Crisis Communication Literature Review

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW In order to develop understanding to crisis communication, it is necessary to have a deep understanding of the field itself. Literature reviews on previous crisis communication cases, organizational response strategy and stakeholders’ reactions such as; What Domino 's Did Right and Wrong in Squelching Hubbub over YouTube Video by E.B. York (2009), The Analysis of Pesticide Residues in Soft Drinks by Gauri Bhatia (2003), and Crisis Response: Inside Stories on Managing Image under Siege by Jack Gottschalk (1993), have been executed to act as guidance to assist for further research of the problems. The aim was to get a clear picture of the foundations of crisis communication, and later relate it to organizational response

The video shown the two employees engaging in a number of health law violations, particularly, blowing mucous on sandwich, putting cheese on the nose, and putting a sponge that is meant to wash dishes between the buttocks. Within limited time, the video popularized and gained viral publicity with more than half a million views and the major news media covering the event. In this case, Domino’s Pizza utilize three major strategy in crisis communication strategies which is, first; Reducing offensiveness - Domino’s Pizza tried to take down all the food tampering videos whilst the original videos were taken down by YouTube. Yet, some videos are still available on other websites. Next, Mortification - Domino’s brought up a Twitter account (@dpzinfo) to answer questions and also posted a YouTube apology from the Domino’s Pizza USA President, Patrick Doyle. He mentioned

Multiple disciplines have analysed this phenomenon from different perspectives, producing a considerable amount of knowledge.

2.4 COMMUNICATION THEORY 2.4.1 Situational Crisis Communication Theory Situational Crisis Communication Theory theorised by W. Timothy Coombs. It is a theory in the field of crisis communication. It suggests that crisis managers should match strategic crisis reactions to the level of crisis accountability and reputational threat modelled by a crisis. Evaluating the crisis type, crisis history and prior relationship reputation will help crisis managers predict the level of reputational threat of an organization and how that organization’s publics will perceive the crisis and attribute crisis responsibility. Thus SCCT can be applied in an organization 's crisis