The Power of Crisis Communication

Janina Klingelhöfer deconstructs the development of the scientific field of crisis communication through the lens of the sociology of knowledge. To integrate both the social and intellectual dimensions of this scientific field, she unites the theoretical considerations of Bourdieu’s field analysis with the concepts of habitus and capital with a Foucauldian discourse analysis to conduct a comprehensive qualitative historiography. The study reflects on the beginnings of the field and its past developments to answer the main research question: How did the scientific field of crisis communication become what it is today?
About the author Janina Klingelhöfer is a researcher and practitioner focused on crisis communication and stakeholder management. She worked as a research associate at LMU Munich from 2017 to 2022. Since November 2022, she has been working on strategic health communication at the Bavarian State Ministry of Health and Care.