Diagnosing shared crises as acute intractability: Organizing crises and intractable issues in public relations theory

This paper addresses the gap between crisis communication scholarship and the growing research on intractable issues and wicked problems in public relations. By synthesizing these literatures, the concept of intractability more clearly connects issues, risks, and crises within a community-oriented mindset. The literature review organizes crisis communication scholarship into rhetorical, perceptual, risk-oriented, and conflict-oriented categories, then introduces intractable issues and wicked problems as supplementary and beneficial frameworks. There are similarities and differences among crises and intractable issues, with distinctions mainly arising in terms of urgency and perceived proximity to organizations. Issues, risks, and crises can be mapped using the continua of immediacy/temporal urgency and organizational or societal issue centrality. This creates four quadrants: A zone of reputational crises, a zone of intractability, a zone of wicked problems, and a zone of organizational responsibility. •The purpose of the paper is to integrate intractable and wicked problems with existing crisis communication theory.•We organize existing crisis theory into four categories: rhetorical, perceptual, risk manifested, issue engagement/conflict management.•A new category of crisis as acute intractability/wickedness is proposed.•Immediacy/temporality and organization-centrality are developed as key continua.•This creates four zones of crisis communication: reputational crises, acute intractability, wicked problems, and organizational responsibility.