ROLES
OF COMMUNICATION IN CRISIS MANAGEMENT
Within the contemporary
era, human and social entities are more and more confronted with difficulties
when trying to maintain control over their own lives. Changes occur at such a
rapid pace, with so profound consequences, that, in order to determine an advantageous
future for the self, the individual, or the entire society has to estimate the
current situation and make decisions almost instantly. An analysis of the
crises evolution implies the analysis of the risks that led to the crisis
appearance, which means that their management has to be accomplished within an
integrated environment. As far as organizations are concerned, preventing and
managing risks may only be done in case the crisis management is based on a
coherent communication strategy in crisis situations. An efficient management
of crises is that of an interactive type, and the communication policy
belonging to it presupposes the existence of an integrated structure of public
relations.
CRISIS,
When belonging to the social, the term ‘crisis’ is one of the most frequently
used words, it being tightly connected with situations of incertitude and/or
discontinuity. The origin of the word traces back to the Greek ‘crisis’, based
on the verb used in Old Greek, ‘krinein’, meaning, among others, ‘to judge,
separate, discriminate’ but also ‘to decide’. The fact that, etymologically, the
term crisis refers to decision is
interpreted, in its current use in the given context, as the role of decision
in preventing indecision and incapacity of re- evaluation and re-interpretation
of problems and which would jeopardize cohesion and functioning of a system or
of an organization. Yet, the mere decision does not imply the crisis
management; the optimal management of crises constitutes an endeavor for the
decision making factors of a system/ organization and includes complex issues
and abilities such as the capacity of foreseeing crises, the anticipation of
scenarios for the foreseen situation, the prompt answer in case of their
appearance but also the following of strictly designed steps in solving the
crisis.
The term crisis can convert its meaning according to the field in which
it is used, each of the areas of use conferring different significations. Thus,
from the perspective of psychology, the crisis refers to the assembly of
tensional phenomena that lead to a sudden and significant change; from the
psychopathological point of view the crisis refers to situations of acute
functional perturbation, due to the above mentioned significant psychological
change; from the sociological perspective it reaches the issue of difficulties
accumulation, of conflicting tensions release, presupposing the appearance of
some pressure toward the change, while from the organizational approach, the
crisis describes an unexpected situation, which brings to discussion the
organization’s responsibility toward its public and which threatens the
organization’s capacity of continuing its normal activity.
Conclusively: All these perspectives regarding crisis
attempt to include the events that affect various entities (from people to
organizations), while the unanimously accepted term refers to their abnormality
status. From this perspective, correlated with the etymological meaning, the
crisis may be understood as a factor able of inducing incapacity of decision,
meanwhile, the functioning of the organization being either questioned or
compromised.
By: ULAYA SIJALI A. (BAPRM 42681)
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