Local government and crisis communication : an exploratory study

Abstract

Every organisation is susceptible to harmful occurrences that could damage it. An unexpected fire could destroy a warehouse and cost lives of employees in the process. Product failure or product sabotage could cause customer panic and a loss of sales and revenue or even loss of customer lives. Rumours of high level fraud could loose the organisation the support and trust of fundamental investors. A harmful occurrence becomes a "public relations crisis" or simply "crisis" when it is of such a nature and extent that it receives public scrutiny and consequently negatively affects the organisation's reputation or relationships with its publics. A "crisis" is therefore distinct from the actual harmful event ("incident") that occurs. Damaging scrutiny from the publics usually occurs if the organisation has played a role in the cause of the incident and/or did not manage the incident properly. Negative public attention ("crisis") will have a negative impact on the organisational system if not handled correctly. In this dissertation it is argued that an incident does not necessarily need to become a crisis, i.e. it need not damage the system's reputation or relationships. An organisation can apply strategic crisis management to either prevent or plan for an anticipated harmful occurrence. Crisis management has three components, these being management, operational and communication components. The latter is a public relations function generally referred to as "crisis communication", the focus of this study. The study explores the current use of crisis communication by the Potchefstroom City Council, as a type of organisation, using the systems theory as the general theoretical foundation. It takes the specific environmental considerations for local government, in particular, the Potchefstroom City Council into consideration. A number of recommendations are made for the establishment of a crisis communication strategy by the council. They include: Crisis communication training for key communication employees. Support for the crisis communication function by top management. More strategic interaction with key publics as a component of crisis communication. Building and managing relationships with key media. Identifying existing effective communication channels and establishing new ones where necessary. Using ward councillors as a crisis communication tool. The complete list of recommendations is discussed in section 6.4