ABSTRACT
This chapter emphasized the importance of including narrative management techniques in Coombs's Situational Crisis Communication Theory (SCCT), specifically in the adapting communication stage of a crisis. It analyzes SCCT in relation to the theory's emphasis on the communicative and ethical considerations managers must make in the immediate moments following a crisis. The chapter addresses an identified gap within sport communication research. The SCCT offers a two-step process for assessing this reputational threat, which then determines the appropriate response. First, identify the type of crisis, based on a number of factors that shape stakeholder attributions, and then select response strategies appropriate to that crisis type. The chapter, by suggesting practitioners could benefit from narrative in crisis situations, hopes to merge strategic communication studies with rhetorical studies to present a broader approach to communication and sport research that "talks to one another." The role and power of narrative have been examined by rhetoricians and rhetorical critics going back to Corax of Syracuse.
