Through the lens of ethnicity: Semantic network and thematic analyses of United Airlines’ dragging crisis

Abstract

Emphasizing the potential impact of publics’ ethnic identities in crisis situations, the main purpose of the study is to explore how two ethnically different publics respond to the United Airlines’ dragging crisis. Using semantic network analysis and thematic analysis, the research examined how Twitter messages written in both English and Chinese reflect themes around ethnicity. The results showed that the Chinese publics explicitly present the ethnicity identity of the Asian group, demonstrating that language and words reflect social media users’ ethnic identity. The research provides both theoretical and practical implications for crises involving the issue of ethnicity.