A key concept of this book, and indeed of the discipline, is the
conception and perception of publics, or stakeholders as they are
sometimes referred to. Interestingly this has not been adequately
explored in relation to public relations crisis communication. For
example, there has been no attempt to define the publics in a crisis
or to establish if different publics are of equal importance in a crisis.
How an organisation communicates with publics in a crisis; if it should
be the same for every public and whether publics react or respond in
homogenous patterns to a crisis need to be investigated. This raises
the proposition of a hierarchy of crisis publics and the necessity to
ascertain whether the creation of such a hierarchy would positively
impact public relations crisis communication.
To date, theories of public relations crisis communication have
focused mainly on the organisational response and the event itself.
However, understanding the relationship of various publics to an event
and subsequent crisis may provide a deeper and more accurate assessment of a public’s attribution of responsibility. If this can be achieved
it is likely to facilitate a more precise organisational response thereby
improving the efficiency and success of crisis communications.
Introducing the concept of a hierarchy of crisis publics as a possible
extension to existing theory will be carried out by examining the case
of Malaysian Airlines MH370. The international aviation industry is
a worthy starting point because of the specificity of events, resulting
severe crises, multiplicity of publics, international nature and interest
of global community