Crisis Communication as a Multilevel Game: The Muhammad Cartoons from a Crisis Diplomacy Perspective

The Muhammad cartoon crisis in 2005 provides an illustrative example of how crises travel across geographical boundaries, in this case, from a national newspaper into a full-fledged public diplomacy crisis at the international level. From a crisis management perspective, a multilevel setting poses a real challenge to actors trying to contain the situation at hand. Likewise, the multilevel nature of a crisis poses a challenge to crisis communication theories, which have traditionally focused on rhetorical strategies in single organizational crises. As a response, this article proposes a framework for examining crisis communication based on how actors’ framing impact the perceptions of arenas, stakeholders, and communication strategies.