Breaking bad news with CONSOLE: Toward a framework integrating medical protocols with crisis communication

Publication Type

Journal Article

Publication Date

3-2019

Abstract

This paper develops the CONSOLE (Coherence, Orientation, Nuance, Support, Ongoing, Leadership, Emotions) framework to guide practitioners on how to break bad news effectively to stakeholders during crises. Arguably the first study integrating well-established medical protocols such as SPIKES (Baile et al., 2000) and COMFORT (Villagran et al., 2010) with crisis communication literature, the CONSOLE framework is applied on four aviation crises to examine the manner in which organizations communicate bad news on social media platforms, which are increasingly used to communicate with stakeholders (Siah, Bansal & Pang, 2010). Data was obtained during the height of the crises (Vasterman, 2005) from official Twitter and Facebook pages of Malaysia Airlines, AirAsia and Asiana Airlines. Findings showed that the airlines’ communication of bad news to stakeholders suffer from emotional deficit. Practitioners can use the CONSOLE framework to break bad news in a holistic and empathetic manner during crises.

Keywords

Bad news, Social media, Crisis communication

Discipline

Business and Corporate Communications | Social Media

Research Areas

Corporate Communication

Publication

Public Relations Review

Volume

45

Issue

1

First Page

153

Last Page

166

ISSN

0363-8111

Identifier

10.1016/j.pubrev.2018.10.013

Publisher

Elsevier

Additional URL

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pubrev.2018.10.013

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