Over the next three years, an interdisciplinary team of researchers from the fields of communication, political science, law, psychology and computer science will find answers to these questions and develop ideas for the practice of effective crisis communication of health care institutions in the future. The International Crisis Communication Research Group at TU Ilmenau analyses challenges, strategies, structures and possible improvements of crisis communication of federal and state governments, subordinate authorities and central organisations of the german health care system. Under the leadership of the research group's director, Prof. Martin Löffelholz, the researchers are investigating the communicative challenges faced by governmental actors at the federal, state and local levels in times of pandemic and what strategies can be derived from this for current crisis management as well as future crisis communication. "Equally, however, we are also looking very specifically at which tools should be used for which media channels - citizens' conversations, radio, television, Internet, etc. - for crisis management: conventional information services such as brochures, or entirely new tools such as dashboards and novel video formats," says Prof. Löffelholz. In doing so, the research group considers both the perspective of the "senders", authorities and the media, and that of the "recipients", the consumers.
In addition to the Federal Institute for Risk Assessment, the TU Ilmenau, the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, the SRH Berlin University of Applied Sciences, the European University Viadrina and the communications agency mecom Medien-Communikations-Gesellschaft mbH, a subsidiary of the Deutsche Presse-Agentur, are involved in the MIRKKOMM project. The scientific and practical expertise is complemented by renowned researchers from germany, the netherlands, the USA and australia, as well as the Robert Koch Institute, the Federal Agency for Civic Education and the Deutsche Presse-Agentur.
Contact:
Prof. Martin Löffelholz
Director International Research Group Crisis Communication
Head of Group Media Studies
+49 3677 69-4703
martin.loeffelholz@tu-ilmenau.de
