stage is the crisis of management phase, the second phase is the operations crisis, and the last stage is the crisis of legitimation (78).

·         The Case of LA/SPCA
The LA/SPCA was the only animal shelter in New Orleans during the hurricane.

o   The organization experienced all three stages of a crisis according to Smith.

§  Stage 1: The leadership had applied the lessons learned from Hurricane Betsy in 1965 to the Hurricane Katrina disaster.

§  Stage 2: The biggest initial challenges the organization dealt with were the lack of people due to evacuation, structure issues with their building being destroyed and fatigued personnel.

§  Stage 3: Following the disaster, the organization put objectives: animal placement, shelter construction, new work structure formulation, and crisis preparation (80).

·         Crisis Management Success-Failure Continuum

o   LA/SPCA endured many challenges following the disaster but the organization can be viewed as a success using Pearson and Clair’s (1988) success-failure continuum.

o   The importance of planning is well-documented as being a major reason for LA/SPCAs success. It was the care and consideration for each employee that helped the organization rebuild (82).

o   Person and Clair’s seven crisis conditions (82) are: signal detection, incident containment, business resumption, learning, reputation, resource availability, and decision making.

·         Implications for Theory and Practice

o   The case study finds evidence that suggests that government aid, previously thought to be beneficial, can add to the chaos following a disaster as it can “contribute to increased complexity during the operation crisis stage” (83).

o   Organizations are extremely vulnerable following a disaster. A crisis is more than an economic disaster, it is also psychological, sociopolitical, and technical (83).

·         Lessons for Prevention and Practice

o   A unique opportunity arose following the hurricane for LA/SPCA. They had challenges planning beyond their organization boundaries because of external factors.

o   The organization needs to be able to develop and exercise crisis contingencies that are flexible and practiced.

o   Leadership should be placed throughout the entire organization rather than concentrating all of the knowledge at the top.

o   The organization needs to build a culture that can readily accept and adapt change.

Conclusion:
The article offers a unique perspective into what can be done by an organization to rebuild after a natural disaster. The Pearson and Claire Crisis Management Success-Failure Continuum offers an excellent measurement tool that can be used to evaluate how well an organization responds. There might be possible options to expand this measurement tool to evaluate how communication works within an organization to both internal and external audiences.

Internal Communication – Essential Component of Crisis Communication

By George David
Journal of Media Research (2011) 72-81

Purpose and Audience

David examines the importance of internal communication to an organization and its ability to support a crisis. “The lack of accurate, adequate, timely and fluent information during a crisis dramatically affects the trust people have in their own organization, thus endangering the commitment they should show in cooperating to crisis resolution” (p. 72).

The target audiences for this article are technical communication writers looking for information to better reach their audiences in internal communications; organizations that have or could have a crisis; and technical communications students looking to enhance their knowledge in internal communication.

Organization

The organization of David’s article begins with a background, or basic understanding, of the need for effective internal communications to properly manage a crisis and also help reduce any further damage that could result from a lack of effective communications.
He then explores the need via a theoretical approach. David suggests that the need for crisis communications is equally as important as media communication. His justification is “Internal publics will behave like external ones if they do not have the sentiment of belonging” (p. 74).

Lastly, David explores a checklist created for communication practitioners. He explains that internal communication “must be characterized by honesty and openness (Regeter, Larking, 1998, 198). To these two essential features, we would also add appropriateness (timely information) and completeness (provision of all of the information need by the members of an organization facing a crisis)” (p. 76).

Level of Detail
David goes into great detail explaining his communication practitioners’ checklist. The lists includes emphasis on communicating from the start of a crisis and sharing as much information as possible with the organization’s employees. The list also focuses a lot of attention on the delivery of the communication and ensuring that the communication sender is respectful of the situation’s severity.

While David’s information is useful to a communication practitioner, it lacks the slightest hint of research and the sources are infrequent within the article. Furthermore, the article fails to present any information on areas that could be examined in the future.

Citation and References
David cites a several sources that he used for both background and quoted material within the article. I think he failed to do an adequate job of combining several different disciplines and presenting a fair, balanced and ethical presentation. Nearly all of his references have “crisis communication” within the title of the work. With a lack research and a very limited scope, I was left wondering whether the information was true and whether it could be validated.

Being transparent or spinning the message? An experiment into the effects of varying message content on trust in government

Being transparent or spinning the message? An experiment into the effects of varying message content on trust in government
By Stephen Grimmelikhuijsen

Purpose and Audience

Grimmelikhuijsen examines policy messages on government websites to determine their ability to be transparent and provide information to the public. To do this, he explores whether balanced messages, messages containing dissenting information, or messages spun to in favor of the government organization reach the intended audience.

The target audiences for this article are technical communication writers looking for information to better reach their audiences in a government environment; public policy makers; government public affairs practitioners; and technical communications students looking to enhance their knowledge in government communications.

Organization

The organization of Grimmelikhuijsen’s article begins with an introduction and literature review into transparency and its basis for trust within an organization, especially a government organization. “Besides being of value itself, transparency is regarded to be a promising instrument to increase citizen trust in government” (35).

Grimmelikhuijsen adds that websites serve as an important communication tool is delivering transparency pro-actively, but cautions that spinning a message to present a more favorable message can become too easy on an organization’s website.

After Grimmelikhuijsen introduced the topic, he then begins a brief introduction on government transparency. Citing President Barack Obama, Grimmelikhuijsen explores Obama’s push for a transparency within government via Obama’s “Open Government Directive” (37).

The fundamental question Grimmelikhuijsen examines in his article is “What is the effect of varying spin of message content on citizen trust in a government organization?” To do this, Grimmelikhuijsen created an experiment where he created three separate groups: one group received a message with a two-sided approach; one group received a message with a slightly positive message; and the last group received a message with a highly positive message.

Level of Detail
Grimmelikhuijsen dedicates a lot of space to explaining what transparency is and he discusses the pros and cons of it. He defines transparency as “the availability of information be an organization or actor allowing external actors to monitor the internal workings or performance of that organization” (38).

Grimmelikhuijsen developed three hypotheses for this article:

·         H1: A higher degree of message balance is expected to negatively affect perceived competence.

·         H2: A higher degree of message balance is expected to positively affect perceived benevolence.

·         H3: A higher degree of message balance is expected to positively affect perceived honesty.

Grimmelikhuijsen tested the three hypotheses by doing a one-way multivariate analysis of covariance. In his findings, he said there were no differences regarding perceived benevolence and honesty. Thus, H2 and H3 were not substantiated. I am not familiar with this type of statistical analysis but after reviewing his graphs and his summary, I would be suspect of his evidence because I didn’t see him account for his interpretations of the evidence nor did he account for the possibility that the test subjects already had an opinion on the topic or agency.

The only outcome that this research provided was a minimal significance for a citizen to have a negative effect on policy transparency or perceived trustworthiness. Grimmelikhuijsen concluded that “Based on these results remain it remains questionable whether transparency will indeed lead to more trust in  government” (46).

Citation and References
Grimmelikhuijsen cites several sources that he used for both background and quoted material within the article. He does a good job of combining several different disciplines and presenting a fair, balanced and ethical presentation. While the outcome does not suggest that transparency within government leads to trust, it does prove useful in teaching technical writers to consider what is being said on a government website.

Evaluating the Credibility of Online Information

Evaluating the Credibility of Online Information: A Test of Source and Advertising Influence

By Jennifer D. Greer

Brief Annotation:

The article explores how people view the credibility or trustworthiness of an organization’s Internet information by exploring source credibility and advertising credibility.

“Credibility, along with liking, quality, and representativeness, is one of four criteria that influence attitudes toward print and online news” (13, Sundar, 1999). Another aspect that helps influence a person’s opinion of credibility is their characteristics (i.e. age, income, race, education).

The advertising credibility examines people’s perceptions of whether an ad is viewed as favorable or negative. While thestatistics and sources seem sound, I do question whether the information would hold true today in the wake of the dot com bust, ponzi schemes, Enron’s collapse, and even the current political turmoil.

“Overall, the evaluation of the story credibility likely was more closely tied to the source cues rather than the advertising cues because participants paid so little attention to the ads” (24).

“Of all the demographic factors investigated, only self-estimate of Internet use and college major emerged as significant predictors of story credibility scores” (25). This quote is intriguing and deserves additional research.

· Do avid Internet uses still view online sources more favorably than light users or has it changed since the article was published?

· Is there any correlation between academic majors and their opinions toward a certain organization?

Research Questions:

RQ1: Are other individual characteristics (demographics, Internet use, motivations for going online)
predictive of participants’ assessment of story credibility?

RQ2: Does source credibility affect the way participants view the credibility of advertising on a site? Does
advertising credibility affect the way participants view the credibility of the Web site?

Method:

The research methodology used was an experimental design with 220 students. The female ratio of students was 69.5 percent, which I think is rather disproportionate to a well balanced, neutral study.

Conclusion:

The overall conclusion from this study indicated that people examine the source of the information to
determine the content’s credibility. While the article doesn’t distinguish what websites are viewed with a higher value, this area does appear worth exploring to find out what characteristics determine trust and more importantly, how to rebuild trust once its lost.