My (Current) Research Topic

Taylor Newcomb

I mean current because like all other graduate students, everything is fluid at this moment. I was considering a research topic on crisis communications in sports, but changed my mind after learning some drawbacks to that certain profession (no family life, high blood pressure, alcoholism). I have decided to go in a different direction. I still would like to study Coombs' crisis communication theories and how it affects the way people communicate in crises. However, I would also like to see it would link to Bernays' "Propaganda," a seminal treatise on public relations. 

Basically, Bernays' work deals with how public relations officials (or propagandists) can affect the way people think and how they can be influenced by organizations and governments. Coombs' can fit into that by using Bernays' basic concept and using it's guidelines to influence the way people think about a certain crisis. As Bernays noted, "Modern propaganda is a consistent enduring effort to create or shape events to influence the relations of the public to an enterprise, idea or group." 

I have recently become interested in how organizations and individuals deal with crises. This is an off shoot of my intense interest in such (some may think) morbid interest in airplane crashes, boat sinkings, train derailments, and general engineering disasters. What drives my interests in these events is how those involved investigate the events and then relay what they have found to the public. If I could, I would love an internship with the communications department of the NTSB because it would give me a front line understanding of how they investigate the disasters and then communicate with the public. 

In the aftermath of a disaster, communicating with the public is very important and should be handled just right. For the ways to screw up such a communication, one just has to see how the local, state, and federal governments communicated with the public in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. That situation could have probably been handled much better. However, I would prefer a more specific view of situations and how organizations and the NTSB responded, such as after a plane crash. 

When the NTSB communicates with the public over the course of their investigation, how do they do it? Do they follow such guidelines as Coombs and express mortification at the event then explain what they have found? Or is it very dry and not very public friendly? 

That as it is, is my current research topic. The NTSB is not a specific aim of my research, it is just a great example and a government organization that interests me immensely. I could also look at the specific companies involved with the disasters. However, this all (as everything does) depends on where I get an internship and what possibilities it presents.