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An Integrated Marketing Communication (IMC) approach to crisis involves managing and conveying information before, during, and after critical events, such as corporations handling crises that threaten their reputation or government responses to natural disasters. Effective crisis communication especially relies on CIL skills to navigate the torrent and complexity of information coming from diverse sources. Each crisis is unique and could involve diverse stakeholders, making CIL essential for creating tailored, effective responses.
The activity will be completed in three steps.
- Learning CIL: Provide the students with resources and materials to define CIL and its frameworks. The activity particularly addresses the following three frameworks:
- Authority Is Constructed and Contextual
- Scholarship as Conversation
- Searching as Strategic Exploration
2. Application
The students will identify a crisis and research information from various sources. They will formulate a response to a crisis scenario for an organization or company.
Sample sources: peer-reviewed journal articles (e.g., case studies, discourse analysis), news articles, social media posts from various individuals, influencers, experts, and public figures.
3. Reflection
Each student will write a reflection essay. Here are a few sample reflection questions:
A.One of CIL’s frames states that authority is constructed and contextual. How does this concept apply to in your research on the crisis, would you embrace or challenge this framework?
B.Could algorithmic biases in your search for news and social media posts influence your response? If so, how can we address this issue?
C.How could information privilege potentially affect an individual's perception and response to the crisis?
D.How did different sources characterize the crisis? What similarities and differences did you find in framing, language, stakeholders, perspectives, and problem definitions?