ABSTRACT
Organisations and societies are continually being challenged to lessen the potential consequences of crisis events from pandemic pandemonium, natural disasters, a range of insurgency activity from terrorist acts to rioting or other social dislocations. Events of this magnitude have been given almost constant scrutiny in media presentations that depict the misfortune of those constituents that have been inflicted with diseases, such as the potentially fatal virus identified as causing the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), that captured centre stage of the viewing public during early 2003. Moreover, striking pictures of earthquake survivors and scenes of traumatised victims of terrorist attacks are regularly brought into homes by traditional information systems (television, newspapers and radio) and other forms of news media such as the internet.
