Technical communication is the process of conveying information about an area of expertise to an intended audience. It is communicating complex information to those who need it to accomplish a defined task or goal. Crisis communication and its relationship with ethos are two important components of technical communication.
What is crisis communication?
Crisis communication is used to describe a crisis, a time of intense difficulty, trouble or danger, in which information or news about the crisis and the plans for the future are delivered to the public, primarily by an organization or an official with expertise that pertains to the crisis (Mitroff & Anagnos, 2001).
What defines a crisis?
In a classic study, Hermann (1963) identified three characteristics separating crises from other unpleasant occurrences:
- Surprise
- Threat
- Short Response Time
What is Ethos?
Ethos is the credibility or ethical appeal of the speaker. One’s ethos as a speaker is primarily established before speaking. A speaker is in the position to either know all the facts or not. Establishing credibility will come from the knowledge of the subject, comprehension of the seriousness of the threat, and providing steps to move forward.
Why are these two components important?
Crisis communication is important for crises are inevitable. “Crises are no longer an aberrant, rare, random, or peripheral feature of today’s society. They are built into the very fabric and fiber or modern societies” (Mitroff & Anagnos, 2001). It is crucial for organizations to be prepared for the unexpected in the most ways possible. An organization’s credibility (ethos) and trustworthiness are heavily evaluated during a crisis through press releases, statements and speeches.
How do you manage a crisis effectively?
The management of Crisis Communication has four steps (Coombs, 2007):
- Precaution
- Planning Prevention
- Crisis Coping
- Post-Crisis
Precaution and planning prevention are two responsibilities that lie solely with the organization to incorporate into a reaction plan for an unexpected crisis or within a “risk communication” procedure (Stratman, Boykin , Holmes, Laufer & Breen, 1995).
Crisis coping relates directly to an organization’s precaution and planning prevention. If steps one and two were not efficiently performed, then step three, crisis coping, will be a media and credibility disaster, like CEO Tony Hayward’s statement during the 2010 BP Oil Spill “There’s nobody who wants this over more than I do. I want my life back.”
Post-crisis is the organization’s state in which reputation is continually being repaired. It is a time where the organization must deliver to the public the promises that were introduced during the crisis for moving on, and incorporating “Attribution Theory” (Coombs, 2007) to rebuild the organization’s reputation.
Resources
- Coombs, T. W. (2007). Attribution theory as a guide for post-crisis communication research. Public Relations Review, 33(2), 135-139. – This journal focuses on what organizations should say and do after a crisis, focusing primarily on the final step in crisis management Post-Crisis in regards to rebuilding the organization’s reputation.
- Hermann, C. F. (1963). Some consequnces of crisis which limit the viability of organizations. Administrative Science Quarterly, 8, 61-82. – This article examines the variables within a crisis such as how an organization’s external environment can hinder the organization’s response to the actual crisis itself.
- Mitroff, I. I., & Anagnos, G. (2001). Managing crises before they happen: What every executive and manager needs to know about crisis managment.- This article breaks down the process of how to manage a crisis situation, focusing on the appropriate ways to handle a crisis when in a position of power and responsibility. It lists the four steps of how to manage a crisis effectively by focusing mainly on the first step in crisis management of Precaution.
- Stratman, J. F., Boykin , C., Holmes, M. C., Laufer, J., & Breen , M. (1995). Risk communication, metacommunication, and rhetorical stases in the aspen-epa superfund controversy . Journal of Business and Technical Communication,, 9(1), 5-41. –This article explores the relationship between theoretical definitions of risk communication, how an organizational role plays in defining health and environmental risks, and possible explanations for the future while looking at the Aspen-Epa Superfund Controversy.