Using the University Website to Communicate Crisis Information

Public Relations Quarterly, 2008 by Madere, Carol M

In the uncertain days following Hurricane Katrina, when I knew nothing about the condition of the university where I worked, I relied on the university's website to keep me informed and give me direction. At first it contained only the ominous message, "The university is closed until further notice." Eventually, there was a message inviting faculty to a planning meeting on reopening the university. Finally, it supplied a date when faculty, staff and students could resume classes. It was a lifeline to the far-flung university community which had fled to other states to escape the storm.

Following the tragic events at Virginia Tech this spring, universities began to take a closer look at how they could communicate with students quickly when a crisis occurs. Text-messaging systems and mass emailing have been discussed, and in some cases, implemented. However, not much attention has been paid to use of the university website as a crisis communication device, and even less to how students, faculty, staff and their family members, who are not on campus, can receive the most up-to-date news about a campus crisis.

This may be an important oversight, as recent research emphasizes how vital the website is to crisis communication. Kent and Taylor (2007) note that websites are one controlled channel through which organizations can communicate directly with the media and the public, and the level of preparation that goes into developing crisis communication on the web may be the difference between weathering a crisis or succumbing to it. They point out the website's potential to tell the organization's side of the story, reduce uncertainty of publics, address multiple stakeholder needs and work with government agencies that specialize in public safety.

Perry, Taylor and Doerfel (2003), in their extensive study of Internet-based crisis communication, found that (1) a majority of the organizations studied are turning to the Internet to communicate with the public and the news media during a crisis; (2) organizational type does not appear to be a factor in the integration of the Internet in crisis response; (3) crisis type does not appear to be a factor in an organization's decision to use the Internet in its immediate crisis response and (4) most organizations are incorporating both traditional and new media communication tactics into their responses to crisis with a preference for traditional media.

They concluded that organizations that bring in new media tactics and engage publics in proactive discussions before, during and after a crisis exemplify an important movement from one-way communication to two-way interaction between the public and the organization, which may also minimize the potential damage of a crisis with its stakeholders and maximize recovery.

Mechitov, Moshkovich, Underwood, and Taylor (2001) noted that academic institutions deal with young, computer-literate and innovative audiences - students who not only actively consume Internet products but also enthusiastically participate in their development. Thus, the university's website is crucial to its very mission of gathering and disseminating information to students.

McAllister-Greve (2005), in research on the dialogic public practices found in community college websites, emphasized the importance of providing feedback opportunities through websites to build relationships with publics. In crisis communication, this might be represented by online chat facilities where members of the university community can ask questions and receive answers about the crisis and blogs, where people can share their thoughts and even photos. The need for such a forum was evident on the social utilities MySpace and Facebook, which experienced a traffic surge of 555% following the Virginia Tech tragedy.

The tragedy of Hurricane Katrina forced many organizations in Louisiana to rethink their crisis response plans. Before Katrina, crisis planning for many organizations consisted of reminding their employees to unplug their computers before leaving work and telling them how to find out if they would be required to come to work on the day of the storm.

Now, many employers make arrangements for offsite (often out-of-state) information storage and require employees to file evacuation plans so the organization knows how they can be contacted after the storm. They've also had to consider alternative means of communication as cell phones proved to be unreliable and mass media in the affected areas proved to be unable to broadcast. What did prove to be fairly dependable and accessible was the Internet, which is why I could access the university's website and radio station with its audio-streaming capability.

Louisiana's business and government organizations learned many lessons from Katrina, so I wondered how its institutions of higher learning had fared. In my survey of the websites of Louisiana's colleges and universities, I found that 24 schools have some emergency information on their websites while 17 schools do not.