PERSUASIVE COMMUNICATION AND COMMUNICATION IN CRISIS SITUATION

PERSUASIVE COMMUNICATION

The communication process where the communicator uses his tactics to affect a group of target audience attitudes and their behavior. Persuasive communication model :Carrel Hovland and his colleagues were the first to make persuasive communication model.

The model depends upon three sets of factors in order to reach the intended attitudes and behavior. 1 Factors related to communication process Factors related to source Factors related to message Factors related to audience 2. Factors related to cognitive and psychological reaction. 3. Factors related to effect on the receiver.

Factors related to communication process

Factors related to source They include Source specialization Source credibility: It is the experience and trustworthiness that receivers give to the source Source status Audience love to the source.

Factors related to message

Hovland pointed out some factors that must be included in the message in order to be effective. He focuses on factors such as the ways ideas, evidence are arranged, the organization of the arguments used in support of the position advocated. Factors related to effect on the audience. Individuals vary greatly in their personal psychological organization.The model figured out personality characteristics and other predisposition factors. These characteristics are The individuals readiness to accept a favorable or unfavorable situation. An individuals susceptibility to particular types of arguments and persuasive appeals. An individual overall level of susceptibility to any form of persuasion or social influence.

Factors related to cognitive and psychological reaction

These set of reactions indicate the status of reaction and feed back either in the inner perception or an overt behavior. It is the middle stage that leads to types of effect including attention, understanding and persuasion. Factors related to effect on the receiver These factors are the goal of persuasive communication. It is called the KAP scale. K stands for Knowledge A stands forming or changing attitudes P stands for practice

Crisis communication

sometimes considered a sub-specialty of the public relations profession is designed to protect and defend an individual, company, or organization facing a public challenge to its reputation. . These challenges may come in the form of an investigation from a government agency, a criminal allegation, a media inquiry, a shareholders lawsuit, a violation of environmental regulations, or any of a number of other scenarios involving the legal, ethical, or financial standing of the entity.

Crisis communication professionals preach that an organizations reputation is often its most valuable asset. When that reputation comes under attack, protecting and defending it becomes the highest priority. This is particularly true in todays 24 hour news cycle, fuelled by government investigations, Congressional or parliamentary hearings, lawsuits, and "gotcha journalism".

Crisis communication can include crafting thorough and compelling statements, known as messages. Crisis communication is a part of larger process referred to as crisis management though it may well be a major tool of handling a crisis situation in government, organization or business. Crisis communication is sometimes considered a subspeciality of business continuity. The aim of crisis communication in this context is to assist organisations to achieve continuity of critical business processes and information flows under crisis, disaster or event driven circumstances.

Effective crisis communication strategies will typically consider achieving most, if not all, of the following objectives: Maintain connectivity Be readily accessible to the news media Show empathy for the people involved Allow distributed access Streamline communication processes Maintain information security Ensure uninterrupted audit trails Deliver high volume communications Support multi-channel communications Remove dependencies on paper based processes

Crisis communication can play a significant role by transforming the unexpected into the anticipated and responding accordingly. Some of the most effective recent examples of crisis communication include Richard Branson's (Virgin) and John Armitt's (Network Rail) dignified press conference after the Grayrigg rail disaster of 2007 and US Airways handling of the media after their crashlanding on the Hudson river.

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