Bcom275-Chilean Miners

Chilean Miners

Chilean Miners

On August 5, 2010 a mine in northern Chile collapses and 33 men are trapped inside. Before anything can go out to the media or families the situation and facts need to be put together so more chaos is not created. For the family member the message needs to be conveyed with emotions and sympathy more than facts. The family knows the situation is bad and do not need to hear facts that would make it worse. They need to hear that everything is going to be ok, and everyone is working to make it better. When giving information to the media it needs to be facts not suspicions of what may be going on. If there are not actual facts to give then nothing should be said. When miscommunication happens it makes things worse and can get the facts mixed with nonfactual information.

The audiences they are relaying information to can be different. There would be the families, who are hurt and upset and don’t know how to react. Then you have the media who just want to know what is going on so they have a story to report. However, there are the employees who are not trapped who want to know what they can do to help to get their fellow coworkers out and safe. Before communication can even happen, looking at the person and knowing how to communicate to them will be the key. If there is someone who is so distraught and emotionally unstable, like the family members, care must be taken that something is not communicated to them to make it worse.

After the information has been given let the audience ask questions. When the audience can ask questions it can be an effective tool to see if the information was relayed properly. Also with questions you can weed out anything that would be nonfactual and could upset people. When there are different types of people in the audience you need to be careful on how you relay the message. In the case of the Chilean miners you would need to use a lot of sympathy, but also use actual facts and try not to elaborate on...