I chose to investigate the area of Public relations crisis and response strategies because this is the field that I'm heavily interested in because of it's ability to maintain any company's existence regardless of it's size.
This article discusses a man named Coombs who came up with a theory of handling scenarios that have or had the potential to spiral out of control called the Situational Crisis communication theory (SCCT). In this he states the article mentions his explanation of this "damage control" as follows :

‘‘the perception of an unpredictable event that threatens important expectancies of stakeholders and can seriously impact an organization’s performance and generate negative outcomes’’

I feel this to be extremely valid in the sense that the only reason that your business is still afloat is because people can relate to your product or company or have a degree of loyalty because historically they know that in the end, you as the company have the clients best interest in mind. The last time that I saw a huge PR flop was when the Iphone 4 came out. Apple did a terrible job product testing the phone and in an effort to consolidate the chipset of the phone, put the antenna in the bottom left-hand corner. Upon the release date people (especially left-handed) complained about dropped calls because the users hand would interfere with the cell signal and the call would drop. Whether Steve Jobs at the time was lacking a PR person or just didn't care he called in a press conference in response to this problem saying basically "just don't hold the phone that way". This was followed by a huge upset and the company eventually gave in by avoiding a recall (considering it was one of the fastest selling phones in history) and giving out a free phone case worth pennies to satisfy upset customers. Long story short, the day this "don't hold the phone that way" response was released, Apple's stock took a serious dive and drove the need to satisfy not only the customer but the stockholders. There is no doubt in my mind whatsoever that had there been a more sympathetic approach to the sloppiness of the original release of this phone through a trained crisis management firm would have saved Apple the blow that they took during the first two weeks of their release of the Iphone 4.

Coombs also touches in one of his concepts about the diminished posture which as I've noticed has been the hail Mary approach where salvaging the organization is no longer an option. For instance I forget which oil spill (so the approach clearly worked) but there was a tanker that had an accident and spilled oil all over the gulf I believe, the gas company tried to clean up the mess with little success and their stockholders began to give up on them. When out of nowhere the PR group of the company gave them the last stand option of simply changing the name of the company. Since people easily forget tragedies and are caught up with current events, the old company name would be forgotten and remembered as horrible people where the same exact company under a new name would have a clean slate. This is absolutely brilliant and seems to work time and time again.

Another juggernaut tactic that is mentioned in this article is the art of manipulation. This is probably the most prevalent among companies in order to save face when certain things hit the fan. They mention scapegoating which seems to be almost a basic human response to being caught red-handed. In the example given they discuss how the university had to cut classes because of a lack of funding rather than owning up to the responsibility of not functioning properly and thus losing funding. It's original and has been around since people have been playing in sandboxes; it wasn't me. It goes on to discuss a lot more practical and empathetic approaches such as justification, apologizing and reminding which again, all depend on the severity of the problem being mopped up.

I feel as though this article gives a tremendous insight on the world of Public Relations and how fun and challenging it can be. I find the field exciting and full of mystery and it's difficult sometimes to describe the job to people and I feel this article hits the nail on the head. It not only explains in a brief article the demand of the field but also most of the primary tactics that come almost natural to some people and how to apply them to the business world. It also informs the reader that since you're representing a company or maybe even a corporation that your investors and customers are going to be hanging on your every word so choose them carefully and when you speak to have a spice rack of vocabulary and emotion at your fingertips to keep your audience loyal. In this field, especially how impersonal it is, it is absolutly essential to convince your target audience that you (the company) are genuinely sorry for the problem and will take every measure to correct it; especially in this era where competition is absolutely everywhere.

Hopefully this works this time

The difference in the validity between quantitative and qualitative research is rather significant. I feel as though when it comes to publishing a valid study that can be used to conclusively support or deny a hypothesis a quantitative research method should be used. The most important part of an experiment or a study when you're looking for an answer is that the experiment can be replicated over and over and over again and yield the same results, I feel that this is only possible in quantitative research. There is an argument of course that there could for instance in the discussion we had in class about the senator who was winning the polls in I believe Kentucky, the numbers were in his favor across the board, he was ahead and every poll predicted his victory when out of nowhere he says something foolish and smears his public relations and his reputation with the voters and the next poll shows him plummet so yes in this instance it's not something that stays constant. In math and science however it is essential that the results remain consistent in order to formulate a law, or in the field of medicine the effectiveness of a certain drug in a general population.

On the other hand there are certain environments where qualitative research would provide a more accurate description and explanation for certain things, mainly in fields like sociology and psychology. Although yes you could sit there and involve numbers in terms of how many people reacted this way and conclude that a certain object when experienced by a bystander yielded a conclusion, qualitative is more concerned with why things are happening, by observing and not formulating an opinion. Qualitative is a much more hands on approach by getting down to business and getting  your hands dirty, last semester I took a Russian history class and we were assigned a book to read where the author put themselves in a poor Russian village and documented their culture. The only problem that I saw with this method of observation (just like we discussed about different news programs on TV) was that the entire book was at the mercy of the authors interpretation, and it was very obvious at certain points where she looked down on their traditions and would exaggerate certain things. The book had a translators critique at the end of each chapter and he would discuss that yes, certain things seemed bizarre to the author but that was because she was a pampered middle-upper class citizen whereas this village was filled with serfs who followed traditions from thousands of years ago to keep their morale up. With this kind of research you can skew anything to your liking and most people will take your word for it because you appear credible because say for instance you're on TV or you wrote a book. The other way of using qualitative research is to become the group that you're studying. Say for instance you wanted to write a report on how military personnel are treated you could request to observe the lifestyle for a few months and what have you, but since you requested it they're only going to let you observe the star performers and they'll put on a show for you. Or you preform a covert study (which is probably illegal to publish) and sign up for an enlistment and record all of the behind the scenes action. It goes with the old saying about integrity where you're character is judged by what you do when no one's watching.