Crisis Communication: The Changing Audience And The Discussion On The Audience Influences

Crisis has become a normal social state, whether government, enterprise or individual is facing the possibility of crisis. Crisis communication is an important part in crisis management and runs through the entire crisis management process. As one of the key elements of crisis communication, audience has an important impact.In this paper, the analyses on the changing audience are base on the crisis incidents that Carrefour faced between 2003 and 2009. After the discussion we know that audience has four changes in crisis communication:Firstly, the audience composition is extended by the stake holders to the public. Secondly, the audience attitude is shifted from passive to initiative. Thirdly, the audience feedback behavior is gradually changed from rational to irrational. Fourthly, the audience focus is changed from self-interest to social value. These changes greatly increase the difficult of crisis communication process.To explore the reasons of audience changes, we make the connection between crisis communication and the society and find out that the following reasons are the root cause:first of all, the changed of social structure is the main reason of audience changes. The second, the development of science and technology provide an opportunity for the audience changes. The third, the change of policies and the expanding the space for mass opinions provide the condition for the audience changes. The last, the change of social value provide the guideline for the audience changes.