Crisis Management: What Role Does the Media Play?

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Crisis Management: What role does the Media play? Brandon Pettway Introduction and Rationale: Public relations practitioners know the importance of undesrstanding how to deal with crises, and the impact those crises can have on how publics view major corporations. It is important for public relation practitioners to know what effect certain publics can have on how their corporations are viewed, and what type of effects there are. One of the most important publics is the media, which has an overwhelming ability to sway a corporation’s reputation in the eyes of its publics. Another important component in crisis communication is the ability to have effective communication among the leadership on that organization, to show its publics that they are capable of handling such problems if they are to arise. We will conduct research to see whether or not a corporation’s use of media attributes to the public’s confidence in those organizations, and we will also see how open communication among a corporation’s leadership leads to more effective crisis communication. We have chosen these two subjects as the literature pertaining to crisis communication shows how publics use attribution theory as a way to attribute happenings to both internal and external groups. Review of Literature: The Attribution Theory has been used significantly when looking at how corporations deal with crises when they arise. Attribution theory is utilized to explain how the public forms opinions regarding what they attribute to accidents that happen when corporations are involved (Jeong, 3). In the past, the literature regarding the issues of crisis management and attribution theory have examined how consumers use either internal or external attributes to explain crises that happen surrounding corporations. “Specifically, this research

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