Crisis Communication

Organizations today face a growing number of (digital) publics ready to mobilize around issues for which they hold companies and institutions accountable. As social, economic, and technological systems become more complex, so does the range of crises that can harm a firm, an industry, or even a nation. Active reputation management and well-prepared crisis communication have consequently become standard tools of professional management.

This course treats reputation, issues and crisis management as both theory and practice. Drawing on crisis communication theory, empirical research and real-world case studies, students analyze stakeholder expectations and the structures, policies and tools organizations use to anticipate and respond to crises — including the dynamics of social media and digital collectives. In a full-day simulation, students then apply and deepen these strategies under realistic, time-pressured conditions.

By the end of the course, students will be able to:

• Define and relate the core concepts of reputation, issues and crisis management (identity, image, reputation, issue life cycle, crisis, stakeholders, public sphere) within a strategic communication framework.
• Explain and compare the key crisis communication theories (SCCT, Contingency, Rhetorical Arena, stakeholder, Internet Contagion) and assess their scope and limits.
• Analyse how social media, digital publics and digital collectives drive the emergence and escalation of issues and crises.
• Assess how culture, (internal) activism and business ethics/CSR shape an organization's crisis vulnerability and response.
• Design and justify an evidence-based crisis communication strategy — response strategies, priority stakeholders, key messages and channels — for a given case.
• Apply it under time pressure in a crisis simulation.

• Consumo e produzione responsabili
• Pace, giustizia e istituzioni forti

In presenza

When registering for the course, you will be assigned to one of six topics. You prepare your topic before the course starts and solve a case study during the course.

1. Text work/PPT presentation: Examine your assigned topic in detail before the course (e.g., Situational Crisis Communication Theory and Contingency Theory; see list below) and present it in a PPT presentation of about 30 minutes, including a short discussion. Present the topic coherently rather than text by text; you may integrate additional relevant texts (e.g. by the authors of the model presented). Where useful, draw connections to the other five core topics. Illustrate the topic with a current, real-world example from Switzerland or abroad that is not drawn from the literature and that you research yourself. (Note: all participants must read all literature, including the other groups'.)
Deadline: upload your PPT to iCorsi one day before your presentation, by 8:00 a.m.

2. Case study: A time slot is reserved on September 26th, 9:15–12:15 a.m., but you may also work on the case individually or as a group at another time. The case texts are on iCorsi; read your group's case before the course starts. Summarize your results in a PowerPoint file (max. 5–6 slides). Deadline: September 29th, 8 a.m. (at the latest!).
Then review your partner group's results (same case) and provide peer feedback: write a short paragraph (half a page) evaluating their case study. Deadline: October 1st, 8 a.m.

Group work (40%): topic presentation and case study (see above), assessed as group deliverables.
Final exam (60%): a 60-minute written exam with multiple-choice and open questions, including short case studies. It covers all required readings, the presented topics, and the lecture content.
Participation (±0.25): active contribution to discussions and group work may raise or lower the final grade by up to 0.25 points.
Crisis simulation (±0.25): active participation in the full-day simulation may raise or lower the final grade by up to 0.25 points.
Attendance: students are expected to attend all sessions, complete the readings, and participate actively. Up to 4 hours of absence with a valid excuse are permitted; exceeding this results in an extra task or exclusion from the final exam.