Essential Communication in a Community Crisis Situation Analytical

Dissemination of information during crisis situation should undergo specific approaches and
techniques that would allow to face the problems and address the contingency. The success of
crisis communication lies in timely informing various stakeholders involved into the problem that
would promote decision-making and create new perspectives for crisis management (Coombs &
Holladay, 2012).

With regard to the above-presented case, main groups and individuals engaged into the
problem solving should relate to organization that control water supply mechanisms in
the area, the government controlling public processes, the media that should warn the
citizens about potential threats, and emergency management office itself.

While disseminating information, communication should provide managers and above-

mentioned stakeholders with information about the seriousness of the problem to
enhance situational awareness and provide solutions (Coombs & Holladay, 2012).
However, to avoid panic, the managers should first emphasize the fact that they hold
the situation under strict control and, if the community members follow the instructions
they give, the crisis situation will soon be eliminated.

Including community members as important groups is highly crucial for avoiding

difficulties. In particular, the emergency managers should first address the sector for
preventing discontent and disorganized behavior that could even worsen the crisis
situation. Therefore, proactive planning of crisis management should start with
delivering decent messages to appropriate group, at an appropriate time, and place,
and by appropriate media channels.

According to Lerbinger (2012), managers during crisis situation should communicate

with the potential victims and families to “…reduce media interest and coverage while
also building the trust of employees, the community, public, and regulatory officials” (p.
51). In this respect, the managers should be able to face risk and recognize all possible
consequences of disseminating inappropriate information.

Potential Advantages and Challenges Associated with

Communicating within the Organization and with the
Public and Private Sectors
Crisis communication within the organization is incredible important because it affects
their reputation. Crises, therefore, can distort the expectations with which stakeholders
are concerned. Organization, therefore, should establish a strict policy according to
which it should disseminate information for the sake of preserving good reputation.

Use of various communication media can significantly advance the respectable image
of organization (Coombs & Holladay, 2012). Moreover, it can be the most efficient way
of promoting information and improving the communication channels within the
organization via such media means as the Internet and telephoning.

The main purpose of environmental crisis communication is to prevent the

consequences of the disaster, as well as react immediately to the problem. What is
more important is that the organization should choose the right channels of information
dissemination to prevent panic in public and private sectors.

In this respect, the news releases and online videos are not appropriate for revealing in
public because it does not always subject to censorship (Coombs & Holladay, 2012). In
this respect, the contingency plan should ensure proper classification of the obtained
information, which is the major challenge of crisis communication within the organization
and with the public and private sectors.

According to Coombs and Holladay (2012), “…the goal of management and

communication is to prevent harm to others and to be accountable – and therefore
legitimate participants in a community” (p. 6). Such measures constitute a proactive
challenge to understand, know, and identify the conditions leading to crisis.

Despite the potential threats to communication, the technological progress significantly

contributes to improving the crisis situation and advancing contingency plan measures
(Sellnow et al., 2010). The effectiveness of distributing information is ensured when the
obtained data is accurate and incorporated for appropriate groups of population.

Therefore, awareness of techniques of how to frame and arrange events is one of the
most advantageous strategies that an organization can employ while informing all the
stakeholders.
Differences on Communication Processes: Lessons
Learnt and Further Recommendations for Improving
Health Care Communication Strategies
In the course of development of communication media, the organization also introduced
changes to strategies of delivering messages. Such an approach incorporates the
efforts of public relations department, financial officers, and management team that
focuses on efficient decision making process within the contingency plan.

The means of delivering information should also be taken into consideration because
they influence the overall outcomes of the contingency. In this respect, use of news
releases is not quite appropriate in terms of efficient time management (Coombs and
Holladay, 2012).

According Coombs and Holladay, organizational messages do not appear in time

because of failure to present information to the news media center in a timely manner.
What is more problematic is that news media often ignores organization’s response
efforts. Instead, they focus more on the scales of the disaster to attract more potential
stakeholders who are concerned with the crisis situation. As a result, “…organizations
are failing to have their side of the story represented in the new media” (Coombs and
Holladay, 2012, p. 34).

In contrast to news releases, as it has been used in case of the Three Mile Island
nuclear in 1979, the crisis communication after Hurricane Katrina destroyed the New
Orleans area relied more on the Internet to disseminate information. The letter,
however, is much more effective in sharing facts about the event because it implies
reaction of the public that can leave commentaries concerning the disaster (Coombs
and Holladay, 2012).

Both the victims and the witnesses of the natural disaster had a possibility to express
their attitude to the contingency, as well as suggest help. Unlike news releases, the
Internet, particularly blogging provide wider opportunities for interaction and information
sharing in a two-way direction.

Appropriate Technologies Affecting and Enhancing

Communication
Although there few researches exploring the use of technologies during the crisis
situations, there are studies proving that many organizations continue relying on
traditional approaches of distributing information, including news releases (Coombs and
Holladay, 2012).

The role of websites and blogging should not be underestimated as well because these
two sources of reporting have become the most important for organizations. However,
communication channels of information exchange should not be confined to these
Internet methods, particularly when organizations have to face crises. In particular, such
kinds of media as videos, web-posted documents, audio, and external sources can be
used to widen the access of communication to all necessary information about the
contingency.

In some cases, the emergence of a specific disaster or environmental problem can

hasten the creation of new communication technologies that would improve information
exchange. This is of particular concern to blogging that creates various channels for
communication and impact. In other words, members of a specific community can blog
addressing the organization, each other, and the media itself. In its turn, the
organization can communicate similarly with the public and private sectors.

Technology Use in the Scenario Described

Because the crisis situation implies possible threats to human health, it is difficult to
define the scale of environmental contaminations, a feedback system should be
arranged to accept constantly updated loads of information about possible infections
among the population.

In this fashion, the crisis communication becomes much more useful and productive
because the emergence management organizations can predict immediately all
possible routes of deployment of a life-threatening biological agent (Coombs and
Holladay, 2012). Use of news releases is also important, but the manner of representing
information should be taken under control.

In particular, the emergence managers should be more concerned with delivering

information about precautious measures that should be taken to avoid all possible
threats (White, 2011). For instance, they should let people know about medications that
can prevent the possible infection, as well as describe in detail what consequences this
substance can have for human organism.

In fact, advances in technology can introduce a great number of benefits to social media
because it facilitates information transmittance via communication channels. In order to
integrate technology successfully, the organization should work in cooperation with
other target groups and concerned parties for achieving the goals in a timely manner
(White, 2011).

Cooperation of groups can be promoted greatly through creation of virtual communities.

With regard to the above presented benefits of using advanced technology, it should be
stressed that using virtual space is advantageous because it allows to create a powerful
communication network that would ensure information-driven mechanisms.

Management Opportunities during the Crisis

Management
Efficient emergency management depends largely on successful cooperation with
journalists and reporters. Apart from internal factors influencing crisis communication,
considering external factors is important as well.

In this respect, a stronger connection between knowledge management and emergence

management addressing the way individuals obtain and exchange knowledge within
organization and outside it (White, 2012). Scientific management of critical situations
places an emphasis on control and prediction. While evaluating the scenario, scientific
knowledge is indispensible to define the most proactive an efficient measures to be
taken to avert serious consequences.

While following the patterns of technology development and integration provides a solid
ground for introducing new media initiatives for handling emergence situations. As
people are more educated and informed, the virtual space has become beneficial for
introducing feedback and reaction to crisis situations. Emergence managers should be
more aware of new possibilities and approach by means of which they can influence
both private and public records during water contamination.

According to Lerbinger (2012), “…public relations engage in the larger task of managing
the communications and relationships with all stakeholder groups and with the media,
both mass media and social media” (p. 20). Therefore, the main goal of emergency
officers is to maintain symmetric relationships between emergency management
organization and community suffering from the natural disaster.

The concept of corporate social responsibility is another prism through which crisis
communication and management should be considered. In particular, social corporate
managers should be concerned with educational and technological support of
information sharing during contamination to be able to take control of the situation.

Emergent managers, therefore, should consider all the nuances of cooperating with
victims of environmental contamination, as well as keep in touch with the laboratories
examining the capacities of the biological agent contaminating water.