What’s in a crisis?

Abstract

This paper explores some of the presuppositions that underlie the analytical practice in crisis communication studies. Drawing from a wide-ranging corpus of contributions to the field, it distinguishes seven ‘fundamentals’ or basic assumptions. Next, the paper argues that these fundamentals provide evidence of a homogenizing approach to crisis communication for which the label ‘reductionism’ is proposed. The third and final part indicates new directions for further research in the field.