Response Strategies by News Corporation - Term Paper Example

Khaled’s (Decision Making) Student’s Name Course Instructor Date Table of Contents Table of Contents 2 Response Strategies by News Corporation 3 Most Dominant SCCT Strategy 4 News Corporation Directed Speaker 5 Variation in Message Strategies among the Speakers 6 Variation of Message Strategies over Time 7 News Corporation with SCCT Model 8 References 10 Khaled’s (Decision Making) Response Strategies by News Corporation The News Corporation response to disaster reveals a lot that can be learnt from the incident. The scandal that was revealed at the News Corporations involved journalists who hacked into communications by aid of phones. They illegally accessed voice communications and were also involved in other bribery activities in order to conceal the act. The person at the center of all these was the owner Mr. Rupert Murdoch. The labor MPs had declared him unfit to occupy a managerial position in big corporations. This was based on the fact that he failed in his role and that is he is the reason phone hacking went on without notice. Nevertheless, the Board of Directors marshaled up their support and came out strongly to support. He went ahead to assure the senior employees of the company that it had corrected those mistakes and it was ready to move on with reviving the company. But before he made this announcement to his employees, the company had made a lot of losses. The decision taken by the company was timely enough to deal with the issue at hand. From Coombs’ disaster management criteria, the News Corporations adopted mortification strategy. This strategy focuses on winning forgivenessof the public after taking full responsibility for the act that was committed. This was the case with the News Corporations when found in the midst of a huge phone scandal. The corporation undertook full responsibility and was willing to make up for the genuine losses. As at June, 2012 the number of claimants for the losses caused by phone hacking stood at 70. The corporation was willing to compensate all of them as long as the losses arose from the phone hacking scandal. The corporation put necessary measures in place to make sure an occurrence of that nature does not occur another time. This seemingly has worked for the News Corporations in mitigating the situation the corporation was found in. Most Dominant SCCT Strategy The SCCT as developed by Coomb has five disaster mitigation strategies. These include non-existence strategies, distance strategies, ingratiation strategies, mortification strategies and suffering strategies. All these strategies have been used by different organizations depending on the prevailing circumstances. What might have been effective in one organization may not be effective in a different organization. Therefore the effectiveness of each criterion is dependent on the nature of the disaster. At the same time, the level of preparedness is useful in helping one tellthe best solution for the disaster. Of these strategies developed by Coomb, the strategy that is rarely used is the suffering strategy. Analysis shows that in most situations, the mortification strategy has been considered one of the most successful and therefore the most adopted by many organizations. Whenever most of the tragedies strike the organizations are more comfortable to adopt this strategy as a way of admitting an offense that has already taken place. In most of the scenarios, the situation is too obvious for an organization to fail to take responsibility. This happens over and over. A failure to take responsibility in situations where the public is much aware that it was the fault of the organization will be felt as dishonesty. The public may react by moving away whenever they realize the organization has failed to take responsibility for mistakes they made. Due to this, most of the organizations try as much as they can to avoid this. This is the reason most of them choose to confess the mistake and take full responsibility and ask the public to forgive them and promise to change everything possible to avoid a repetition of the event. News Corporation Directed Speaker The need for disaster managers to understand the situation on the ground cannot be ignored at any point. Most of the situations of disaster management involve experts to understand the situation before it is communicated to other members of the organization in order for the necessary measures to be undertaken. We can learn from Tenerife airline disaster and how the situation was responded to. The airline crash left almost all the passengers plus the crew on board dead. The communication of the situation revealed that that was one of the reasons the disaster was not effectively managed. An analysis showed that there was poor communication and co-ordination between the crew on the airline and the team at the station. One of the reasons attributable to this is lack or weak centralized communication channels. There is a need to be an established central communication with little or no defaults to help channel vital information to relevant sources in the times of disaster. This is to ensure speedy retrieval and utilization of information relevant for mitigation of a given situation. Same situation applies to the operations at News Corporation. In their case, there were established communication channels. Most of the time, the crisis was communicated through a centralized channel. The channel consisted of the main speaker that was directed by the corporation. The main speaker is assisted by other speakers who provide timely reinforcement to the main speaker. The focus of all these is to have a communication system that will effectively deal with emerging issues. These issues relate to potential disasters that are likely to affect the operation of the corporation. These in other words, are the means put in place by the corporation to ensure preparedness in relation to possible disasters. The level of preparedness will always determine the way an organization responds to disasters and other tragedies. These were ensured at the News Corporation were facilitated to make sure the organization does not succumb to the potential losses. This is what led to establishment of the communication channel to deal with scenarios of that nature. Variation in Message Strategies among the Speakers The use of different speakers in various dispositions of the emergence handling will definitely have a different impact on general mitigation of the crisis. Different speakers are likely to relay varied information in combating tragedies in case they do occur. This is likely to complicate the situation further. For a unified approach, the speakers have to be directed by the overall speaker who communicates the final overview of the situation to the disaster management crew. This helps in most scenarios because the chances of poor communication characterized by communicating irrelevant details are fully controlled. This is done in a manner that will enable the whole organization to marshal its machinery towards the main issue to be tackled in the organization. Therefore the variations in message strategies work to ensure different areas of concern are covered using the available resources. All these are directed at making sure that the emergence situation does not completely affect the operations of the entity. They are geared at ensuring that the solution to prevailing situation is arrived at by minimizing the extent of losses that are probable to happening. In the case of News Corporations, the different message strategies worked in communicating the issue not only to employees but also the shareholders and other relevant stake holders. This was meant to ensure effective communication and flow of information that is very important in dealing with situations of this nature. Every part of the organization ought to be communicated to effectively depending on the role they are supposed to play in the mitigation of the problem. For instance, Mr. Murdoch sent mails to over 50000 employees to communicate to them the situation on the ground because he knew they played a greater role in finding the solution to the problem that was prevailing at that particular time. The end of it is that this communication brought forth the required fruits. Though the chairman was to be ousted according to the reports that had been released, he beat all the odds and remained as the chairman of the organization. This happened because of the effective in the kind of communication channels that were adopted. They had varied messaging strategies that effectively solved the problem at hand. Variation of Message Strategies over Time Message strategies vary with time. Even in the arena of mitigation of disasters, the variation in message strategies over time is evident. In most cases, the position of the message strategies will obviously depend upon the state in which the disaster management is in (Sylves 2008, p.56). They will have to change with the change in time. This is focused at ensuring that at every level, the kind of information being passed over to the required receiver carries the relevant content to be helpful in the mitigation. This is aimed at ensuring effectiveness. To do this, the messaging strategies must ensure that over time new strategies are regularly reviewed to ensure situations are dealt with as they arrive. In relation to the News Corporation, it is true that message strategies kept on varying with time (Coppola 2011, p.113-114). The position of the messaging strategies was always in tandem with the growing understanding and feelings of the surrounding people regarding the phone hacking scandal. The mood and the general feeling of these people have to be put into consideration in the message strategies being developed. This is because the mitigation of the problem at the News Corporation was not just for the short-term objectives but also long-term plans. This is to ensure an incidence of this particular nature does not recur at any time in life. The problem has to be dealt with once and the corporation also focuses on restoring the confidence to the customer. This highlights the need to effectively put in place the necessary measures for the given purpose. At the same time, the variations in strategies caused by time period elapsed are also an issue that should be considered. News Corporation with SCCT Model It is true that SCCT has provided recommendations meant specifically to respond to a various kinds of crisis. While some of them were followed strictly by the News Corporation, some of them were not followed. The recommendations as per the SCCT provide guidelines for the mitigation approaches in different circumstances (Collins 2000, p.98). We will analyze all the recommendations and clarify whether News Corporation adopted that strategy or not. For instance, one of the recommendations by SCCT provides instructing information to all victims in the form of warning and directions for protecting themselves against potential harm. With this, News Corporation did not alert people on this. Instead, the indicators like stock market were enough to show the various stakeholders that all was not well and they needed to do whatever was within their reach to minimize loss of assets. Another recommendation according to SCCT was providing adjusting information to victims by expressing concern over them and providing corrective actions as possible. This recommendation was implemented by the News Corporation to the fullest. Over 70 claimants some who had sued the corporation were compensated for the loss that had arisen from phone hacking. Therefore, this recommendation was fully implemented. Besides, another assumption was use of diminishing strategies for accident crises history or unfavorable prior reputation. In respect to this strategy, the company did not utilize any past records in relation to this recommendation. Another recommendation involves use of rebuilding strategies for accident crises when there is a crisis history or unfavorable prior reputation. This strategy was not implemented fully by News Corporation because there is no history of unfavorable prior reputation. This is based on the fact that there is not yet recorded details about these details in relation to News Corporation. Therefore, this was skipped in the process of crisis response. There is also the use of rebuilding strategies for any preventable crisis. This was instituted by the corporation in order to ensure future occurrences are fully put under control. There were strategies that were put in place basically to ensure the recurrence of such an event is minimized at all costs. Another strategy is the denial strategy in rumor crises circulating at any particular time. This recommendation was implemented at early stage when things had not been revealed in totality. Later on, other strategies were put in place to ensure that the situation is averted completely. This was also in line with other basic long-term goals of the organization. References Collins, R 2000, Disaster Management and Preparedness, CRC Press, New York, p.98. Coppola, D 2011, Introduction to International Disaster Management, Second Edition, Butterworth-Heinemann, MA, p.113-114. Coppola, D 2011, Introduction to International Disaster Management, Butterworth-Heinemann, MA, p.22-24. Sylves, R 2008, Disaster Policy and Politics: Emergency Management and Homeland Security, CQ Press, Washington, DC, p.56. Beach, M 2010, Disaster Preparedness and Management, F.A. Davis Company, New York, p.44. Mukesh, K 2011, Disaster Management, Saurabh Publishing House, New Delhi, p.177. Epstein, E 2012, Disaster Management and Tactics for 2012, CreateSpace Independent, Publishing Platform, New Jersey, p.111. Lindell, M, Prater, C & Perry, R 2006,Emergence Management, Wiley, New Jersey, p.92. Bradley, A 2012, Handbook to Practical Disaster Preparedness for the Family, CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, New Jersey,p.35. Dohert, G 2007, Crisis Intervention Training for Disaster Workers, Rocky Mountain DMH Institute Press; 1st edition, Ann Arbor, MI, p214. Read More