SV-407 Communication and Crisis in the Digital Age (Autumn 2026)

On completion of the course, the student will be able to:

• provide an overview of how crisis has been - and is being - conceptualised as a communications challenge across global and local dimensions
• critically relate crisis and communication to theories and perspectives on the globalisation and digitalisation of information flows
• outline key features of crisis communication in the context of risk society and emergency preparedness
• critically assess strategic aspects of communication as persuasion, propaganda and misinformation
• use case-studies to elaborate the practical relevance of theories and models

This course invites students to contextualise and appraise crisis in the context of global communication, democracy, and civic culture. Two prongs are pursued: First, the relation between crisis and communication is understood as a crisis of communication, institutionally and at a societal level, where faith in democratic institutions seem to be a growing concern. Second, the framework identifies crisis communication on a spectrum of fields and areas of research interest: Mounting climate catastrophes, refugee challenges, energy challenges and other transnational political challenges, as for example the rise of extremism and eroding trust in the increasingly complex web of global political institutions.

Theoretical perspectives will include:

• Relevant aspects of development and planning research
• Classic studies of persuasion, attention work, and power
• Research in global and local communication, digitisation, mediatisation
• Models of sustainable communication
• The UN sustainability goals as understood from a communications perspective