CRISIS

CRISIS INTERVENTION TECHNIQUES

When you are dealing with a person who is apparently in a crisis state (very upset or angry, depressed, irrational, unusually confused, very withdrawn or frightened, possibly mentally ill, or under the influence of alcohol or other drugs, etc.), using the techniques described in this chapter will help you manage the situation effectively.

These tactics fall into two main skill clusters:

1. Pre-Intervention Preparation

2. Crisis Intervention Format

PRE-INTERVENTION PREPARATION

Before you actually use crisis management techniques in a situation, it is a good idea to take time to prepare yourself and to formulate a basic plan for the intervention. This is because such situations are often difficult and/or volatile. You may be dealing with subjects who are unpredictable and/or potentially violent, and your usual communication skills may not work well.

As you learned in Professional Communication, the recommended steps to follow in pre-intervention preparation are as follows:

• Calm yourself

• Center yourself and get focused

• Develop a strategy for the intervention

Here is more on each of these steps.

Calm Yourself

For you to help calm someone else down, you yourself need to appear calm. The subject will pick up on your calmness. A good way to calm yourself is with autogenic breathing, in which you take slow, deep, full breaths. Here is the technique:

1. Breathe in for a four-count through your nose,

2. Pause for a four-count.

3. Exhale for a four-count through your mouth,

4. Pause for a four-count.

Repeat this several times. Doing this exercise will help supply oxygen to your system, which will help you calm down.

Center Yourself and Get Focused

Do what you can to focus on the task at hand and prepare yourself to deal with a potentially difficult situation. There are certainly different ways to focus, and different officers use techniques that work for them. Some people visualize the coming event and how to respond to it effectively. This is a form of crisis rehearsal. Others use positive self-talk, which basically involves affirming to yourself (silently or aloud) your abilities and determination to handle the situation effectively. Whatever technique you use, your goal should be to prepare yourself to use your skills effectively in responding to a person or persons in crisis, and to ensure your safety and that of others.

Develop a Strategy for the Intervention

As best you can, plan how you will respond to the situation. Specifically, decide in advance what you will say and do and how you will position yourself, whether backup is required, and so on. Try to decide what level and type of intervention is called for, taking into consideration your safety and the safety of others. Consider all the options. For example, it may be that medical intervention is needed. A person who appears to be in crisis may be behaving oddly because of a physical problem, such as an insulin reaction, a stroke, or Alzheimer’s disease or another dementia disorder.

BY KINGALU AVIN

ELEMENTS THAT REQUIRES FOR A GOOD FORMAL COMMUNICATION

ELEMENTS THAT REQUIRES FOR A GOOD FORMAL COMMUNICATION

Proper performance of organizational activates and thus attainment of its goals largely depends on effective communication. Effective communication requires some conditions or elements or factors.
These are discussed below:

1. Pre-thinking: Pre-thinking about the message is an important quality of good communication. Pre-thinking enables the sender to develop creative message and to transmit it efficiently.
2.  Specific objective: Communication occurs with specific objectives. Therefore, the communicator must know the objective of communication and must arrange the message accordingly.
3. Timeliness: Usefulness of any message depends on its timely transmission. If the message is not transmitted in appropriate time, its utility is lost. So the communicator should consider the time of communication.
4. Conciseness: Another important quality of good communication is that the message should be concise. Concise message is one that contains only relevant and necessary facts, avoids repetition, and organizes properly.
5. Completeness: Good communication transmits a complete message so that the receiver can understand the full meaning of the message. The sender should not sacrifice completeness to attain conciseness.
6. Correctness: Good communication contains only the correct messages. False, manipulated, and exaggerated information irritate the receiver and make the communication ineffective.
7. Persuasiveness: Persuasiveness is important quality of good communication. It helps to develop positive attitude of thy receiver towards the message.
8. Concreteness: Business communication becomes effective- when it excludes irrelevant facts. Concreteness is essential to express the communicator’s view to the receiver unambiguously.
9. Feedback: Good communication always keeps the provision of feedback. Feedback ensures that the message has reached to the intended receiver.
10. Mutual Interest: When communication considers the interest of both sender and receiver, it is treated as good communication. If the message ignores the interest of the receiver, communication may fail to attain its goal.
11. Use of Appropriate Language: Good communication always uses appropriate language. Appropriate language avoids ambiguous and complex words, misleading non-verbal cues, technical jargons, poetic words etc.
12. Considering the Receiver: A good communicator thinks about the receiver’s knowledge, ability, interest, origin etc. This increases the utility and acceptability of communication.
13. Use of Appropriate Media: Selecting suitable media is very essential for successful communication. The sender should select the written or oral media depending on the nature and importance of the message, availability of time, cost, receiver’s ability etc.
14. Emphasizing on Informal Relationship: The communicator requires giving attention to establish informal relationships with the receiver along with formal relationship as it ensures success of communication.
15. Effective Listening: The communicator is also a good listener. He has to listen attentively the response of the receiver. Therefore, the sender should possess the ability to hear the receiver’s response attentively with due patience.

BY ALPHONCE BHOKE
BAPRM 42527

NEW MEDIA BY MCLUHAN.

  

BY JOHN CAFRENE

The  use  of  the  term  “new  media”  is  of  course  relative.  When  McLuhan analyzed  television  and  automation  these  were  the  new  media  of  his  time.  At any  given  point  in  time  there  will  always  be  new  media  or  perhaps  more accurately  newer  media.  The  term  “new  media”  as  it  is  used  today  refers  to  a class  of  media  that  are  digital  and  interactive  and  hence  differ  from  the electric  mass  media  that  McLuhan  (1964)  addressed  in  UM. 

What’s  new  about  today’s  “new  media”  is  that  they  are  digital,  they  are linked  and  cross  linked  with  each  other  and  the  information  they  mediate  is very  easily  processed,  stored,  transformed,  retrieved,  linked  and  perhaps most  radical  of  all  easily  searched  for  and  accessed.  This  is  why  I  believe that  McLuhan’s  stunning  analysis  of  the  new  media  of  his  day,  namely electric  mass  media,  and  their  total  transformation  of  education,  work  and society deserves and requires an updating.

To  better  understand  the  ground  in  which  today’s  media  interact  we  will investigate  the  transition  from  the  non-digital  electric  media  to  the interactive  digital  media.  Although  McLuhan  included  computing  and automation  in  his  analysis  of  media,  which  are  certainly  digital  media  they were  at  the  time  of  the  publication  of  UM  isolated  figures  operating  in  the ground  of  electric  mass  media.  Also  the  computer  in  McLuhan’s  day  was  not as  interactive  as  today’s  because  one  had  to  submit  a  job,  which  included both  the  program  and  the  data  as  part  of  a  batch  with  other  jobs  and  wait many  hours  for  one’s  output.  The  slightest  error  in  one’s  input,  such  as  a missing  comma,  would  result  in  another  delay.  With  the  emergence  of  the microcomputer,  the  Internet,  email,  the  World  Wide  Web  and  cell  phones  a new  communication  and  information  ground  emerged  that  was  truly interactive and which changed the figure of each and every medium. The  emergence  of  the  “new  media”  ground  presents  us  with  two  motivations to  re-analyze  the  media  that  McLuhan  studied  in  UM.  First  of  all,  the  old media  became  the  content  of  the  “new  media”  and  hence  to  understand  the “new  media”  we  must  understand  the  old  media  in  the  new  ground.  The content  of  the  “new  media”  will  be  the  old  media  such  as  speech writing.

A second  reason  to  reexamine  old  media  is  that  the  ground  has  changed  from electric  mass  media  to  that  of  the  interactive  digital  media  and  therefore  the effects  and  impacts  of  the  old  media  have  changed.  Radio,  television  and  the movies  are  not  the  same  in  2007  that  they  were  in  1964  when  UM  first  hit the  presses.  They  have  undergone  some  technical  improvements  like  large flat  screens  for  TV  and  Dolby  sound  and  computer  animation  for  the  movies, but  that  is  not  the  real  story  of  their  changed  impact.  The  real  story  is  that the  ground  has  changed  underneath  these  media  and  their  place  in  our culture and their effect on society have changed.  Understanding  the  interaction  of  a  medium  with  other  media  has  always been  an  important  part  of  the  approach  McLuhan  pioneered,  which  is  at  the heart  of  media  ecology.  Understanding  these  interactions  becomes  even more  critical  with  the  “new  media”  because  of  convergence  and  the  fact  that the  links  between  media  are  even  stronger  with  digitization.

CREATIVE INDUSTRIES

BY  ALLY AMINA

According to Caves (2000), creative industries are characterized by seven economic properties:
1. Nobody knows principle: Demand uncertainty exists because the consumers' reaction to a product are neither known beforehand, nor easily understood afterward.
2. Art for art’s sake: Workers care about originality, technical professional skill, harmony, etc. of creative goods and are willing to settle for lower wages than offered by 'humdrum' jobs.
3. Motley crew principle: For relatively complex creative products (e.g., films), the production requires diversely skilled inputs. Each skilled input must be present and perform at some minimum level to produce a valuable outcome.
4. Infinite variety: Products are differentiated by quality and uniqueness; each product is a distinct combination of inputs leading to infinite variety options (e.g., works of creative writing, whether poetry, novel, screenplays or otherwise).
5. A list/B list : Skills are vertically differentiated. Artists are ranked on their skills, originality, and proficiency in creative processes and/or products. Small differences in skills and talent may yield huge differences in (financial) success.
6. Time flies : When coordinating complex projects with diversely skilled inputs, time is of the essence.
7. Ars longa : Some creative products have durability aspects that invoke
copyright protection, allowing a creator or performer to collect rents.
The properties described by Caves have been criticized for being too rigid (Towse, 2000). Not all creative workers are purely driven by 'art for art's sake'. The 'ars longa' property also holds for certain noncreative products (i.e., licensed products). The 'time flies' property also holds for large construction projects. Creative industries are therefore not unique, but they score generally higher on these properties relative to non-creative industries.
Difference from the 'cultural industries'
There is often a question about the boundaries between creative industries and the similar term of
cultural industries. Cultural industries are best described as an adjunct-sector of the creative industries. Cultural industries include industries that focus on cultural tourism and
heritage , museums and libraries ,
sports and outdoor activities , and a variety of 'way of life' activities that arguably range from local pet shows to a host of hobbyist concerns. Thus cultural industries are more concerned about delivering other kinds of value—including cultural wealth and social wealth—rather than primarily providing monetary value. (See also cultural institutions studies .)

FUNCTIONS OF CORPORATE COMMUNICATION MANAGER

BY KIMATI ELTRUDAH

Corporate communications departments play a key role in how investors, employees and the general public perceive a company. They often report directly to a company’s chief executive officer and serve as advisers in managing a company’s reputation. They help leaders prepare for media interviews, develop messages to deliver to investors and employees and suggest new initiatives to keep companies on the cutting edge of communication with their stakeholders.

Media relations

This may be the function for which corporate communication managers are best known. Media relations work includes writing and distributing news releases and responding to media inquiries. Corporate communicators oversee all planning for news conferences, including selecting the site for an event, arranging for banners and other graphics to be displayed at the event, preparing packets of information to distribute to the media and preparing executives to speak at news conferences. Media relations also involves arranging for spokespersons to appear on local television and radio programs. Corporate communicators monitor newspapers, television news broadcasts and other outlets to see what the media is saying about the company and to devise strategies to address misinformation.

Building mutual relations

Building relationships with customers and responding to inquiries from the public fall under the public relations function of corporate communications. Duties in this area include producing newsletters, brochures and other printed materials designed for the general public. Corporate communicators also manage a company’s website and social media presence, which includes monitoring what customers and clients are saying about the company on social networking websites and responding to inaccurate posts or requests for information. Communication professionals may respond directly to calls and emails from citizens and customers with questions about a company’s plans or activities. They arrange for speakers from the company to make presentations to local community groups and may facilitate group tours of a company’s operations.

Crisis management

When an event occurs that threatens public safety or a company’s reputation, corporate communicators function as advisers to CEOs and senior leaders in managing the crisis. Special training in the issues unique to crisis communication helps corporate communicators prepare for events such as chemical spills, violence in the workplace, an accidental death on the job, layoff announcements and allegations of company wrongdoing. They often work with staff throughout their organizations to develop crisis communication plans before disaster strikes. A crisis may require communications staff to work with attorneys, government regulators, political officials, emergency response personnel and communications staff from other companies when developing crisis messages.

Maintaining employees relation

In addition to conveying a company’s messages to external audiences, corporate communicators may also be called on to function as employee communications managers, which includes designing printed publications and writing emails to announce company news, benefits information and training opportunities. Corporate communicators may facilitate focus groups to learn what issues matter most to front-line employees. They advise senior leaders on how to improve relationships with their staff and gain support for their initiatives. The corporate communications staff may also manage a company’s Intranet and internal blogs.

VIRTUAL COMMUNITY

BY KIMATI ELITRUDAH

Virtual community have  existed on the internet for almost quarter of century.The Well(http://www.com) started in 1985 and the usenet Newsgroup,started 1979 are widely regarded as the first virtual community on the internet.However despite the existence of over 100000 usenet, newsgroup with over 650 million messages(google.com,2003).only five to ten percent of internet users go to Usenet(Morochov,2003)

News group are internet  text based messaging system.These discussion group work like email except that message are posted to a public place where others can read them.They like chat in that they present public message, but differ from chat in that message are delayed.Message maybe posted  about something that is not currently being discussed in newsgroup or maybe written in response to one or many other existing messages.Newsgroup cater for both experts or novice debating topics of mutual interests. indeed a distinguishing feature of newsgroup is that they are organised by topic and they are public - posting free - for - all almost.Newsgroup topics span the interest of humanity and vary in their intended audience and geographical relevance.Newsgroup are created and discontinued daily.

What is being said about a company in newsgroup can have a severe impact on public perception of brands, products, and services.The facts that newsgroup posts or messages posted on the newsgroup , tend to be available for days if not weeks means that message may be seen by many people over extended periods.Negative messages may cause damage to an organisation's reputation a company's stock value and its sales revenue.

Virtual communities  have been characterised as people with shared interests or goals for whom electronic communication is primary for interaction (Dennis et all 1998) as groups of people who meet regularly to discuss a subject of interest to all members.(Figallo  1998) added that is the group of people brought together by shared interest or geographical bond who shares the same interests and practices that communicate regularly and for some duration in an organised way over the internet through a common location or mechanism. 
Newsgroup give professional communicators a ready resource for monitoring public sentiment and conducting issues research in much the same as chat does.Newsgroup lend themselves particulary well opinion ( rather than factual or knowledge)research because the quality of information provided by participants is often poor and usually  cannot be verified but opinions are readily available.Because specific newsgroup are created by people motivated  by and interested in particular  topic and because they are operated on the host computer that maybe located within a company...............

IMPORTANCE OF RESEARCH IN IPR

 

JOHN CAFRENE

 Gaining feedback, Knowing how effective the public relations plan is at achieving the objectives helps the organization decide whether to continue with the plan, make adjustments to the plan or to scrap the plan and begin formulating a new one. Before going international, an international public relations practitioner after conducting a research it will be easy for him and his organization know of how much the organization is known internationally due to the feedback, and therefore come up with a better plan depending on the feedbacks. After a public relations plan has been formulated and then put into practice, additional research provides feedback on the actual public relations plan. This research allows the organization to determine if any of the objectives formulated for the public relations plan has been achieved and to what degree.

Research helps public relations practitioner identify its key publics and issues at the moment so the organization can focus on areas where it will deliver the most impact and value. Stakeholder group with whom organizations communicate include the community customers, suppliers, financial markets, distributors and vendors, potential employees and opinion leaders. Through research, an international public relations practitioner has to maintain intense relationship with every group all the time.

Provide the groundwork for building effective programs. Through  conducting the environmental scanning research, problem statement and situation analysis provide a room to build valuable public relations programs including establishing better goals and objectives. Objectives are more specific describing the results to be achieved by a specific rate for if the well defined target public. Moreover, are based on protected and actual program results. Goals indicate the more general result of the total program.

Performance evaluation. Is a constructive process to acknowledge the performance of a non-reliable career employee? Research helps an international public relations practitioner to know the evaluation of different employees in his organization over is their performance in order to see if they are ready to go global as an organization. Performance is everything in introducing an organization to the local publics and even global publics. An employee’s evaluation shall be sufficiently specific to inform and guide the employee in the performance of her or his duties.

Research makes public relations activities strategic by ensuring that communication is specifically targeted to publics who want, need, care about the information. Without conducting research, public relation is based on experience or instinct, neither of which plays large roles in strategic management. It is likely that research help the international public relations practitioner know of what the public needs and how to reach them instead of wasting money on the publics that are not reached easily.This type of research prevents us from wasting money on communications that are not reaching intended publics or not doing the job that we had designed them to do.

Organizational strengths and weakness. Research for public relations plan should involve a non-biased assessment of the organization itself. This research says not only the general mission of the organization but also how far the organization has gone toward achieving its mission. The research also gives a list and assessment of all resources available to the organization that it may use in the implementation of a public relations plan. Leadership in the organization also receives information about any liabilities or possible internal threats that could threaten the public relations plan, allowing the leadership to devise a plan for how to proactively manage these risks.

 

Public relations messaging. The research conducted by the organization provides valuable information about how the organization should create its public relations messaging. The research provides feedback about what matters most to the public, which the organization addresses or incorporates in public relations messaging. Thorough research on groups the organization interacts with also supplies a list of media forms the different groups engage in, letting the organization know the most effective methods of delivering its message.

Research helps identity the existing knowledge, predisposition or blur of key publics, their preferred information sources and how to reach them. Through research lead to continually bring needs and wants of the public especially activists publics into decision-making. These lead public relations practitioners or departments to respond to key publics such as activists. Therefore, for an international public relations practitioner through research he/she will be able to know the needs of the public towards the services or products provided by his/her organization.