Crisis Communications Vocabulary

Vocabulary terms covering key concepts in crisis communications, public relations management, stakeholders, and organizational culture based on the lecture transcript.

Strategy

An approach on how one handles a problem.

Stakeholders

People who are linked to an organization or who have an interest in an organization and are affected by the decisions made by that organization. Examples of company stakeholders are employees, stockholders, communities, and government officials.

Strategic publics

Stakeholders who are crucial to an organization, without whom the organization cannot function. Examples are board of directors, investors and unions.

Strategically managed public relations

Communication programs designed to build relationships with strategic publics, the crucial stakeholders of the organization.

Segmentation

The division of a market, population, or a large public into groups whose members are bound by mutual interests, concerns, and characteristics.

Risk communications

An ongoing program of informing and educating various publics (usually external publics) about issues that can affect, negatively or positively, an organization’s success. It builds solid relationships between an organization and its key publics prior to a crisis.

Organizational ideology

An organization’s philosophy, its working climate, and its corporate culture, which determines to some degree how people within the organization behave.

Communications ideology

The organization’s philosophy and attitudes of behavior in communicating with publics. It usually follows the organizational ideology.