In the last 20 years, crisis communications has emerged as a growing subset of PR. Large-scale public crises such as Hurricane Katrina, the Deepwater Horizon oil spill and a rash of campus shootings have captured the imagination of the general public, bringing visceral images of such events into our living rooms.
Extensive media coverage does, however, provide the PR practitioner with an opportunity to exert control over the situation by appealing to the needs of audiences who may be fearful, uncertain or distressed by the impact of the crisis in question. This article details a recently developed measurement technique, the Event Hazard/Outrage Scale, that can be used by PR practitioners to anticipate the needs of the public during crises, and respond accordingly.
EVALUATE RISKS
Under these circumstances, distributing information about the crisis in a clear and timely manner is essential. As crisis managers continue to place greater emphasis on contingency planning and pre-crisis preparation, a good start is to evaluate potential risks that an organization may have to deal with in the future.
For example, if a new factory is set to open in a particular community, it would be wise to evaluate all potential crises that could stem from its presence (labor disputes, infrastructure failures, corporate malfeasance, etc.).
After identifying potential risks, demographic and psychographic data can be collected from those potentially affected, in order to develop a crisis plan that considers the needs of those affected. As Baruch Fischoff notes in his article “Risk Perception and Communication Unplugged: Twenty Years of Progress” in Risk Analysis, existing partnerships and understanding of audience reaction can help communication practitioners develop, coordinate and target risk messages.
RISK FORMULA
Peter Sandman and his colleagues in their article “Communications to Reduce Risk Underestimation and Overestimation” in Risk Decision and Policy have offered a widely cited conceptual model for dealing with crises, one that echoes Fischoff’s observations on crisis communication. This model suggests that PR practitioners should design messages during crises that encourage audiences to both acquire knowledge and to respond appropriately to the risks involved. Sandman and colleagues refer to this formula as Risk = Hazard + Outrage.
Those affected need to understand the nature of risks, if they do not already. If those affected are aware of the risks associated with a crisis, then some degree of negative affect must be induced by the message—enough to motivate people to action, but not so much as to produce negative responses.
4 CATEGORIES OF RISK
From this conceptual model, four categories of crisis or risk can be identified:
1. High hazard/low outrage risk. A risk may be potentially harmful but not induce much fear in those at risk.
2. Low hazard/high outrage. Some risks cause great distress to those affected, while the actual risk of harm is quite low.
3. High hazard/high outrage. Other risks may be high in potential harm and produce worry among those in its path.
4. Low hazard/low outrage risks. Finally, some risks pose little threat and fail to upset many.
Based on this conceptual model, crisis communication practitioners may wish to identify potential risks associated with their organizations, and place them within this framework.
CRISIS MESSAGES/HAZARD LEVELS
In the mid-2000s, scholars began to entertain the idea of developing survey instrumentation that could measure the levels of hazard and outrage associated with particular risks, and place them along a continuum that could be used to inform crisis messages design.
In the article “Hazard and Outrage: Developing a Psychometric Instrument in the Aftermath of Katrina,” in Journal of Applied Communication Research, we made an initial attempt at measuring these factors; in a survey of over 900 Hurricane Katrina evacuees we were able to produce a 13-item scale that was a valid and reliable measure of hazard and outrage.
The items were highly specific to the crisis in question, and were based on recall, but the study was taken as an indication that these factors could be measured. With that in mind, we set out to develop an instrument that could measure hazard and outrage, could be implemented before the eventuality of a crisis and could be adapted to many potential risks with simple wording changes.
We began by generating a list of 50 items tapping at these constructs, and through three replications pared them down to the 16 strongest items (see the sidebar). Individuals are asked to respond to a series of statements along a seven-point Likert scale ranging from “Strongly Agree” to “Strongly Disagree,” with a neutral point at 4. The mean score of the items within a given factor were used to indicate relative level or outrage, and identify threats as high or low on each factor relative to the midpoint of 4.
The measures were tested in both experimental and field settings, and have been since replicated in other studies. With a few minor wording changes, the items are general enough to be adapted to any potential crisis.
RECOMMENDATIONS
When developing a crisis response plan, we recommend that PR practitioners generate a list of potential crises that could erupt, along with their relative likelihood. Then determine what groups of stakeholders would be most affected or vulnerable for each potential crisis.
A survey should then be fielded to ask respondents how they would feel under the circumstances, and distributed to samples drawn from each of these groups. Scores should then be compared across these groups, in order to determine the degree of hazard and outrage that must be addressed in public information campaigns targeting each.
Crisis communication practitioners can use these indicators to more effectively tailor messages for specific stakeholders.
CONTACT:
This article was adapted from the PR News’ PR Measurement Guidebook, Vol. 6 , and written by Kenneth A. Lachlan, PhD, associate professor and chair of the Communication Department at the University of Massachusetts Boston ([email protected]); and Patric R. Spence, PhD, associate professor in the School of Communication at Western Michigan University ([email protected]).