ATTENTION: this minor is taught throughout semester 1 & 2, and not only P3 as indicated in the brochure.

After completing this course, students can take an advisory and operational role in organizations anticipating, going through or recovering from a crisis.  

The students will learn to write crisis communication plans based on the characteristics of an organization, its stakeholders, its relation to public in a determined hierarchy of relevance and importance, and the assessed risks in and around the organization.  

In unfolding crisis situations students can choose appropriate strategies, produce adequate and sensibly and sensitively worded messages, both during and in the aftermath of the crisis, with a clear eye on the extra dimension social media and spread of fake news/disinformation have added to contemporary crisis communication.  

The experience of going through a real time simulation, with the inevitable stress involved, will give students some notion if crisis communication is a field they may want to explore further or consider as a career opportunity.  

After completing this course successfully, the student is equipped to: 

 

• analyse risks that threaten an organization and its reputation 
• make an inventory of relevant stakeholders 
• make a communication plan, based on the above, to help an organization handle these risks and/or an ensuing crisis 
• choose adequate strategies to deal with occurring crises 
• produce relevant and significant messages for (groups of) stakeholders before, during and in the aftermath of such a crisis 
• choose relevant channels for divulging messages (including social media, and with a keen eye on competing (dis)information being divulged) 
• participate actively and productively in crisis simulations 
• perform a comprehensive evaluation of their own and others’ performances in a crisis simulation 

These objectives are aligned with the learning outcomes as set by the Dutch organization of collaborating Communication studies (LOCO). 

This minor is open to any student with an English level B2 (CEFR) or over.

Students will be asked to collect relevant information concerning the organization they write a crisis communication report for from a wide range of sources. 

Apart from that a reader will be made available containing book chapters and/or articles recommended by experts in the field of crisis communication. 

A minimum of three times a week for content, fieldtrips, guest lectures, workshops, project work with coaches and presentations. Since we work with guest speakers and fieldtrips, exact dates will be provided before the start of the minor and are subject to change during. Keep in mind that it’s a full time minor.

5 hours of lecture per week on average, which includes three crisis simulations, guest lectures and a crisis press conference plus homework and group assignments.

Students hand in a portfolio to be assessed in two stages, with two deliverables:  

Part 1: A crisis communication plan, to be finalized after the first half of the semester (to be handed in in week 9 of the semester)    Part 2: An evaluation report based on the simulation (to be handed in in week 17 of the semester) 

 

Both reports need to be graded with at least a 5.5 to pass; the final grade for the minor will be the average of the two, each weighing 50%.  

The deadline for the resit of the first part, the crisis communication report, is set in week 18 of the semester. The resit deadline for the evaluation report is week 19 of the semester. 

A special feature of the course is the Realtime Crisis Simulation, preceded by a pressure cooker session focusing on spokespersonship. During the simulation, all groups participate in a realistic crisis scenario in a tabletop, real-time set-up. 

Evaluating group performance in this simulation following current standards is an integral part of the course.  

Partners

In this minor we collaborate with a number of partners who support the course in various capacities: providing input on content, outlining current affairs and/or providing guest lectures: 

-NCTV, Nationaal Coördinator Terrorismebestrijding en Veiligheid 

-Veiligheidsregio Haaglanden  

--Deep White Communication Agency, Riga, Latvia 

Notable other contributors will represent the following organizations as guest lecturers on specific topics: 

-KLM, Royal Dutch Airlines, Press contacts department 

-RET, Rotterdam Public Transport, Public Affairs department