1

Gathering Your Crisis Communication Data

• Popular media sources.• Responses by business or

organization.• Public comments.

© 2015 Karen L. Thompson Department of English University of Idaho

2

Find Sources in Popular Digital Media

Look for stories in all media forms about the crisis in (online newspapers, magazines, and blogs, social media etc.). You will also want to find the communication from the business or organization in response to the crisis.

Look video press conferences, and apologies by spokespersons made through media and any campaigns aimed at mitigating the damage.

3

Tips for Internet Searches

• Find a timeline.

• Use it to help you find sources by doing searches about the crisis using specific dates as crisis unfolds.

4

Contain the Amount You Gather

• Use the framework you chose for organizing the crisis stages.

• You just need a representative sample for each stage.

• If you find sources you want to keep, but these don’t fit neatly into one of the stages, don’t worry about it. Collect the data and make a note about that in your research dossier.

5

Populate Your Research Dossier

• Cut and paste excerpts from online sources, but use some highlighting or other emphasis device to separate your writing from that of the source.

• Tip: it helps to cut and paste text into a text editor like NotePad or TextEdit. These are in your PC or Mac.

• Cutting and pasting into the text editor and then cutting and pasting into your Word file will keep the text from getting all wonky on you.

Take some notes about the data (short summaries, analytical notes to help you interpret it later). Decide if you want to code the data as you populate the portfolio.

6

Work Efficiently

• Since crisis events unfold over time.

• Start with the date the event happens and begins to circulate in the media.

• Work with one type of source at a time (online news papers, magazines, blogs, etc.).

7

Remember to grab images.

You can grab them with screenshots.

If you grab a video screenshot, make a link to it in the file.

Your white paper can use live links.