Reinterpreting Crisis Communications in the Post-Truth Era

As we enter a new era marked by changing values, driven by disruptive technologies and leading to the erosion of trust, organizations today are facing crises at greater frequency than in the past. Transformation is a phenomenon that appears to have taken place in each and every period of history, but it has never been as rapid, comprehensive, and unpredictable as we observe it today. There are an increasing number of people who name the era that we currently live in as the post-truth era where the focus is on narratives, their significance, and their abilities of persuasion, rather than focusing on presenting knowledge or the truth. Causality, or the rational paradigm, that was defended by modernism, does not seem to have enough prowess to interpret today’s complexity and phenomena. This perspective and transformation are also valid for at organizations that encounter crises. This article gives a theoretical framework for scrutinising how organizations deal with obstacles within post-truth times. It suggests that the value-based and emotionally-driven framework of the narrative paradigm might be the most powerful communication approach adopted by an organization during a corporate crisis in this new era