I have an issue.

Chapter 10- An Issues-Crisis Perspective

All over the world there are issues that affect not only an individual or an organization, but the whole world. Such issues include global warming, terrorism, species extinction, diseases and viruses such as HIV, natural disasters, racial discrimination and so forth. The public will have strong opinions on these issues and when there is a large number of people working towards an issue, they can often bring about change.

It is important for an organization to recognize the issues that the public is concerned with because how they handle their practices may reflect their reputation and credibility. Public Relations play an important role when managing crisis and events because they are interlinking with the media, which will present and portray the news to the public in a particular way.

Crisis as explained in the text is a highly uncertain event with causes and effects that are unknown. If a crisis is major and it occurs with potentially negative outcomes, it will affect the organization as well as the publics, products and services and its reputation. A crisis needs to be managed carefully.

The main difference between issue and crisis is that issues arise when there is a gap between what a company does and the key expectations the public has for the company. Crisis however, are unpredictable.

A PR person needs to be able to manage issues. They need to identify and understand trends and concerns that is likely to affect the organization and its key publics. What the PR needs to do is able to meet public expectations or even better, to exceed it.