Lecture 8 - Crisis Communications

Recently we talked about crisis communications in class and took part in some really great exercises about crisis communications.

Crisis communications refers to how a corporation or organization reacts, in terms of communications activities and public relations tactics, when an emergency or controversy takes place or may take place.

I think what really stuck out for me, from our lecture, was the fact that crisis communications is an integral and well planned out part of most every large corporation today.

I think this video from Thompson Reuters proves my point;

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RD4kIHY4Lw8

As a the woman in the video discusses, crisis communications have become important to every corporation and issues such as how positively manage image during a crisis have become paramount.

This really reflects on how important public relations activities have become to large corporations. Corporations now see managing and creating positive image despite setbacks such a controversies or crisis as, important as successfully selling their goods and services. For me this really reflects on how important our role as PR practitioners have become. We have an important role to play in the corporate sector and our field work can no longer be seen as 'fluff' or just 'spin'.