Major Research Project – Crisis Communication Analysis

Crisis communication is the most important aspect of external and internal organization communication. This type of communication ranges from image restoration campaigns to employee turnover. In the articles that I have analyzed, I discovered many examples of crisis communications and its importance. I will discuss the Bridgestone-Firestone Corporation's image restoration campaign and explain Benoit's theory of image restoration. Also, I will discuss how crisis communications fits into public relations models. Two examples for discussion will be how supervisors should convey bad-news to their employees, and group communication within employee turnover. My last example for this discussion will be Bill Clinton's image repair discourse.

Social Media is affecting our society in a negative way. From being the number one cause of divorce, ruining people’s careers, and being a haven for teen suicides, many misfortunes arise due to social media. People may not notice its damaging side effects yet it is slowly but surely proving detrimental to all involved in the game. By taking a step back and maintaining self-control, any human being immersed in the frenzy of social media can enjoy its perks without getting caught up in the whirlwind of unfortunate events.

“Social media makes the community part of the actual crisis communication response. For example…Twitter was used to quickly share initial information and updates during the 2007 and 2008 California wildfires, 2008 Mumbai massacre, 2009 crash of US Airways Flight 1549, 2010 Haiti earthquake, and 2011 Tunisian uprising.” This information, again in Veil’s 2011 article, reinforces the idea of how social media communication is highly beneficial and furthers an individual’s ability to remain informed on current events.

Appropriate technology, such as social media, affecting communication during the crisis situation and how these technologies may be used to enhance communication

Social media has become one of the main methods for public shaming. Many activists have used it as a way of getting attention with the media, but others have used it as a form of entertainment to watch people’s lives get burned to the ground. Though public shaming can be very entertaining it can also be hurtful and can even cause people to lose their jobs along with their self respect. The article How One Stupid Tweet Blew Up Justine Sacco’s Life, written by Jon Ronson, describes how the punishment for using social media inappropriately can be detrimental to your future

Zaremba (2010) points out that “crisis is any unanticipated event, incident, situation, or development that has the potential to damage or destroy your organization’s reputation”. (P.234) This definition indicates two attributes of crisis: unexpectedness and destructiveness, so effective communication is crucial to manage a crisis. The Nuance Group, a successful management consulting company, with a reputation of experienced and highly educated consultants, was facing the crisis brought by its great “reputation”. As a consultancy, it’s their profession to market themselves. A glossy brochure with specific introduction of consultants’ information, which is the highlight of the company’s reputation, is a fabulous method to market

Taco Bell used social media to help with a crisis issue. In 2011, an upset customer filed a lawsuit against Taco Bell stating that the company’s beef did not contain one hundred percent beef. According to the customer, it was more of a filler rather than beef. (Crandall, Parnell, Spillan, 2013). When the lawsuit got out, it caused a big crisis on social media. Taco Bell had met with their crisis management team to discuss how they should respond. It was suggested to use social media to address the crisis, which involved their crisis communications strategy, they called it “Tacogate” (Crandall, Parnell, Spillan, 2013). Taco Bell used other media outlets such as the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, and USA Today to name a few (Crandall,

This case study reflects on the outcome of how social media was used effectively. Taco Bell was accused of using a"filler" instead of actual beef in their tacos. The lawsuit came about after an individual accused Taco Bell of not using actual beef in thier tacos. Once the customer claimed that Taco Bell was not using actual beef in their tacos, the crisis immediately grew into a social media frenzy. Taco Bell responded with effective communication and relayed the truth of their product through social media. The company began a compaign that was entitled "Thank you for suing us". This compaign title that the preappointed crisis management team displayed drawed the intention of most headlines around the United States. The company stated in their

In a new form of protection and communication, social media is the main thing that everything is using in today’s times. Marketing employees have positions as titled as social media directors. Companies have people watching and monitoring everything that happens with their social media reputation all hours of the day everyday. Young people are seeing the power of social media everyday with teachers demonstrating how fast a picture can be shared across the world. Social media is relatively new and could possibly open many gates for communication. This depends heavily on who is publishing information and news on social media. If news spreads fast on social media, then the use of it can be used for emergencies. If many people are

What is a crisis management? It is an unexpected crisis that happens on the company that will affect the trust and loyalty of the stakeholder. It can be extremely costly because it will affect the company reputation and brand. For example like financial failure from poor business management, workplace violence, fires, cybercrime, computer viruses, product tampering or union strikes and other external issue like damaged economy that causes from London bombings, terrorists attacks on 11 September and others. The SHRM 2005 report indicates that only 56% organizations created or revised their disaster preparedness plans but 45% did not after the terrorist attacked on

In today’s internet savvy world, ‘Shaming’ has become an aspect of core-competency. And this aspect holds the power to destroy lives and confidences. This issue has become so large in the past few years that an entire book (“So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed”) has been written focusing on this very topic. But who is responsible for this chaos? Is it the person engaging in bad behavior or the person pulling the curtain off of the act? The answer depends on whom you ask. Social media when used properly has proved to be a powerful tool against the powerful organizations and influential people. Giving voice to pain of millions.

The company eBay Inc. is an American multinational Internet consumer-to-consumer corporation. Founded in 1995 by Pierre Omidyar in San Jose, California, it is now a multi-billion dollar business with operations localized in over thirty countries including China and India. It’s main enterprise is eBay.com, an online auction and shopping website that allows people and businesses to buy and sell a broad variety of goods and services internationally. Millions of collectibles, décor, appliances, computers, furnishings, equipment, domain names, vehicles, services, intangibles and other miscellaneous items are listed, bought, or sold daily on eBay. Anything can be auctioned on the site as long as it is not illegal and does not violate the eBay’s Prohibited and Restricted Items policy.

The response to any emergency is considered to be very critical and therefore should be as efficient as possible. In the healthcare sector, responses to situations are counted by the seconds. From natural disasters to epidemics, the only chance left to respond to any of this occurrence could only be counted in seconds. That means life is either saved or lost in a matter of seconds. Putting in place certain responses to these unexpected occurrences, such as crises management communication plan, help save lives and arrest crises from aggravating. Failure to have crises management communication plan is considered by many commentators to be a crisis in itself. Accepted medical care is highly dependent on effective communication between healthcare providers and the patients; among healthcare providers and the outside world. The characteristics of crises make it necessary for prior planning and effective communication among stakeholders in the health sector (Klaene and Sanders, 2006; Ronen, 2006).

Here is the final version of the crisis management strategy report which was commissioned by yourself on Monday 5 May 2014.

Social media provide benefit and good effort to PR practitioner, journalist and organization in many circumstances, the researcher want to investigate the negative outcome from the social media, and how the social media impact the organization to damage rather than build a relationship with their publics.