Crisis Communication ─ Case Studies and Lessons Learned from International Disasters

The book takes a close and "inside" look at recent tragedies and natural disasters and focuses on the communication aspect of each incident. For most case studies, it provides accounts from people handling the event, e.g. communication staff or management. Each chapter begins with an eye witness report or a newspaper article describing the event, and use news clips, web pages or messages from Twitter or Facebook as illustrations. The book covers three types of incidents: 1) Natural catastrophes 2) Accidents and 3) Terror and man-made events.

Kjell Brataas has worked with crisis communication on some of the biggest crises hitting Norway. He had central positions after the tsunami, including weekly meetings with survivors and next-of-kin and organizing travels back to Thailand in 2005. After the terrorism attacks in Oslo and on Utoya on July 22nd 2011, he worked on media handling, internal communication and next-of-kin. He assisted at the media center and was in charge of social media monitoring during visits to Utoya in August for survivors and family members. Before starting his own company, Kjell was part of the editorial board for the national crisis portal Kriseinfo.no. Through Brataas Crisis Communication he helps private companies and government entities update and improve their crisis communication plans, he advises on establishing systems and routines for next-of- kin support and he arranges exercises that include social media.

Mr. Brataas headed a government task force that gave advice to the ministries about use of social media. He has developed guidelines for social media for a variety of organizations, and he is a Hootsuite Partner, which enables him to give advice and set up systems and dashboards for social media monitoring.