Includes bibliographical references and index.

Process approach : take a process approach to crisis communication -- Pre-event planning : engage in pre-event planning for crisis communication -- Partnerships : form stakeholder partnerships with publics -- Public concern : listen to and acknowledge concerns of publics -- Honesty : communication with honesty, frankness, and openness -- Collaborate : collaborate and coordinate with credible sources -- Media access : meet the needs of the media and remain accessible -- Compassion : communicate with compassion -- Uncertainty : accept uncertainty and ambiguity -- Empowerment : communicate messages of empowerment.

"This book expands the focus by taking a 'best practices' approach to crisis communication and emergency risk communication, including an extensive discussion of how risks are identified and managed as part of crisis planning and recovery, as well as audience analysis, pre- and long-term post-crisis recovery, and the return to risk assessment and crisis planning. In addition, the added focus on emergencies, those threatening events that happen with greater frequency than full-blown crises, makes this book more appealing for practitioners than a book dedicated solely to crisis communication. Moreover, the added focus on emergencies includes naturally occurring events such as earthquakes, tornadoes, hurricanes, tsunamis, epidemics, and pandemics. In existing crisis communication texts, these events are generally not covered in detail"--