Advancing Crisis Communication Effectiveness: Integrating Public Relations Scholarship with Practice

Advancing Crisis Communication Effectiveness shows how crisis communication plans and efforts for complex and challenging issues benefit when academic perspectives are connected with practitioner experiences. This book brings crisis and public relations scholars together with practicing professionals to integrate academic theories and research with the knowledge and lessons learned on the frontlines of crisis communication and management.

This book illustrates how having insights and observations from both leading crisis communication scholars and professionals strengthens crisis management and communication strategies, plans, and coordination. Chapters co-authored by leading scholars and professionals highlight how academic theories and research can inform crisis management and response - and how practitioners can utilize, inform, and strengthen academic theories and research. For each topic area covered, examples and applications are provided that show how integrating public relations scholarship with practice can advance crisis communication effectiveness.

This book represents a unique and timely contribution to the field of crisis management and communication. It will be an important resource for public relations and crisis management and communication scholars, educators, professionals, consultants, and graduate students.

Yan Jin (Ph.D., University of Missouri) is the Georgia Athletic Association Professor and a Professor of Public Relations at the Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication, University of Georgia. Dr. Jin has authored more than 85 peer-reviewed journal articles and over 20 book chapters. She is co-editor of the Routledge book Social Media and Crisis Communication. In 2019, Dr. Jin received the Kitty O. Locker Outstanding Researcher Award from the Association for Business Communication, which recognizes her research excellence and contribution to the business communication discipline. She is a member of the Arthur W. Page Society.

Bryan H. Reber (Ph.D., University of Missouri) is C. Richard Yarbrough Professor in Crisis Communication Leadership and Head of the Department of Advertising and Public Relations at the Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication, University of Georgia. Dr. Reber has published over 50 journal articles, book chapters and encyclopedia entries. He is co-author of the book, Gaining Influence in Public Relations: The Role of Resistance in Practice, and three top-selling public relations textbooks. Dr. Reber is a member of the Arthur W. Page Society and serves as Research Director of the Plank Center for Leadership in Public Relations.

Glen J. Nowak (Ph.D., of Wisconsin-Madison) is a Professor of Advertising and Public Relations at the University of Georgia Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication and Director of its Center for Health and Risk Communication. Dr. Nowak spent 14 years at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, including six years as the Communications Director for the National Immunization Program and six years as the agency’s Director of Media Relations.