Crisis management, public relations and media agenda : the Sars outbreak in Singapore.

Abstract

The objective of this study was to examine how Public Relations (PR) can be used as an effective tool to influence media agenda during a crisis, so that the media agenda reflected the organisation's agenda. It analysed the functions of PR in a government organisation and examined the roles that PR played in crisis management by using the case study of the Ministry of Health's (MOH) management of information and its risk communication during the Sars outbreak in 2003 and The Straits Times (ST) coverage of this crisis.