Has Crisis Communication Been Studied Using an Interdisciplinary Approach? A 20-Year Content Analysis of Communication Journals

This study examines whether the status of crisis communication research is interdisciplinary by paying special attention to different perspectives from varying theories, methods, and authors. One hundred seventy-five articles published in major communication journals from 1991 to 2011 were extracted as crisis communication articles. The results of a quantitative content analysis revealed that, among theories applied to crisis research, most were from communication and public relations disciplines, which included framing, image restoration, situational crisis communication, and excellence theory. Although outside disciplines that have studied crisis communication research included psychology, economics, mathematics, and sociology, those disciplines made up less than one-third of the articles. Regarding the methodological approach, each portion of articles using two or more methods (e.g., experiment and survey) and a triangulation approach (e.g., qualitative and quantitative) was less than 10%. However, the frequency of the triangulation, or mixed-method, approach has dramatically increased since 2006, which indicates that interdisciplinary crisis communication research is evolving into an interdisciplinary field. Another indication of this trend can be found in the variety of authors, institutions, and departments dedicated to crisis communication. Although crisis articles are published primarily by communication, journalism, and public relations departments, other diverse disciplines are also widely contributing to crisis communication research.     

Segmenting and Understanding Publics in a Social Media Information Sharing Network: An Interactional and Dynamic Approach

This study segments social media publics and analyzes their informational behaviors during organizational crises. With a public-centric perspective, our study highlights how social media publics interact with each other (i.e., interdependence) and share different information through crisis stages (i.e., dynamics). Following the situational approach to segmentation, we identify different types of social media publics (i.e., influentials, broadcasters, and followers) based on their informational behaviors and their positions in an information sharing network. Crisis managers are recommended to pay more attention to publics with higher influence, namely key influentials and broadcasters. In addition, we try to understand social media publics’ changing concerns by analyzing whether and how publics share messages of different themes and forms in different stages of a crisis. Crisis managers are recommended to customize crisis communication content to fit publics’ needs, prioritize organizational resources, and maximize positive communication effect. With big data from Chipotle’s E. coli crisis, we analyzed the Twitter activities surrounding this crisis over a 6-month period. Our segmentation receives initial support from the network analysis and content analysis on the Twitter data, which lays the foundation for effective social media crisis management.     

Trust and Brand Recovery Campaigns in Crisis: Findus Nordic and the Horsemeat Scandal

The aim of this study is to describe and analyze a transboundary crisis, focusing on crisis communication from the perspective of an involved major corporation. More concretely, the intent is to increase understanding of how Findus Nordic in Sweden managed the crisis communication response and repair of its trust and corporate brand during and after the horsemeat scandal in 2013. The case study is based on a theoretical framework that consists of three theories or concepts: transboundary crisis, image repair strategy, and rhetorical arena. Findus Nordic followed its corporate values and applied a consistent image repair strategy: denial and blame shifting towards the supplier Comigel in an extremely multivocal arena. This strategy was supplemented with responsibility evasion. Towards the end of the public crisis, Findus Nordic used the crisis as an opportunity to recover their position and started a campaign that had a positive impact on trust and the corporate brand. The launch of the campaign was very fast and might have been dangerous. However, according to the analysis, the success of the campaign may be explained as a consequence of its sensemaking and auto-communicative approach.     

Revisiting a Social Constructionist Approach to Crisis Communication– Investigating Contemporary Crises in China

ABSTRACT

The current study provides a social constructionist approach to crisis communication in the Chinese context. Crisis communication is viewed as a form of strategic communication, involving multiple stakeholders in situations that are dependent on context, space and time. This approach provides a much-needed path for investigating and understanding crisis communication practices in contemporary China. The distinct Chinese context for crisis communication, with both an authoritarian government structure and a digital transformation of society, challenges theories originally developed in the Western countries. To address this issue, this study proposes a three-theme analytical framework to examine crisis communication practices in the Chinese context: (1) an audience (or stakeholder) orientation—focusing sense-making, (2) a proactive and interactive approach—focusing communication, and (3) a community—focused approach—focusing a long-range precrisis perspective.     

Predictors of H1N1 Influenza Pandemic News Coverage: Explicating the Relationships between Framing and News Release Selection

In health pandemic situations characterized by urgency, uncertainty and information scarcity, news media are highly reliant on information subsidies from public health agencies. This study, based on a content analysis, examines the relationships between the framing characteristics of news releases and subsequent publication to identify the predictors of news release selection for news coverage in the 2009 H1N1 A Influenza pandemic in Singapore. Through the news releases issued by the Singapore Ministry of Health and the resulting news stories in a Singapore newspaper, The Straits Times, this study found that six framing variables significantly predict a news release’s selection for news coverage: theme, episodic vs. thematic framing, emotion appeal, tone, gain vs. loss, and outbreak vs. nonoutbreak situation. News releases are more likely to be selected for news coverage when they focus on a preventive frame, rely on thematic framing, use emotion appeal, have a positive tone, are framed as gain, and are issued during an outbreak situation.     

Social Media Influencers as a Crisis Risk in Strategic Communication: Impact of Indiscretions on Professional Endorsements

ABSTRACT

Social media influencers (SMIs) are increasingly employed by organizations to amplify their strategic communication efforts. Yet, little is known about the impact an SMI’s personal indiscretion has on their endorsing organizations. This article examines the factors that trigger these crises and their effects on the organizational image. Five cases – PewDiePie (U.S.), Munroe Bergdorf (UK), James Charles (U.S.), Grace Mongey (Ireland) and Sarah Bowmar (U.S.) – were analyzed using Rapid Issue Tracking, a method to capture stakeholders’ sentiments. Findings showed that SMIs’ personal indiscretions trigger paracrises. Organizations typically used distancing strategies but adopted image repair situationally. Anchored on image repair theory, we propose a framework for crisis identification and response strategies. With the increasing use of SMIs in marketing, their potential as a new type of crisis trigger warrants attention.     

Dynamic Interplay of Visual and Textual Identification Strategies in Employees’ Magazines

This article explores how an organization’s identity is strategically communicated through texts and images in the employees’ magazines of a global Danish company with a worldwide readership of over 18,000 employees. Drawing on an interdisciplinary methodological framework related to organizational identification theory and social semiotics, it proposes a multimodal analysis model through which several identification strategies are explored at the level of each semiotic mode and at the level of their interplay. The article explains how identity is strategically communicated in accordance with the potential and constraints of texts and images. It claims that by exploring how these semiotic modes reinforce, complement or subvert each other, the identification strategies can be more thoroughly addressed. Shedding light on how the multimodal interplay contributes to communicate identity, this model can also be employed by communicators in order to nuance and improve their strategic communicative practice. By examining the semiotic modes’ complex interconnectivity and functional differentiation in the strategic communication of identity, this article expands the existing research work as the usual textual focus is extended to a multimodal one.     

Activists’ Strategic Communication in an Authoritarian Setting: Integrating Social Movement Framing into Issues Management

Triangulating 18 in-depth interviews with activists and campaign participants, news coverage, and social media content related to the campaign “6,700 people for 6,700 trees,” this study integrates social movement framing theory and issues management framework to examine activists’ strategic communications in an authoritarian setting. Results indicate activists’ sophisticated use of framing strategies following different stages of the issue life cycle to legitimately form an issue and successfully manage the issue in order to achieve their goals. This study offers meaningful theoretical implications for examining strategic communication in social movement campaigns. It also discusses practical lessons for applying these strategies to foster social change in similar contexts.     

Strategic Leadership Communication for Crisis Network Coordination

In large-scale societal crises, organizations involved in saving lives and protecting the public need to collaborate and coordinate their crisis communication to minimize damage and increase resilience. This study analyzed strategic leadership communication fostering such coordination in a network consisting of 24 members representing a variety of authorities, organizations and units established during a large forest fire in Sweden. As the crisis unfolded over a two-week period, 10 network meetings were observed and audio recorded. Discourse analysis was employed to analyze network leaders’ and members’ communication during the meetings. Findings illustrate that leadership communication strategies that fostered networked coordination of organizations’ crisis communication differ in significant ways from leadership communication in noncrisis and team contexts. Salient leadership communication strategies of directing/structuring and encouraging/facilitating were employed during crisis network meetings and functioned to coordinate involved organizations’ crisis communication efforts during time pressure. The study contributes with new knowledge of strategic leadership communication for crisis network coordination, which is important to crisis management and can be used in crisis preparation to enhance resilience.     

Journalistik praxistheoretisch betreiben

This paper proposes a practice-theoretical journalism research approach that promises to present an alternative and innovative perspective to the current empirical challenges of journalism which are mainly driven by digitization. It combines the general theme of this special issue to previous contributions within the “Publizistik” debate. By examining the problems of demarcation, technological changes, finance gaps and the loss of legitimacy in journalism; this article exemplifies the practice-theoretical approach and explains its respective advantages in coping with these challenges.After an introduction, the second section describes four intertwined problem areas that challenge journalism extensively today: The first problem area is the increasing problem of definition and demarcation through digital media that has led to a growing uncertainty about which phenomena can still be regarded as ‘journalistic’. Second is the strong pressure placed on journalism to change due to even faster developing new technologies that influence its work methods, its genres and the organization of labor. The third area is the economic difficulty arising under the new competitive conditions of digitization (‘attention economy’) that fundamentally disrupt the traditional business model of publishers. The fourth problem area is the prominently debated crisis of legitimacy and authority of established products and organizations in journalism. As this section highlights, these empirical challenges are primarily triggered and accelerated by the digitization of today’s media environment.The third section begins by proposing a practice-theoretical approach as a ‘toolkit’ for productive examination of these structural disruptions and rapid developments. The proposed approach does not present a pre-defined system of hypotheses, but primarily introduces a fundamental starting point for new research questions and empirical investigations from an alternative perspective. The particular relevance of the theoretical perspective thereby arises from (1) its central decision to observe journalistic practices, (2) the transgression of conventional boundaries of journalism, (3) the denaturalization of journalistic norms and laws, (4) the explicit consideration of a material, sociotechnical dimension of journalism, (5) the focus on the tension between journalistic practices and media management, and (6) from prioritizing order generation over stability.The second part of the third section applies the theoretical lens to reconceptualize the empirical challenges of digitization described in the second section and to provide examples of the usefulness of this perspective. In this section, the following advantages are emphasized, among others: First, from a practice theoretical viewpoint, established practices, traditional actors and reified norms do not mark the boundaries of the phenomenon; the crisis of journalism’s demarcation can be reinterpreted as a promising opportunity to diversify the concept of journalism. Second, by examining the processes of technology and its role within social practices, the practice-theoretical approach advances the current perspective on technology in journalism research thus contributing to its development towards a socio-technological and data-orientated field of investigation. Third, the financial upheavals of journalism are viewed in the context of the tense relationship between journalistic practices and media management practices without however, assuming a fundamental primacy of economic constraints. Fourth, practice theories shift our perspective on the legitimacy and authority crises of journalism; from this viewpoint, it is clear that journalism does not form a fixed, reified entity, but is constantly in a process of emergence.The fourth section sums up the conceptual advantages of the theoretical perspective with regard to current problem areas. Nevertheless, the proposed conceptualization of journalism will not solve all of its contemporary challenges. Against this background, the section also presents criticism of the practice-theoretical approach. The limits elaborated here point to the fact that a fruitful pluralism of theory is indeed needed to advance journalism research. The paper concludes with methodological insights on where research can start empirically: e.?g., by examining individual practices that are studied in depth, by focusing on specific ‘sites of the social’ or by focusing on larger constellations of practice (e.?g., journalistic networks). Qualitative observational studies are proposed as the most suitable methods for these investigations.     

Strategic Social Media Use in Public Relations: Professionals’ Perceived Social Media Impact,Leadership Behaviors,and Work-Life Conflict

Using the E-leadership theory as the conceptual framework, the study examined strategic communicators’ perceptions of the impact of social media use on their work, leadership behaviors, and work-life conflict. Through a national sample of communication professionals (N = 458), this study revealed the following key findings. The use of YouTube in professionals’ work, social media use in media relations, employee communications, and cause-related marketing/social marketing were significantly, positively associated with participants’ perceptions of the enhancing impact of social media use. Social media use in crisis management and employee communications significantly, positively predicted professionals’ perceptions of social media’s aggravating impact (e.g., extended work hours, increased workload) on their work. The use of Facebook and YouTube in strategic communication, the use of social media in environmental scanning, as well as the positive and negative impact of social media use all significantly and positively predicted communication professionals’ leadership behaviors. When the unintended negative effects of social media use happened, professionals perceived a low control over their work and thereby experienced a high level of time-based and strain-based work-life conflict. Finally, public affairs/governmental relations professionals who were frequent users of social media for their work reported a high level of strain-based work-life conflict.     

Schaffen wir das?

In 2015, Germany sheltered about 900,000 refugees—more than ever before. This development led to political and public discussions in the country which changed between creating a culture of welcome for refugees and the danger of foreign infiltration through refugees. On the one hand, this article investigates, if patterns could be identified in the public debate about the so-called refugee crisis in the regional press in Germany in 2015. On the other hand, it concentrates on the solution orientation of the regional news coverage concerning this topic. The reporting pattern of solutions journalism supposes this kind of journalistic reporting and it is strongly discussed in communication sciences and journalism at the moment.The two aims of this study are based on four theoretical aspects: the responsibility of journalism, the reporting pattern of solutions journalism, the state of research concerning the image of migration and immigrants in the German media and the concept of framing. The responsibility of journalism roots in its function of information and its ethical foundation. In carrying out their work, journalists have to balance ethics of conviction and ethics of responsibility: Providing full information about a topic and the (ethical) consequences of this full information is the field of conflict in which journalism lies. In the case of media coverage about the so-called refugee crisis, it is not easy to report and not proliferating prejudice and resentments against immigrants.Generally, negative reasons of reporting are often picked up by the media. In contrast to this trend, the reporting pattern of solutions journalism focusses solutions for negative reasons of reporting. Not only the problems are discussed in this reporting pattern, also solutions are presented which should encourage the recipients to act. The journalist is accredited with the role of a mediator in public debates in the pattern of solutions journalism. This role is discussed critically in journalism and communications science.Regarding the image of migration and immigrants in the German media, communication studies do not describe this coverage in a positive way. Media reports often connect immigrants to crime, foreign infiltration or describe them as an expense factor. Also, terror and Islamic faith are topics appearing since 2011 in the German media linked with immigration. Concerning the so-called refugee crisis, the few existing studies show that this situation is described as threat. In its coverage the regional press follows the argumentation of the national press and concentrates on politics when reporting about this topic.This state of research leads to the assumption that negative patterns will dominate in the regional press concerning the so-called refugee crisis, although this topic could be the chance to implement some characteristics of solutions journalism. This hypothesis was investigated in this study by a quantitative content analysis of the regional press in Germany concerning the topic of the refugee crisis. The concept of framing was used in the methodological design of this article. To frame means to extract several aspects of reality and to emphasize some of them more than others. A frame consists of a problem definition of a topic, a causal interpretation, a moral evaluation, and a treatment recommendation. Based on this definition, frames can be seen as clusters of about four elements. To identify frames, this study uses an approach considering frames as clusters of these elements. In a quantitative content analysis these single elements were operationalized and after data collection investigated by hierarchical cluster analyses to create groups of elements which often appear together. For the content analysis, a stratified sample of eight regional newspapers in seven federal states in Germany was drawn to analyze the coverage of the year 2015. Altogether, the final sample consisted of 1231 articles.The results of this analysis show that the biggest frame in the regional press is the one of “social challenge” of the so-called refugee crisis. It deals with the social and cultural problems the so-called refugee crisis causes and replaces the dominant topic of crime in the then current state of research. Further frames are the ones of “integration”, “capacity”, “demonstration” and “solution”. The frame “integration” concentrates in a positive way on the chance of integration and is astonishingly quite equally sized in comparison to the one of “social challenge”. The frame “capacity” is smaller. It deals with the problem of accommodation of refugees. The frames of “demonstration” and “solution” appear not very often and focus the problems of protest against refugees and their supporters or political solutions for the so-called refugee crisis.But not only the widely spread frame of integration in the regional press is surprising, also its significant dominance in the coverage of the regional newspapers in East Germany is noteworthy. As more hostility against refugees can be observed in the eastern parts of Germany in 2015, it is an astonishing fact, that the regional press accents the frame of integration. Maybe the newspapers wanted to be the public counterpart to the hostile atmosphere in this region.Solution orientation as it is focused by solutions journalism could be identified in this analysis by the frame element of treatment recommendation. In sum, only few treatment recommendations exist in the regional press coverage: The widely spread frames “social challenge” and “integration” are the ones which provide the fewest treatment recommendations. The small frames “capacity” and “demonstration” are those which show the largest solution orientation. The solution proposals are oriented towards politics. These findings show that the solution orientation in the regional press coverage is not very strong, but the widely spread frame of integration demonstrates that the regional press reports in a more positive way than expected—especially in Eastern Germany.     

Image Repair Campaign Strategies Addressing Race: Paula Deen,Social Media,and Defiance

This multi-method study examines how the use of social media in a crisis campaign involving race-related issues may affect a public figure’s credibility and perceived response appropriateness. First, image repair theory is used to analyze Paula Deen’s image repair campaign in the wake of the National Enquirer’s revelation that she admitted to using the “N-word” during a lawsuit deposition. Our analysis shows her response strategies were unsuccessful because her apology did not center on the allegations, and she was contradictory in her bolstering, minimization, and mortification strategies. We build on the Deen case study results by exploring the effectiveness of tweeted message strategies in a race-related crisis via Twitter. We use a mixed-design experiment examining how public figure type (politician v. TV celebrity) and response strategy (moral defense, performance defense, defiance defense, no defense) affect perceptions of a female public figure’s credibility and perceptions of the appropriateness of the response. Results show that any of the three responses are better than no response when addressing charges of racial insensitivity. A defiance defense, as newly tested strategy, and moral defense worked better for the TV celebrity condition than the politician condition. Implications are discussed.     

Frames und Positionen zur EU-Osterweiterung

While framing theory is concerned with the way media content is presented, news bias theory concentrates on the evaluative aspect. The study integrates both approaches of news structuring. A detailed argument analysis of two German quality newspapers, Die Welt and Frankfurter Rundschau, representative for two opposite editorial viewpoints, was conducted to test the assumptions of both theories. The examination of news coverage related to the accession of Poland, Czech Republic, Bulgaria and Romania to the EU contradicts previous results of framing and news bias research. Apart from finding a pronounced focus on economical topics in both newspapers, they clearly differ in their frames of reference and political positions on the issues, staying in line with their editorial orientation. A comparison of the different accession times reveals a change in the frames of reference and the advocates of these frames.     

The Scared,the Outraged,and the Anxious: How Crisis Emotions,Involvement, and Demographics Predict Publics’ Conative Coping

Through a nationally representative survey of 1,840 U.S. adults, this study examined fright, anger, and anxiety as emotional predictors of how publics respond to organizational crisis communication and communicate with each other during a hypothetical terrorist attack. The study also examined the influences of age, gender, and publics’ involvement with prior media coverage of the 2013 Boston Marathon bombings through hierarchical regression analyses. Crisis emotions, involvement, and demographics are significant predictors of different communication behavioral outcomes. Insights and implications for practice and theory development are discussed.     

A Situational Perspective on Employee Communicative Behaviors in A Crisis: The Role of Relationship and Symmetrical Communication

ABSTRACT

This study investigates the intertwined effects of the employee-organization relationship (EOR), internal communication, and employees’ situational perceptions on individuals’ communicative behaviors – seeking and voicing – during periods of organizational crisis. Using the situational theory of problem solving (STOPS), the current study investigates employees’ cognitive reactions as well as how their communicative behaviors are affected by the pre-crisis EOR and organizations’ symmetrical communication effort in a crisis. An online survey was conducted with 410 full-time U.S. employees working in large corporations. Results indicated that a favorable pre-crisis relationship between an organization and its employees significantly affects how they perceive a crisis and their communicative behaviors. Employees’ perceived symmetrical communication strengthens the relationship between the pre-established relationship with employees and their crisis perceptions. Findings provide a comprehensive picture of the process by which the EOR directs employee behaviors in a crisis, as well as the positive effects of symmetrical internal communication. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.     

Strategic Ambiguity and Crisis Apologia: The Impact of Audiences' Interpretations of Mixed Messages

Based on the perspectives of strategic ambiguity and organizational reputation, the current study examines the effects of mixed crisis response strategies, which adopt seemingly contradictory messages (i.e., apology and denial), through experiments. Consistent with the scope of strategic communication research, this study incorporates theoretical aspects of distinct areas of organizational communication to examine audience response to strategic messages, and makes recommendations for organizational communication strategies during crisis situations. The findings demonstrate that, instead of taking messages straightforwardly, people interpret the same messages divergently in their own ways, and these interpretations accordingly affect their attitudes and behavioral intentions. Findings indicate participants choose a dominant interpretation when given mixed messages, and subsequent responses are based on the initial interpretation, such that evaluating a mixed message as an apology yielded more positive outcomes than those who interpreted the message in other ways. In addition to people’s diverse interpretations, organizations’ crisis communication strategies and the business type also significantly influenced the outcomes. The apology-interpreters showed more positive outcomes than those who were exposed only to apology for an automaker’s crisis. On the other hand, for a nonprofit organization’s crisis, those who were exposed to a simple denial message showed more positive outcomes than those who perceived the mixed message as a denial. Based on these findings, this study offers practical recommendations on when to use single messages versus mixed messages, along with the explanation of how these divergent strategies work.     

Empowerment and Internal Activism During Organizational Change: A Relocation Story in China

Based on 18 interviews with employees of a multinational food giant operating in Mainland China, this study examined how employees enacted an activist role during a relocation change by adopting various empowerment strategies such as creating opposing identities, framing the target blame, building alliances, making threats, seeking bilateral compromises, and others. These activists successfully pressured top management to change from its nonresponse to negotiation with the union. The significance of this study lies in examining the first self-organized union and internal activism case in a multinational company operating in Mainland China.     

Öffentliches Krisenmanagement und kollektive Meinungsbildung — empirische Befunde und theoretische Implikationen am Beispiel von AIDS

The diffusion of HIV and AIDS as an issue in the discourse of the mass media is an important example of the formation of public opinion in our time. Drawing on various models of public opinion formation, this comprehensive genealogic case study of the presentation of HIV and AIDS in Danish mass media documents that strategies for the solving of conflicts around HIV and AIDS, on the one hand, originated from narrative patterns known from the discourse on other diseases, and were, on the other hand, increasingly affected by news factors crucial for public crisis management, irregularity and personalization. On the basis of this case study, a balance is drawn of research and theory about the models of public opinion formation, of the methods available for its study, and of the metatheoretical explanatory approaches by Habermas, Foucault and Luhmann. This leads the authors to posit that any study of public opinion formation that heeds the totality of the phenomena needs a combination of various theoretical and methodological elements in order to account for the historical context, the actors’ behavior and the systemic structures of public opinion formation.     

The Work and ‘Architecture of Listening’: Addressing Gaps in Organization-Public Communication

Listening is extensively discussed in relation to interpersonal communication, in therapeutic contexts such as counselling and, to some extent, in the context of intra-organizational communication conducted as part of human resources management. However, listening is surprisingly and problematically overlooked in the large body of literature on organization-public communication including government, political, corporate, and marketing communication and related practices such as public relations. Based on critical analysis of relevant literature and primary research among 36 organizations in three countries, this analysis identifies a “crisis of listening” in organization-public communication and proposes strategies to address gaps in theory and practice including attention to the work of listening and the creation of an architecture of listening in organizations, which can offer significant stakeholder, societal, and organizational benefits.