Constructing authority in times of crisis

Abstract

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to investigate how the Chinese government generates authority during a crisis through discursive practices expressed in social media.Design/methodology/approachUsing the theoretical framework of authority and the method of genre analysis, this study examined the top 100 forwarded posts on Weibo about a high-profile murder to determine the mechanisms involved in generating authority.FindingsThis study provides empirical support that building and maintaining authority distinguishes governments from other social actors during crisis communication. The genre analysis demonstrates that the strategic use of genre chain and genre mixing contributes to the construction of governments’ authority during a crisis. Furthermore, this study suggests the performative and social constructionist approach to understand governments’ authority in the digital age on two levels: a situationally-constructed concept that goes beyond the context of fixed institutions and a relationally-constructed concept that is promoted through discursive collaboration among various social actors.Research limitations/implicationsThis study does not directly assess the effectiveness of a government’s ability to construct its authority. Nor does it examine the construction of governments’ authority outside the context of an authoritarian regime. These issues should be addressed in future research.Practical implicationsThis study offers governmental organizations some practical insights that can be used to infuse a constructive aspect of authority into their crisis communication plans, practices and processes.Originality/valueHere, authority is seen as a social construction that foregrounds the discursive, performative, constructive and communicative dimensions of crisis communication. Moreover, this study points to the need for a more complex integrated perspective in crisis communication that includes and connects corporate and government crisis communication.