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Introduction
Andreas Schwarz is a senior researcher and lecturer of risk and crisis communication at Institut für Medien & Kommunikationswissenschaft, Technische Universität Ilmenau. He is co-chair of the International Research Group of Crisis Communication and founding chair of the ECREA Crisis Communication Section (2011-2018). His research focusses on risk and crisis communication, public relations, science communication, and the communication / perception of emerging technologies & space exploration.
Current institution
Additional affiliations
January 2017 - December 2023
January 2012 - April 2015
September 2004 - present
Editor roles
Crisis and Risk Communication
Position
- Editorial Board Member
Education
January 2023 - November 2024
October 2005 - September 2009
Publications
Publications (81)
In February of 2023, two earthquakes of 7.8 and 7.5 magnitude hit Türkiye and Syria killing 55,000 people and impacting the wellbeing of 14 million survivors. Among the most relevant institutions communicating about the disaster were the Turkish President, the Turkish Disaster and Emergency Management Authority (AFAD), the Turkish Red Crescent, and...
Crisis and risk communication research in Germany was shaped by its history, the experiences of World War I and II, and its perceptions stimulating academic work on crisis communication in the early 1990s. Risk communication research has its roots in psychology and sociology, with an early focus on catastrophic threats and technological hazards suc...
Now in its second edition, The Handbook of International Crisis and Risk Communication Research offers a timely and comprehensive exploration of the methods, challenges, and innovations in managing present-day global crises and risks. Bringing together expert insights from across the fields of communication, public relations, and social sciences, t...
Since the 2016 edition of this handbook, international crisis and risk communication research has experienced significant growth. Increasing awareness and manifestations of climate change, political crises and wars, the growing impact of misinformation and disinformation related to technological advances in artificial intelligence, as well as the C...
This summary chapter offers observations about the globalization of the field and identifies major themes and emerging trends. Crisis and risk communication is described as a dynamic, expansive, multinational, multidisciplinary field of study addressing a diverse set of hazards using multiple methods across diverse contexts and cultures. We also de...
Despite the increasing number and relevance of both transnational organizations and international organizational crises, cross-cultural research on risk and crisis from an audience-oriented perspective is rare and largely limited to Western contexts. Audience-based research on organizational crises has extensively analyzed reputation management iss...
(accepted for publication in SCM-Studies in Media and Communication, 03/2025)
Recently, autonomous driving has received significant attention in risk and science communication research due to its increasing public visibility. However, media research has not differentiated between autonomous individual mobility (IAM) and public transport (APT), alth...
The growing international public attention to astrobiology and SETI, combined with the immense costs of space exploration and the potential outcome, the discovery of extraterrestrial life, will likely increase the pressure for public justification and the need to address societal concerns about the risks of searching for, finding, or being found by...
Improving risk and crisis communication theory and practice matters more than ever. Global crises such as the COVID‑19 pandemic, climate change, international conflict, and emerging technological risks related to, for instance, artificial intelligence and cybersecurity, mandate joint efforts to enhance how we manage crises and risks and how we comm...
The study of strategic risk and crisis communication of organizations is one of the most important sub-disciplines of international PR research. This results from the high socio-political and economic relevance of crises on a global level (e.g., climate change, pandemics) and on an organizational level (e.g., corporate crises) and the key role of c...
Over the past decade, many experts from academia, business, and civil society have warned of the risks of artificial intelligence (AI), such as large-scale job displacement, data bias against social groups, the use of AI to undermine democracy, the misuse of AI for mass surveillance and/ or policing, the unregulated use of autonomous weapons, and o...
Der Beitrag gibt einen Überblick über die wichtigsten Ansätze und Befunde zur theoretischen Beschreibung der Beziehungen zwischen Public Relations und Journalismus. Im deutschsprachigen Raum sind dies insbesondere die Determinationsthese, die systemtheoretischen Konzepte der strukturellen Kopplung und Interpenetration sowie das Intereffikationsmode...
During the COVID-19 pandemic, challenges at higher education institutions (HEIs) in managing public health crises were revealed globally. The literature on HEIs has focused on Western/Northern countries and lacks theoretically grounded studies of internal instructional risk communication. This article reports the results of interviews with HEI comm...
Over the past decade, many experts from academia, business, and civil society have warned of the risks of artificial intelligence (AI), such as large-scale job displacement, data bias against social groups, the use of AI to undermine democracy, the misuse of AI for mass surveillance and/or policing, the unregulated use of autonomous weapons, and ot...
This timely volume offers an international and cross-disciplinary examination of risk and crisis communication theory and practice in Europe. Placing the rapidly developing field of risk and crisis communication within the context of a Europe in flux – experiencing the amplification of the refugee crisis, Brexit, increasing terrorist attacks, a hei...
A best practices approach to disaster communication has proven popular for both researchers and practitioners. This chapter reviews the best practices approach, its structure, function, and origins, the various recommendations offered for message features, dissemination through different communication channels and/or communication technologies, and...
Artificial intelligence (AI) has become a part of the mainstream public discourse beyond expert communities about its risks, benefits, and need for regulation. In particular, since 2014, the news media have intensified their coverage of this emerging technology and its potential impact on most domains of society. Although many studies have analyzed...
Purpose
This study aims to contribute to strategic crisis communication research by exploring international media representations of third sector crises and crisis response; expanding the range of crisis types beyond transgressions; and developing a framework that integrates framing and crisis communication theory.
Design/methodology/approach
Quan...
Risk communication is a keystone in crisis prevention and mitigation. For that purpose, many institutions worldwide have the task of translating scientific risk information into actionable messages for public safety. As a collaboration among international risk and crisis communication scholars and practitioners, we sought to identify what risk comm...
External funding is an important yet understudied area of inquiry in crisis communication research. With external funding being a keystone of assessing and broadening research impact in both academia and industry, it is important for scholarship to examine effective practices for funding proposals. This study explores the best and worst practices f...
Even if the current state of development of artificial intelligence (AI) as a technology is still far from “independently thinking” or “self-conscious” machines, some prominent voices in recent years have warned against too careless handling of AI including its applications in political campaigns, consumer marketing, autonomous mobility, or warfare...
The search for intelligent (SETI) and non-intelligent extraterrestrial life has recently received considerable attention in academia and international news media. Since media frames of scientific space exploration potentially influence public support and perceptions of science, the German news media’s coverage of extraterrestrial life was analyzed....
Researchers and practitioners have unanimously acknowledged the impact of legacy media coverage of past pandemics as well as COVID-19 and its importance for health-related risk communication. Therefore, this study provides scholars and health communication practitioners with a deeper understanding of the patterns, main themes, and limitations of me...
Der überarbeitete und aktualisierte Beitrag gibt einen Überblick über die wichtigsten Ansätze und Befunde zur theoretischen Beschreibung der Beziehungen zwischen Public Relations und Journalismus. Im deutschsprachigen Raum sind dies insbesondere die Determinationsthese, die systemtheoretischen Konzepte der strukturellen Kopplung und Interpenetratio...
El concepto de crisis también ha ido evolucionando para adaptarse a las nuevas realidades de la comunicación (Suárez y García, 2010). Según Coombs (1999), una adecuada gestión de crisis debe pasar por la prevención, la preparación, el desempeño y el aprendizaje. Es difícil prevenir cuando no hay experiencias previas ante situaciones totalmente nuev...
The study of strategic risk and crisis communication of organizations is one of the most important sub-disciplines of international PR research. This results from the high socio-political and economic relevance of crises on a global level (e.g., climate change, pandemics) and on an organizational level (e.g., corporate crises) and the key role of c...
Krisenkommunikation ist in den letzten 25 Jahren zu einem der wichtigsten Anwendungsfelder der internen und externen Unternehmenskommunikation geworden. In Krisensituationen kommt es zur Gefährdung zentraler strategischer Ressourcen und Ziele von Organisationen und der Sicherheit von Anspruchsgruppen. Geeignete strukturelle Rahmenbedingungen und St...
Since the mid 1990s the field of crisis communication research has grown substantially as a topic of international communication studies. Especially in public relations journals a growth of the publication output has been observed recently, whereas broader communication journals still publish scarcely on crisis communication (An & Cheng, 2012; Ha &...
Plagiatsskandale, Refinanzierungskrisen oder Flutkatastrophen haben in den vergangenen Jahren wiederholt gezeigt, dass auch deutsche Hochschulen Krisen zu ihrem organisatorischen Lebenszyklus zählen müssen. Die tragischen Amokläufe an US-amerikanischen Universitäten haben zudem verdeutlicht, mit welchen Gefahren hier im schlimmsten Fall zu rechnen...
In den letzten Jahrzehnten etablierten sich NGOs als einflussreiche Akteure, um das Bewusstsein für internationale soziale, politische, ökologische und wirtschaftliche Belange der Weltgesellschaft maßgeblich zu beeinflussen. Trotz ihrer Bedeutung wurden NGOs im Forschungsfeld der internationalen Public Relations bislang kaum beachtet. Dieser Beitra...
In 2016, the German Youth Welfare Offices reported more than 21,500 acute cases of children who were victims of abuse, sexual violence or neglect, with fatal consequences. Numerous cases have been reported regionally and nationwide in the media. The role of the responsible youth welfare offices, which are often accused of failure or inaction, is al...
Vor allem im Kontext schwerer Fälle von Kindeswohlgefährdung wird Krisenkommunikation zunehmend zur wichtigen Aufgabe von Jugendämtern und Kommunen. In diesem Beitrag werden die Ergebnisse eines Projekts zur Analyse der Mediendarstellung von Jugendämtern und ihrer Krisenkommunikationspraxis vorgestellt. Daraus werden Handlungsempfehlungen für die K...
Free PDF online here:
http://www.nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:gbv:ilm1-2017100014
In den vergangenen Jahren kam es in Deutschland wiederholt zu tragischen Fällen von Kindesmisshandlung oder Kindstötung, über die bundesweit in den Medien berichtet wurde. Oft wurde dabei auch die Rolle der zuständigen Jugendämter thematisiert, denen nicht selten‚ Beh...
In diesem Kapitel werden die Befunde einer Studie zur internen Kommunikation von deutschen Jugendämtern im Kontext von Krisen vorgestellt. Dabei geht es insbesondere um schwere Fälle von Kindeswohlgefährdung (öffentliche und nicht öffentliche) und deren Auswirkungen auf interne Organisationsstrukturen und Kommunikationsprozesse. Für die Analyse wur...
The Handbook of International Crisis Communication Research articulates a broader understanding of crisis communication, discussing the theoretical, methodological, and practical implications of domestic and transnational crises, featuring the work of global scholars from a range of sub-disciplines and related fields:
- Provides the first integrat...
Although much work is yet needed to arrive at a theoretically and empirically valid integrative approach to international risk and crisis communication, this handbook has been conceptualized to offer a broad and comparative perspective on different dimensions of risk and crisis communication that, so far, have been dealt with in rather fragmented s...
In this chapter, we compare and discuss the different disciplinary perspectives on risk, crisis, and crisis communication that are outlined in the previous chapters in this section of the handbook. They all agree that communication plays a crucial role in contexts of risks and crisis. This is because scholars across disciplines believe communicatio...
Despite the increasing number and relevance of both transnational organizations and international organizational crises, research on such crises from an audience-oriented perspective is rare and largely based on narrative case studies. Audience-related research on organizational crises has extensively analyzed stakeholder attribution of crisis caus...
This chapter offers an overview of crisis communication research in Germany. The literature review showed that research covers a broad range of different crisis types and comprises studies from all perspectives in the communication process. While in its early stage research focused on risk communication and disasters, later efforts in the 1990s sta...
This chapter summarizes the main insights of the handbook in terms of international and cross-cultural dimensions of risk and crisis communication. Main conceptual and methodological challenges and their implications for a more culture-sensitive and integrative approach are discussed. After pointing to some limitations of the handbook, the authors...
The research and discussion on technology in crisis communication suffers from at least two limitations: the focus on external instead of internal crisis communication and the predominance of the internet/social media at the expense of other technologies in regard to the gathering, sharing, and dissemination of information in the context of crises...
Der Beitrag gibt einen Überblick über die wichtigsten Ansätze und Befunde zur theoretischen Beschreibung der Beziehungen zwischen Public Relations und Journalismus. Im deutschsprachigen Raum sind dies insbesondere die Determinationsthese, die systemtheoretischen Konzepte der strukturellen Kopplung und Interpenetration sowie das Intereffikationsmode...
This presentation was held by the Chair of the ECREA Crisis Communication Section at the Business Meeting of the Section at the Crisis4 Conference at Lund University in Helsingborg 2015. The presentation includes information on the section, membership, conferences on crisis communication and the results of a survey where leading scholars indicate m...
Spätestens seit Mitte der 1990er Jahre ist international ein substanzieller Bedeutungszuwachs der Krisenkommunikationsforschung zu verzeichnen. Dies deuten die Zunahme an Veröffentlichungen in Fachzeitschriften (An & Cheng 2010) und die zunehmende akademische Institutionalisierung an. In der englischsprachigen PR-Forschung wird das Management der K...
The chapter reviews important contributions to the research on nongovernmental organizations and their ways of organizing and conducting strategic communication across nations and cultures. In addition, findings of a survey of 440 communication practitioners at international NGOs will be used to outline different models and strategic approaches of...
In the last few decades, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) have become influential actors in creating awareness of international social, political, environmental and economic causes in global society. However, NGOs have not received much attention in research on international public relations. This study contributes to filling that gap by analyz...
Krisenkommunikation ist in den letzten 20 Jahren zu einem der wichtigsten Anwendungsfelder der internen und externen Unternehmenskommunikation geworden. In Krisensituationen kommt es zur Gefährdung zentraler strategischer Ressourcen und Ziele von Organisationen und ihren Anspruchsgruppen. Geeignete strukturelle Rahmenbedingungen und Strategien, um...
Die öffentliche Kommunikation über krisenhafte Ereignisse deutet darauf hin, dass Journalisten und Rezipienten ein fundamentales Bedürfnis danach haben, mehr über die Ursachen der Ereignisse und verantwortliche Akteure zu erfahren. Wurden Ursachen und Verantwortung zugeschrieben, so kann dies die Einstellungen von Rezipienten beeinflussen. Auch Jou...
Crisis communication scholarship has been criticized for its “managerial bias” and for its tendency to marginalize the perspective of publics and audiences. However, the understanding of how publics cope with and interpret crises is crucial for developing the body of knowledge in crisis communication, from both critical and managerial/functionalist...
Social media provide organizations with new opportunities for crisis communication but also present dangers, as shown by the Nestlé palm oil crisis. This paper examines Nestlé’s crisis communication during the palm oil crisis and Facebook fans’ perceptions of the crisis on two of the company’s Facebook fan pages by conducting a content analysis. Th...
Organizational crises and related communication activities can create severe threat to the reputation of organizations. However, the kinds of information stakeholders rely on to decide about causes and responsibility for crises are still not well researched. Therefore, this study investigates if and how stakeholders covary organizations with crisis...
A national survey of German interest groups showed that these nonprofit organizations are substantially lacking crisis preparations. Less than one third use crisis plans, crisis management teams, or crisis scenarios. In terms of web-based crisis communication, nonprofit organizations primarily relied on traditional forms of online communication for...
Durch Globalisierungsprozesse in allen Gesellschaftssektoren, insbesondere in der Wirtschaft, hat die Relevanz internationaler Public Relations in den letzten Jahren dramatisch zugenommen. Die Zahl transnationaler Unternehmen stieg nach Angaben der UNO im Jahr 2006 auf 78.000 mit geschätzten 780.000 Tochterunternehmen. PR-Dienstleister stellen sich...
Guadalajara El proceso de selección de las noticias ocurre dentro de un complejo marco conformado por variables socioculturales, económicas, políticas, organizacionales y psicológicas. Entre los enfoques académicos que se han desarrollado para analizarlo el de mayor influencia ha sido, sin duda, la teoría de los valores noticiosos, un acercamiento...
Zur Relevanz und Situation der Öffentlichkeitsarbeit in deutschen Verbänden wurden bislang mit wenigen Ausnahmen (vgl. Hackenbroch
1998, Sebaldt 2002) kaum wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen durchgeführt. Insbesondere im Hinblick auf die Krisenkommunikation
dieser Interessenorganisationen und politischen Akteure liegen nahezu keine Forschungsergebnis...
Um den kovariationsbasierten Ansatz und die in diesem Zusammenhang hervorgebrachten Befunde daraufhin zu prüfen, welche Folgerungen für ein theoriegeleitetes Handeln von Kommunikationsverantwortlichen ableitbar sind, muss eine Mesoperspektive auf Public Relations im Krisenkontext eingenommen werden. Definitorisch wird Public Relations hier als Teil...
Bevor mit der Entwicklung eines konzeptionellen Rahmens für die Untersuchung begonnen werden kann, wird zunächst ein kursorisch-diskursiver Überblick über die Theoriedebatte der Public Relations-Forschung gegeben. Damit sollen die dominierenden Verständnisse von Öffentlichkeitsarbeit betrachtet und gegenübergestellt werden, um daraus einen geeignet...
Im Rahmen der Vorstellung des forschungsleitenden Ansatzes der Arbeit ist bereits deutlich geworden, was das primäre Erkenntnisinteresse ist. Die übergeordnete Fragestellung lautet: Welchen Einfluss haben Organisationskrisen und dabei ablaufende Wahrnehmungsbzw. Kommunikationsprozesse auf die Reputation von Organisationen und wie lassen sich diese...
Betrachten wir uns und unsere Handlungen im Alltag selbst, werden die meisten von uns feststellen, dass wir bei einer Vielzahl von beobachteten Ereignissen bzw. Verhaltensweisen anderer Individuen oder Gruppen die Frage nach dem Warum stellen. Reisende fragen sich, warum der Zug Verspätung hat, Gäste des Freibads warum die Vorhersagen des Meteorolo...
Die übergeordnete Zielstellung dieser Arbeit war auf den Zusammenhang zwischen Krisen und Organisationsreputation gerichtet. Durch eine stakeholderorientierte theoretische und analytische Betrachtung sollten wahrnehmungs- und kommunikationsspezifische Faktoren identifiziert werden, die zur Erklärung dieses Zusammenhangs beitragen. Forschungsleitend...
Im ersten Schritt der Ergebnisdarstellung soll die Zusammensetzung der untersuchten Stichproben beider Versuche dargestellt werden. Damit werden die Resultate der Datenanalyse transparenter und besser bewertbar. Die wesentliche Funktion besteht in der statistischen Beschreibung der einzelnen Samples im Hinblick auf allgemeine soziodemografische Mer...
Dass Krisen das Ansehen von Unternehmen oder anderen Organisationen erheblich beschädigen können, ist unter Krisenmanagern, Kommunikationsberatern und Wissenschaftlern konsentiert. Über die Einflussfaktoren, die den Zusammenhang zwischen Krise und Reputation genauer erklären, ist bislang jedoch wenig bekannt. Andreas Schwarz entwickelt daher ein Mo...
The potential of attribution theory is, by far, not exhausted to understand how causal attributions of stakeholders arise and how they influence their perceptions of organizations under crisis conditions. Therefore, a theoretical framework for explaining covariation-based causal inferences will be proposed for crisis communication research. Illustr...
Politische und ökonomische Krisen werden sowohl von den Medien als auch von der Wissenschaft seit einigen Jahren aufmerksamer
verfolgt. So zählte das Institute for Crisis Management zwischen 1996 und 2000 in den USA pro Jahr noch rund 7000 Unternehmenskrisen,
über die Medien im Wirtschaftsteil berichteten. In den Jahren 2005 und 2006 bezifferte das...
Krisenkommunikation zwischen Organisationen und ihren Anspruchsgruppen wurde in Deutschland bisher kaum explizit aus einer rezeptionsorientierten Perspektive unter-sucht. Besonders die Wahrnehmung von Ursachen und Verantwortlichkeit für Krisen so-wie die Folgen für die Reputation von Organisationen sind von Interesse, da Öffentlich-keitsarbeit unte...
Empirical studies which examine the theory of newsworthiness and the predictability of news coverage in transnational or developing countries still remain on the agenda of journalism research. Therefore, this study examines the influence of news factors on the foreign news coverage of three Mexican newspapers. Two main questions guide the research....
