‘Crisis Communication Online’

How medium, crisis type and emotions affect public perceptions, reactions and communications

Friederike Schultz, Sonja Utz & Sandra Glocka, VU University Amsterdam

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Conceptual model & hypotheses

Crisis Type: - intentional- victim

Media type: - Facebook- Twitter- Newspaper

Conceptual model

Reputation

Secondary crisis communication: - Willingness to show / forward message- tell friends about incident

Secondary crisis reactions: (boycott, negative word of mouth)

H1: Twitter, Facebook > newspaper: higher reputation; more secondary communication, less secondary crisis reactions

H2: Newspaper are more credible than Facebook and Twitter

H3: Media credibility is positively related to secondary crisis communication

H4: Intentional crises > victim crises: lower reputation, more secondary communication, more secondary crisis reactions

H5: Effects of crisis type are mediated by emotion anger

Emotions

Media Credibility

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Method

Design• 2 (crisis type: intentional vs. Victim crisies) x 3 (medium: facbook, twitter,

newspaper) between-participants design

Participants

• 182 participants (50% male, 50% female)

• Mean age: 29 (SD = 8.38)

Stimuli-Material

• Crisis scenario: Japanese crisis in Fukushima

• E.„Nuclear plant damaged through inadequate maintenance management. 50 TEPCO employees sent to prevent from damage.“

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Medium matters, but crisis type doesn‘t

Reputation, Secondary Crisis Reaction and Communication

No direct effects of crisis type; only: people talk more negatively about company in case of intentional crisis

5

Media credibility and anger matters; crisis type affects anger

Media Credibility and Anger

• Medium credibility is related to secondary crisis communication

(r(182)=.27, p<.05)

• Emotion anger is positively related to secondary crisis communication (F (6, 175)=2.73, p<.05), to secondary crisis reaction (F

(18, 163) =

3.93, p<.001) and reputation (F(6,175)=5.91, p<.001)

• Crisis type affects anger

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Conclusion and Discussion

Conclusion

• Replicates findings (Schultz et al., 2011), that medium matters

• Clarifies, that willingness to share message from traditional newspaper is higher is due to higher media credibility of newspapers

• Indicates indirect effects of crisis type via anger

• Limitations and future research

• Use of real crisis is limitation

• Need for extension of classic crisis communication theories (SCCT)

• Need for analyses of likelihood and valence of crisis communication