THE ROLE OF COMMUNICATION IN RESOLUTION OF TERRORISM CRISIS SITUATIONS

Present article analyses the role of communication in dealing with terrorism phenomena from policy crisis perspective and provides list of elements, including legal, involved in resolving crisis communication triggered by terrorist attacks. The hypothesis for this research suggests that crisis situations caused by terrorist attacks require particular measures which pre-emptively help to act and engage toward the crisis event promptly and in a timely manner. The article provides concrete communication steps for government to take before and after the occurrence of the terrorist attacks in addition to presenting some examples of communication approaches used by governments in the event of terrorist attacks in the past. Over last few years, the approach of the governmental security management agencies has changed and terrorism attacks are met with a range of countermeasures. In communication field the surging number of terrorism situations has driven state and private stakeholders towards broader use of social networks to increase the public outreach. However, experts’ prognosis towards terrorism incidents occurring also in the future suggest rather some increasing trends, thus requiring also adequate and adapted measures to tackle the crisis. The research paper in the conclusion sets out a number of recommendations and crisis communications techniques, as well as their legal aspects that can be applied specifically in the crisis communication to foster resolution of the terrorism crisis situations.