Emergency Text Messaging Systems and Higher Education Campuses: Expanding Crisis Communication and Chaos Theory

Recent public safety threats affecting college and university campuses during episodes of natural disasters and mass violence have exposed numerous challenges and opportunities in risk and crisis communication. This study addresses how colleges and universities have incorporated emergency text messaging systems into their crisis communication plans; how these institutions have tested such emergency notification systems; and what, if any, prevalent gaps exist between audience expectations and actual practices. Using grounded theory, the data collected in this study through in-depth phone interviews (N=10) of university public relations practitioners, as well as a document analysis of media coverage of campus crises (N=36), offered a humanistic and constructivist perspective about circumstances related to emergency text message alert systems that few researchers have explored. The analysis of the data also revealed and confirmed that chaos theory can play a role as a significant theory and potentially guiding paradigm of crisis communications research.