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Knowing Your Audience

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KNOWING YOUR AUDIENCE PAPER AND COMMUNICATION

ANDRES TAVAREZ

BUSINNESS COMMUNICATION

BCOM/275

PHOENIX UNIVERSITY

5 OCTOBER 2013

As the news hits the airwaves on the 5th of August 2010, about 33 Chilean miners been trapped in a small copper mine located in the northern part of Chile, I start think of not only the difficulty that the miners them self may have been going through, but also the family members for each of the miners. The question of how are they reacting to the fact that their love ones are trapped 300 meters below the surface, and that they have a very limited supply of food, water, and oxygen (Weik, 2010). Not knowing how or when the miners would be rescue and deliver back to their families, how would the owner of the mine interact with the family members? and how will they deliver such bad news to the families while providing them hope? These are the two questions that this author will address and try to answer in this article

How does the owner of the miner prepare to notify the families of the trapped miners? As a mining company one would expect that part of the Emergency Action Plan would cover a situation such as a cave in, the emergency action plan would cover needs to be done, step by step, while no one is really ready for such an emergency, routine practice, and drills. The conduct of such exercise would help the mining company identified, safety concern, procedures for notification, and prepare those that work in the staff for the media frenzy that will happen with such incident occurs. How the employer reacts and acts during the crisis will dictated how the public and the media will see it for years to come, if the employer is seen as careless or thoughtless when dealing with families, they may lose more than just business, they may be the subject of employee’s retaliations or law suit by the employees and families. As you can see how the employer decides to communicate and what they communicate to the families of the victims is very important for both parties involved.

Whatever type of communication the employer chooses, the employer must treat the interactions delicately, keeping in mind the feelings and needs of the families. One of the most important principles of persuasion is that people will tend to go along with you if they believe that doing so will fulfill their personal needs (Neal, 2010). Therefore the employer must keep the audience (families) in mind, whenever they communicate anything out to the media or to the families. With over 1,200 journalists reporting from outside the mine, with approximately 220 been international media from 40 different countries (Yang, 2010) the employer must threat lightly and smart when making press release. What would be some considerations to remember given the different roles and people in the audience that the employer may be talking to? Some of the considerations that the employer must take into account are the feelings of the family at a specific time, the need for information by the public and the need to find answers to the problems or causes of the problems.

If the feelings of the family are not taken into consideration, then the message send by the employer may be miss understood and creat bigger problems for the company as mention ealier. If the public’s need for information is not met, this can cause concern for the employer as well, such as keeping local resident from coming to the incident site or keeping foreign investor inform on the status of the business. There are many different forms of communication that the employer can utilized to get their message across, in the below paragraph this aurthor covers what method would be appropriate for the families and for staff members of the company.

Communication with the family should be perform Face-To-Face by a representative of the company, and they should deliver a message similar to the below:

“It is with our deepest sympathy that I regret to have to inform you and your family that one of your family member is one of the 33 mine workers trapped in one of our mining caves due to cave-in. I would personally like to inform you that as we speak there are rescue workers at the site panning and doing everything in our powers to have your love one(s) back to you as soon as possible…safely. We have set up a hotline for families which will allow us to provide you with answer to any question that you may have, we will do our best to keep you inform informed as the rescue moves forward and new information arrives to us.”

The statement from the employer should address only the need that they have of knowing that their love one are currently safe, and that the company is doing everything in their power to get them back as soon as possible. Too much information about the incident can lead to panic or more grief, just enough information to them know they are been taken care off.

Communication with the staff of the company should be conducted face to face in a meeting forum that would allow for a question and answer:

“We regret to informed all of our employees the following news, we have just been inform that 33 of our fellow co-workers are trapped due to a cave in at one of our Northern Chile copper mining. A rescue effort has already been initiated and is currently drilling. As of this very moment we do not have any information as to how many of the miners are still alive or how many are dead. All information at hand currently show that the miners where approximately 300 meters down and as you know there is limited food, oxygen and water; therefore, this effort to get them out will be around the clock. We can anticipate delays such as the one that occur Saturday due to another cave in, but the work will resume as soon as possible. We have set up hotlines for the family members, this line will allow them to phone in a request information or as any questions they may have, we will do our best to keep them calm and to re-assure them that they will soon be reunited with their love ones.

The communication with the company staff should be to informe them of the facts as to keep the rumor mill down and keep them focus on the work ahead.

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