A social constructionist approach to crisis management: Allegations of sudden acceleration in the Audi 5000

2003/03/01 by Keith Michael Hearit, Jeffrey L. Courtright
Arts and Humanities · Social Sciences · #Media Studies and Communication #Public Relations and Crisis Communication #Rhetoric and Communication Studies

paper · doi:10.1080/10510970309363267

openalex publication_date 2003/03/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/29

Abstract

Although most organizational crises begin with an objective triggering event, we maintain that public relations and management approaches (including introductory public relations textbooks), intentionally or not, often follow the positivistic temptation to treat the many components of crisis communication as objective choices, thus obscuring the distinctively communicative character of crises and their resolutions. Consequently, this monograph asserts that crises are dynamic, social constructions that are both created and resolved terminologically. This approach is rooted in the assumption that all perspectives of reality, from scientific discourse to crisis communication, are socially constructed through communication. The case of Audi, after its automobiles were alleged to suffer from “sudden acceleration,” is then used as an exemplar to illustrate the potential contributions that a social constructionist approach to communication offers crisis management researchers.

Citations

• ENACTED SENSEMAKING IN CRISIS SITUATIONS[1]

Related

• Keep calm and carry on - a systematic review of the literature on organizational crisis communication
• Corporate Social Responsibility Rhetoric in Times of Crises. A Rhetorical Analysis of CSR Reports Prior to and After Major Corporate Crises
• Not one crisis, but many. The “crisis cube” and the politics of governing crises
• Crisis Management in Hindsight: Cognition, Communication, Coordination, and Control
• Everyday informality and governance dynamics in crisis situations and beyond