The Government Situational Crisis Communication Analysis:a Case Study Of The Qingdao Pipeline Explosion Accident

Nowadays, our social life is full of stress and danger. However, it develops crisis-resolution mechanism in some ways and tests the ability to communication and management, which is including crisis prevention, crisis response and crisis learning. Due to the frequent crisis has inevitably, our government become exhausted to response these situational crises, lacking of management and communication mechanism is the practical difficult problem for our government. Therefore, the core part of this research is how to use media to enhance communication with the public and use crisis response strategies to preserve government’s image, it is also the focus of my research. This research has discussed the case of "Qingdao Pipeline Explosion Accident", bases on the Situational Crisis Communication Theory. At the same time, Stage Analysis Theory and Media Effectiveness Theory has supported to this paper. A content analysis has adopted in this crisis, which is a analytical method to explore how government use response strategies to handle different situational crises and the relevance between situational crises and response strategies. This research try to draw the experience of the overseas studies and combine it with Chinese government. Meanwhile, with the aid of Media Effectiveness Theory can evaluate the effect of government crisis response strategies. It is not only reflected the assessment of government action during this crisis, but also revealed the public perception. It is hoped that the paper can provide some advices to the areas of crisis response, public communication and social media. By these means, our government can turn our present difficulties into opportunities and find a better way to build up an efficient, transparent and credible government image.After the case study of Qingdao Pipeline Explosion Accident, the research found that rebuild crisis strategies is the key response strategy during this crisis. Information and compensation strategies are two favorite strategies in the secondary crisis response strategies. By analyzing the process of crisis management, government behaviors entirely match the requirement of situational crisis communication theory:rebuild strategies oriented, bolstering strategies assisted. Ingratiation and compensation strategies are used to foster stakeholder relationships. However, the effectiveness of government response strategies from traditional media doesn’t work perfect ideally. Therefore, the research gives some constructive suggestions for the government crisis management and communication:First of all, the government should set up crisis awareness and public consciousness, strengthen the warning of the crisis and emergency mechanism. Secondly, ensuring informational transparency of government, showing the respect to the right to know of public. Thirdly, optimizing crisis management system and crisis communication mechanism to expand the efficiency of information transmission. Last but not least, improving the management of web-communication, enriching the government crisis communication system.