Michael J. Palenchar

A Work-In-Process Literature Review: Incorporating Social Media in Risk and Crisis Communication

This work-in-process literature review gives an overview of recent insight in the incorporation of social media in risk and crisis communication. By marrying literature and examples of social media use with best practices in risk and crisis communication, this study demonstrates how communicators can embrace social media tools to better manage a risk or crisis. Best practices in risk and crisis communication are summarized, examples of social media tools used to manage risks and crises are expounded, and recommendations for practitioners are provided to incorporate social media tools in risk and crisis communication.

Community Relations and Risk Communication: A Longitudinal Study of the Impact of Emergency Response Messages

This study replicates and extends Heath and Abels (1996) quasi-longitudinal analysis of the long-term impact of risk communication and emergency response measures. This study confirms and disconfirms some of the 1996 Heath and Abel conclusions. We found that because concern remains high that risk events are likely to occur and harm community safety, citizens are willing to become knowledgeable of emergency response measures. Such knowledge gives citizens a greater sense of control, which may translate into trust for industry and city emergency response experts. Support for the industry is increased by effective improvements in its operations. Long-term, community-relations programs may empower citizens with knowledge of what to do in the event an emergency occurs.

Terrorism and industrial chemical production: A new era of risk communication

The increased threat of and heightened concern for terrorist attacks since September 11, 2001 has reinvigorated the debate about industrial production security efforts, especially in the chemical manufacturing and refining industry. Through a telephone survey (n=400), researchers examined public perceptions of industry preparedness in the event of terrorism by featuring several risk communication variables. Results suggest that near-neighbor community residents who are more aware of recent industry terrorism security efforts demonstrate an increased sense of risk of living in an “at-risk” community. Residents who are aware of industrys efforts related to safety and terrorism express more trust for local industry and government officials, are more cognitively involved, and are more supportive of the local chemical industry.

Disclosing Special Interests: Constitutional Restrictions on Front Groups

Front groups are controversial public relations techniques used by organizations to influence public opinion and public policy on behalf of undisclosed special interests. This article examines historical and contemporary uses of such third-party efforts and considers constitutionally permissible restrictions on front group practices. We address the specific issue of whether governments may compel organizations to reveal their participation in grassroots lobbying initiatives without violating the First Amendment. We then consider the implications of front groups for public relations ethics and the potential for heightened legal regulation spawned by unethical public relations practices perceived to interfere with the efficient functioning of government.

Nature, Crisis, Risk, Science, and Society: What is Our Ethical Responsibility?

In his keynote address, Robert Cox raised key questions, many of which force us to consider the larger question of the role of academics in society. The authors respond by suggesting that environmental communication, like other communication studies, is inherently normative and that environmental communication scholarship is closely aligned to risk as a centerpiece to crisis analysis. The authors discuss the productive connections among science, communication and sound public policy that make society more fully functional, including the formation of effective public policy through science that is normative while seeking objectivity, evaluating and symbolizing motives in discourse, acknowledging uncertainty and acceptable uncertainty, and that material and symbolic dimensions of the environment are interdependent. Thus, such studies focus on the ethics of environment and must balance sound science and cultural considerations.

Concluding Thoughts and Challenges

This special issue of Management Communication Quarterly mines the rhetorical heritage to explore the challenges facing those who engage in and critique external organizational rhetoric, setting its sights on helping organizations make society a better place to live. Toward this end, rhetoric focuses on strategic communication influences that at their best result from or foster collaborative decisions and cocreated meaning that align stakeholder interests. This special issue demonstrates the eclectic and complex theories, applied contexts, and ongoing arguments needed to weave the fabric of external organizational communication. Over the years, Robert Heath and others have been advocates for drawing judiciously on the rhetorical heritage as guiding foundation for issues management and public relations activities. Rather than merely acknowledge the pragmatic or utilitarian role of discourse, this analysis also aspires to understand and champion its application to socially relevant ends. In that quest, several themes stand out: (a) In theory and practice external organizational rhetoric weighs self-interest against others’ enlightened interests and choices; (b) organizations as modern rhetors engage in discourse that is context relevant and judged by the quality of engagement and the ends achieved thereby; and (c) in theory and practice external organizational rhetoric weighs relationship between language that is never neutral and the power advanced for narrow or shared interests.

Framing the flight MH370 mystery: A content analysis of Malaysian, Chinese, and U.S. media:

This study analyzes frames related to the flight MH370 disappearance in Malaysian (N = 93), Chinese (N = 155), and U.S. (N = 150) newspapers. The results provide insight about media orientations in an international crisis, particularly regarding national interests and international citizenship. Attribution of responsibility is the dominant frame; secondary frames vary among conflict and human-interest frames, demonstrating that attribution of responsibility is the most important frame even with unknown controllability and ambiguous intentionality. Results also demonstrate significant differences in national interest frames and in the roles in the societal evaluation of risk. This study contextualizes the results in media systems, diplomatic relations, and cultures.