Abstract
An organization's survival during a crisis often depends on its speed of response. The introduction of social media into crisis communication discourse has meant that organizations must revisit their crisis communication strategies. This chapter explores a content analysis of the integration of social media platforms into crisis communication based on a comprehensive review of eight purposively selected crisis studies conducted globally. Findings revealed that Facebook and Twitter are increasingly employed as platforms for crisis communication. It was also discovered that responding to crises promptly, and engaging with the publics before, during, and after crises are crucial to managing organizational reputation. Social media platforms are also capable of spreading mis(information) about crises. Thus, organizations are advised to fully integrate and adopt social media into their crisis communication plans. This chapter extends our understanding of how social media platforms contribute to crisis communication discourse.
TopIntroduction
The introduction of social media into crisis communication discourse calls for concerted organisational efforts in militating against its effects. This call becomes necessary as social media has the potential to spread (mis)information about crises within a short time and placing organisations at higher risks of exposure to crises. Also, the organisational reputation – described as intangible assets - are at stake and could be damaged during crises. As Veil, Sellnow & Petrun (2012) posit, social media are channels for stories to go viral within a short period. With the share option on Facebook and retweet option on Twitter, citizens can disseminate (mis)information, while organisational activities could be closely monitored online. Thus, to avoid misinformation during crises, organisations need to fully optimise their abilities to handle crises in the social media era.
Social media crises are a common organisational phenomenon that keeps evolving. As Coombs, Claeys & Holladay (2017) observed, the application of social media to crisis communication is the most dramatic evolution of the practice in need of greater understanding. Hence, researchers have sought to understand the use of social media during airline crises (e.g., Adebayo, 2017; Benoit, 2018; Brataas, 2018), social media's use during natural disasters (Cho, Jung & Park, 2013), university crisis on social media (Snoeijers, Poels and Nicolay, 2014), food crisis discussions on social media (Shan, Regan, Brun, Barnett, van der Sanden, Wall & McConnon, 2013), health crises on social media (Lawrence, 2016), brand crisis communication through social media (Wang, 2016), among other studies. Findings from these studies revealed several dynamics in social media crises. These studies also revealed the growing interests and involvement of the publics in social media crisis discourse. Considering the increasing amount of crisis research, it becomes necessary to comprehensively present an analysis of the incorporation of social media by crisis managers to manage social media crises.
Therefore, this chapter explores a content analysis of the integration of social media platforms into crisis communication. The objective of this study is to understand how crisis managers employed social media platforms in responding to crises through an analysis of eight (8) purposively selected social media crises conducted globally and published from 2006 to 2019. Thus, this chapter aims to understand the strategies, trends, and paradigms that have characterised social media crisis studies. For instance, the chapter will analyse social media crisis strategies, theoretical explanations, and an investigation (if any) of new approaches that have emerged from the discourse. Findings from this study will highlight the relevance of digitalisation and its significance on different crisis types. Furthermore, it will also be useful to crisis communication and social media students as it would be a reference point for crisis communication studies.
Key Terms in this Chapter
Organisational Publics: These are people that can affect or can be affected by activities of organisations
Crisis: Crises are unexpected (and sometimes expected) occurrence that disrupt high priority goals with short response time and attracts high media attention.
Crisis Response Strategies: Organisational tactics in response to crisis aimed at repairing and/or rebuilding reputation
Organisation: Organised entities comprising groups of people who are poised to achieve specifically defined objectives.
Crisis Communication: Information given by organisations/nations in crisis to help stakeholders make sense of the crisis.
Social media: These are groups of internet-based applications that build on the ideological and technological foundations of Web 2.0 and allow for interactivity among users.
Reputation: Valuable and intangible organisational assets which are formed based on how well stakeholder expectations are met and could be damaged during crises.