دانلود رایگان مقاله جلوگیری از آسیب: روان شناسی بحران های ارتباط با بحران در ورزش های سازمان یافته

abstract

Sports crisis communication is a growing field of study, with research focusing on the image repair of athletes and teams,fan solidarity during crises, and the role of mass and new media in crisis development. However, reflecting a broader tendency in crisis communication to emphasize the study of response strategies at the expense of other factors, sports crisis communication research has not examined the unique factors in sports that prevent crises from causing severe image and reputation damage. In this paper, we apply Coombs’ notion of buffers to argue for new attention to two particularly important buffers in sports: communities and political economy. These buffers often preclude the need for any response at all, and crisis communication practitioners would do well to implement them around their own sports teams to prevent damage from crises.

4. Conclusion

This paper has attempted to shine a theoretical light on the concept of the buffer in sports crisis communication, but also to expand on it in a conceptual way useful for crisis communication generally and sports crisis communication specifically. This conceptual approach is naturally limited to description; further quantitative research into the variations in buffers and the situations in which they work and do not work would be helpful. Nonetheless, determining what “comes between” the crisis and its image or reputational damage is important to crisis response theory, as it helps contextualize strategy. Before choosing a strategy, professional crisis communicators in sports and other fields must consider the community and political-economic factors that may help the organization and its athletes.