...relevance in Australia and New Zealand Natascha Pancic A thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree Master of International Communication Unitec New Zealand, 2010 ABSTRACT This research project explores crisis communication in theory and practice in Australia and New Zealand with specific focus on cultural influence, strategy applicability, and stakeholder relevance. A mixed-method approach was used to evaluate crisis communication in its theoretical and practical constituents. The research project comprises of the two data collection methods of content analysis and in-depth interviews. The content analysis, the selected method to evaluate the theory, was conducted from published research studies in leading Australian and New Zealand Public Relations and Communication journals, the websites of the PRism journal, the Australian and New Zealand Communication Association (ANZCA), the Public Relations Institutes of Australia (PRIA) and New Zealand (PRINZ), and via the database search platform Ebsco. The content analysis provided information about the number of published articles, leading theoretical models, research methods, and research orientation. The in-depth interviews, the chosen method to investigate the crisis communication practices, were conducted with three Australian and three New Zealand practitioners and addressed the issues of cultural influence, strategy applicability, and stakeholder relevance in crisis communication...
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