Publication
Affected Circles: a relational perspective on crisis communication
In this article, Wouter Jong argues that reputation-oriented crisis communication strategies are insufficient in situations where organisations are confronted with people who are directly affected by a crisis, including victims and their next of kin.
- Author
- Wouter Jong
- Date
- 26 May 2026
- Links
- Read the full article via Taylor & Francis Online
The article introduces Affected Circles as a framework that supports communication aimed at reducing additional burdens for affected individuals and at incorporating psychosocial insights relevant for coping with and processing crisis experiences. Positioned within international crisis communication and psychosocial literature, the framework draws on concentric models of psychosocial impact and proximity, as well as principles of audience segmentation.
Affected Circles conceptualises affected populations as differentiated communicative communities with distinct needs and vulnerabilities. This implies that organisations carry different relational responsibilities toward affected groups, depending on their degree of impact and proximity.
Rather than offering prescriptive communication rules, the framework functions as a heuristic that supports professional judgement and relational sensitivity across public and corporate crisis contexts.