This volume centers on the relationship between media and crisis communication, the need to address which has only been heightened by the recent experience of COVID-19 and the needs for public health crisis communication.

With multiple voices and multiple fields engaging simultaneously with crisis communication, this book illuminates the role of media in crisis communication within this complex environment. Both traditional and digital media, including social media platforms, respond to an array of crisis contexts including political crises, public health crises, disasters, and organizational crises. The book presents original research that approaches the effects of media in any of the possible crisis contexts.

This collection will interest scholars and students of crisis communication, public relations, risk communication, digital media, and political communication.

W. Timothy Coombs (PhD Purdue University) is a former university professor and currently is on the Advisory Board for the Centre for Crisis & Risk Communications and is the Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Contingencies and Crisis Management. He has been researching crisis communication for the past 30 years and develop the situational crisis communication theory. His crisis communication research has won multiple awards from professional organizations including the Jackson, Jackson & Wagner Behavioral Science Prize from the Public Relations Society of America and the Pathfinder Award from the Institute of Public Relations in recognition of his research contributions to the field and to the practice. He is the author of Communicating in Extreme Crises: Lessons from the Edge. Coombs is also an ICA Fellow and an Academic Core member of the University of Georgia Crisis Communication Think Tank.