Strategic Communication in Crisis Governance: Analysis of the Singapore Management of the SARS Crisis

Abstract

The contingency theory of conflict management and current crisis management literature are integrated in this paper to examine how crisis has been communicated and managed by the Singapore government and what kinds of strategies arose during the various stages of the SARS crisis life-cycle. Findings show that the Singapore government played a predominant role in managing how its multiple publics perceived the crisis by extensive communication through the news media. The media, in turn, playing a supporting nation-building role, assisted the government's management and communication of the crisis. To effectively manage the perception and emotion of the various public, the government had recourse to more accommodative stances. Accommodation embedded in advocacy was the operational approach adopted by the government in order to move its multiple publics in the same strategic direction along an continuum of accommodation.