Public Relations And Crisis Literature Review

Public Relations and Crisis

Needless to say, there is no universal definition for crisis. Neither does a standard definition of crisis exist in literature. As Coombs, (2012) stated there is no one accepted definition by all scholars. A number of scholars from different disciplines (e.g., Burnett, 1998; Chung, 2011;

Coombs, 2007; Coombs, 2012; Coombs and Holladay, 2009; Guth, 1995; Marra, 1998; Kim & Sung, 2014) have discussed and defined crises at great length. Crisis, in the most basic form, can be defined as a “situation characterized by surprise, high threat to important values, and a short decision time” (Guth, 1995, p. 125). One of the most important definitions is the one put forth by Coombs (2012) a “Perception of an unpredictable

Fink (1986) summarized crisis stages into four phases. He suggested that the beginning of a new stage does not mean the end of an earlier one. He integrated the four stages of crisis as (a) the warning stage, (b) the actual crisis stage, (c) the clean –up stage, (d) the crisis resolution stage. Undoubtedly, public relations can play an effective and supportive role in each stage. Coombs (2012) claimed that each organization must have a department of public relations be aware of any internal or external crisis any time. Hence, the role of public relations is required inside organizations, as well as outside in order to face any crisis and analyze the reasons of the crisis to determine the required actions (Musallam, 2004). Over the last two decades, crisis management is considered one of the most significant areas in which public relations professionals accurately earn their keep.

This is intensified during a crisis time. In addition, the communication response of an organization in crisis is very important. Therefore, the role of public relations practitioners is very crucial during crisis time. Recently, Hu and Pang (2016) conducted a study about public relations practitioners’ perceptions on the use of crisis response strategies in China. They tried to examine response strategies to a crisis among Chinese PR practitioners, and the main sociocontextual factors that contribute to the employment of these strategies. They concluded that most PR practitioners confirmed that “barnacle” strategy, “third party endorsement” and “setting up new topics” are based on Chinese characteristics. Thus, it is important to consider the Chinese social context before applying any theoretical framework based on Western context. In the state of Kuwait, Musallam (2004) conducted a