Communication Ethics and Crisis

Negotiating Differences in Public and Private Spheres

By (author) J. M. H. Fritz Contributions by S Alyssa Groom, Janie M. Harden Fritz, Craig E. Mattson, John H. Prellwitz, Celeste Grayson Seymour, Timothy L. Sellnow University of Kentucky, Deanna D. Sellnow, Steven Venette, Spoma Jovanovic University of North Carolina, Greensboro, Roy V. Wood, Pat J. Gehrke, Ronald C. Arnett Duquesne University

Publication date:

19 December 2011

Length of book:

196 pages

Publisher

Fairleigh Dickinson University Press

Dimensions:

239x163mm
6x9"

ISBN-13: 9781611474497

This collection of essays extends the conversation on communication ethics and crisis communication to offer practical wisdom for meeting the challenges of a complex and ever-changing world. In multiple contexts ranging from the intrapersonal, interpersonal, and family to the political and public, moments of crisis call us to respond from within particular standpoints that shape our understanding and our response to crisis as we grapple with contested notions of "the good" in our shared life together. With no agreed-upon set of absolutes to guide us, this moment calls us to learn from difference as we seek resources to continue the human conversation as we engage the unexpected. This collection of essays invites multiple epistemological and methodological standpoints to consider alternative ways of thinking about communication ethics and crisis.

Acknowledgments
Contributors
Introduction
Part One:Narrativity and Situatedness
Moviegoing Epideictic: Walker Percy and the Rhetorical Tradition
Dialogic Meeting of Crisis: Illuminating Illusions Of The Death Of God and Nietzsche's Revaluation of Values
Understanding Anxiety: The Crisis of Ethical Choice
Part Two:Response-ability as Inner Transparency
Interpersonal Crisis Communication in the Workplace: Professional Civility as Ethical Response to Problematic Interactions
Questioning Back: Engaging an Organization's Narrative for Ethical Communicative Responsiveness in Crisis Situations
The Ethical Imperative Of Significant Choice: Addressing Learning Styles in Crisis Messages
Part Three:Discerning Public and Private Spheres
A More Perfect Union: Recovering Ethics in Public Dialogue
The Crisis Fallacy: Egoism, Epistemology, and Ethics in Crisis Communication and Preparation
Communication Ethics as Janus at the Gates: Responding to Postmodernity and the Normativity of Crisis

In this unified collection, Groom and Fritz (both, Duquesne Univ.) feature prominent and rising American ethics scholars. In three distinct sections, these essays establish that crisis reactions can be understood through the presentation of a narrative; investigate the idea of a productive distance between a crisis and the responder, despite the impossibility of mastering the crisis; and distinguish the differences between public and private contexts. The editors assert that a banal view of crisis has developed due to its increased permeation of public and private spheres. Celeste Grayson Seymour confirms this position in her essay, 'Understanding Anxiety: The Crisis of Ethical Choice'; she explains that this universal human crisis is due to the restless state of existence. In 'The Crisis Fallacy: Egoism, Epistemology, and Ethics in Crisis Communication and Preparation,' Pat Gehrke (Univ. of South Carolina) invites the reader to turn unreflective engagement into reflective engagement. This unique collection extends the conversation on communication ethics and crisis communication through its multiplicity of perspectives. Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through researchers/faculty.