Communicating through Crisis: A Strategy for Organizational Survival

Abstract

Crisis communication, communication by an organization during an organizational crisis, has been overlooked as a tool for contributing to the long-term benefits of an organization experiencing crisis. Generally, crisis communication has been relegated to a defensive role, where the premise of crisis communication is the need to offset potential negative consequences of not communicating. This article suggests that crisis communication should be a part of the larger issues of communication policy and strategy that may lead to more effective and efficient influence of opinion development among members of publics important to organizations. The article builds a case for the need to consider crisis communication in a larger context, then proposes a model of Crisis Communication Content that may serve as a framework for research into the efficacy of communication during crisis episodes.