On The Role And Function Of Mass Media In Crisis Management

Crisis management has become an important question for discussionamong scholars and pressmen since SARS crisis in 2003. Communication isthe core of crisis management; therefore, media has become theindispensable factor in crisis management. However, taking media as theangle to research crisis management with communication theory is stillinfrequent. Moreover, the scope and the depth of the research is not enough.Basing upon the conduct of mass media in crisis event, this paper mainlyanalyzes media function in crisis management.Usually, western media possesses crisis consciousness; crisis newsoccupies an important role in their news report. Thus it has formed a setof efficient and canonical report mechanism. Therefore, analyzing westernexperience in crisis report is very useful to improve our media. This paperfirstly clean up the characteristic of western crisis report and thecourse of our country's.In the principal part, this paper takes SARS and "Harbin water crisis"as example, deeply analyzes our media's role and function in crisismanagement, such as environmental surveillance, public opinion pilot,public mobilization. At the same time, the negative function of media,which will affect the government crisis management, can not be neglected.Accordingly, this paper proposes how to roundly improve the exertion ofmedia function in crisis management. Actually, crisis communication isthe reciprocity of government, public and media, thus, the improvementof media communication function should include the improvement of mediaitself, the relationship among media, government and public.Finally, this paper expects the future trend of crisis communication,in the hope that the transparence of the opening of governmentalinformation can be fortified; the public confident power of media can beveritably heightened.