Responding to Crisis: A Rhetorical Approach to Crisis Communication

by Millar,Dan Pyle

• ISBN13: 9780805840605
• ISBN10: 0805840605
• eBook ISBN(s): 9781135640231
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2003-10-01
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

In recent years, researchers and practitioners have explored the nature, theory, and best practices that are required for effective and ethical crisis preparation and response. The consequences of being unprepared to respond quickly, appropriately, and ethically to a crisis are dramatic and well documented. For this reason, crisis consulting and the development of crisis response plans and protocols have become more than a cottage industry. Taking a rhetorical view of crisis events and utterances, this book is devoted to adding new insights to the discussion, and to describing a rhetorical approach to crisis communication. To help set the tone for that description, the opening chapter reviews a rhetorical perspective on organizational crisis. As such it raises questions and provokes issues more than it addresses and answers them definitively. The other chapters can be viewed as a series of experts participating in a panel discussion. The challenge to each of the authors is to add depth and breadth of understanding to the analysis of the rhetorical implications of a crisis, as well as to the strategies that can be used ethically and responsibly. Central to this analysis is the theoretic perspective that crisis response requires rhetorically tailored statements that satisfactorily address the narratives surrounding the crisis which are used by interested parties to define and judge it. This volume will be of value to scholars and students interested in crisis communication, and is certain to influence future work and research on responding to crises.

Table of Contents

1. A Rhetorical Approach to Crisis Communication: Management, Communication Processes, and Strategic Responses	1	(18)
Robert L. Heath and Dan P. Millar
2. Exposing the Errors: An Examination of the Nature of Organizational Crises	19	(14)
Dan P. Millar
PART I: CRISIS PREPARATION: PLANNING FOR THE INEVITABLE	33	(116)
Robert L. Heath
3. Crisis Management: Toward a Multidimensional Model of Public Relations	37	(14)
Don W. Stacks
4. Constructing Response During Uncertainty: Organizing for Crisis	51	(12)
Teresa L. Holder
5. Reframing the Organizational Exigency: Taking a New Approach in Crisis Research	63	(12)
Curt Bechler
6. Burkian Counternature and the Vigilant Response: An Anticipatory Model of Crisis Management and Technology	75	(20)
Bolanle A. Olaniran and David E. Williams
7. Reasoned Action in Crisis Communication: An Attribution Theory-Based Approach to Crisis Management	95	(22)
W. Timothy Coombs and Sherry J. Holladay
8. A Model for Crisis Management	117	(22)
Jennifer L. Borda and Susan Mackey-Kallis
9. Patterns of Conflict Preceding a Crisis: A Case Study Analysis	139	(14)
Martha Dunagin Saunders
PART II: CRISIS RESPONSE: THE TIME TO SPEAK	149	(98)
Robert L. Heath
10. Metaphors of Crisis	153	(14)
Frank E. Millar and Debra Baker Beck
11. Telling a Story: A Narrative Approach to Communication During Crisis	167	(22)
Robert L. Heath
12. Informed Organizational Improvisation: A Metaphor and Method for Understanding, Anticipating, and Performatively Constructing the Organization s Precrisis Environment	189	(12)
Miriam R. Finch and Linda S. Welker
13. A Symbolic Approach to Crisis Management: Sears Defense of Its Auto Repair Policies	201	(12)
Keith Michael Hearit and Jeffrey L. Courtright
14. Telling the Story of Organizational Change	213	(20)
Shirley Willlihnganz, Joy L. Hart, and Greg B. Leichty
15. Managing Organizational Images: Crisis Response and Legitimacy Restoration	233	(18)
Joseph Eric Massey
PART III: AFTER THE DANCE IS OVER: POSTCRISIS RESPONSE	247	(100)
Robert L. Heath
16. Ambiguity as an Inherent Factor in Organizational Crisis Communication	251	(12)
Timothy L. Sellnow and Robert R. Ulmer
17. Image Restoration Discourse and Crisis Communication	263	(1)
William L. Benoit
18. Exigencies, Explanations, and Executions: Toward a Dynamic Theory of the Crisis Communication	263	(36)
Genre Susan Schultz Huxman
19. Downsizing or Reduction-in-Force: A Crisis Residual	299	(12)
Kathie Leeper
20. Excellent Crisis Communication: Beyond Crisis Plans	311	(16)
Francis J. Marra
21. Issue Management During Sudden Executive Departures: Sensemaking, Enactment and Communication	327	(20)
Kathryn T. Theus
References	347	(22)
Author Index	369	(8)
Subject Index	377