145 International Journal of Mass Emergencies and Disasters August 2007, Vol. 25, No. 2, pp. 145–173 The Preparedness of Local Authorities for Crisis Communication with People who have Foreign Backgrounds – The Case of Sweden* Anna Olofsson Department of Social Sciences Mid Sweden University Sweden Anna.Olofsson@miun.se One of the most important aspects of crisis communication is that of reaching the target population in a severe and often chaotic situation. Therefore, crisis communication has to be customized not only to the situation but also to the population. The aim of this study is hence to investigate the preparedness of Swedish municipalities to communicate with people who have foreign backgrounds at times of crisis. A sample of 55% (n=160) of all Swedish municipalities were questioned regard- ing whether their crisis communication plans are adapted to this population segment and whether any preparedness mea- sures have been taken. The results show that Swedish munici- palities do not consider people with foreign backgrounds in their crisis communication to any great extent. However, the studied municipalities can be categorized as Active, Interme- diary or Passive, and one important difference between the three groups is whether they have previous experience of crises where people with foreign backgrounds have been involved. Key words: Crisis communication, crisis planning, emergency planning, ethnic minorities, local authorities Crisis communication in multicultural societies is a neglected field of research generally (Falkheimer and Heide 2006), and par- ticularly in relation to municipalities’ crisis management (Lindell Stehr: Changing Roles of Emergency Managers 145