Honors Theses
Date of Award
5-2022
Document Type
Undergraduate Thesis
Department
Integrated Marketing Communication
First Advisor
Deborah Hall
Second Advisor
Amanda Bradshaw
Third Advisor
Debora Wenger
Relational Format
Dissertation/Thesis
Abstract
This thesis, in effort to examine modern-day crisis communications, focuses on the analysis of University of Mississippi’s initial crisis communications during the COVID-19 pandemic during March 2020. The purpose of this research was to evaluate the university’s communication efforts during this crisis in order to determine the effectiveness of the University of Mississippi’s initial COVID-19 crisis communications. First, the researcher analyzed historical case studies on three notable crisis communications (the Johnson & Johnson Tylenol Crisis of 1982, the United Airlines Crisis of 2017, and the Crock-Pot Crisis of 2018). From these case studies, qualities of good crisis communications were determined for comparison with the University of Mississippi’s crisis communications. The next step for defining strong crisis communications was an interview with Jon Haber, an Adjunct Lecturer in Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government who provided insight on the historical crises as well as commentary on crisis communications in the modern day. Harvard University is known for teaching the Johnson & Johnson case study as a main portion of their crisis communications classes which led me to finding Haber who teaches crisis communications at the university. After compiling this information on crisis communications, federal and local statistics from March 2020 were accessed to describe the state of the pandemic during this month. The next step included gathering federal, state, and local communications were gathered to better understand what was occurring outside the University of Mississippi at this point of COVID-19. Also for comparison with the University of Mississippi’s communications, communication departments at other SEC universities (Auburn University, University of Missouri, and University of Georgia) were contacted in order to request archived communications that they were sharing with their audiences during this time. The final aspects of research included one interview with three key members behind the University of Mississippi’s crisis communications efforts as well as analyzing the emails shared by the university regarding COVID-19 during March 2020. I reached out to the University of Mississippi’s Chief Marketing and Communications Officer, Jim Zook who additionally brought the university’s Strategic Communications Director, Lisa Stone, and the university’s Emergency Management Coordinator, Josh Glasz, into the interview as well. This study showed that the University of Mississippi had key components of strong crisis communications (they were audience-focused, consistent and constant with updates, and had timely, genuine, and helpful communications) as well as illuminated the importance of using social media and modern-day communications to an organization’s advantage when dealing with a contemporary crisis.
Recommended Citation
Waitley, Sydney, "Communicating Through a Crisis: An Analysis of The University of Mississippi's Initial COVID-19 Crisis Communications" (2022). Honors Theses. 2552.
https://egrove.olemiss.edu/hon_thesis/2552
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