Social Media Crisis Communication Research Articles

Social Media in Crisis Communication: A Case Analysis of the 2023 Kahramanmaraş Earthquakes

This study examines the role of Twitter/X, a news platform, in crisis communication. The aim of the study is to contribute to the literature on crisis communication by understanding the importance, effectiveness, and applicability of social media. For this purpose, a qualitative research was conducted to determine how X was used as a communication tool during crises, specifically focusing on a case analysis of the Kahramanmaraş earthquakes. Within the scope of the research, 182 tweets shared between February 6th and 13th, 2023, from the official X account of the Disaster and Emergency Management Presidency (AFAD), were examined. Content analysis method was employed to analyze the tweets, focusing on content, frequency of sharing, and interaction rate. The research findings indicate that AFAD's tweets were categorized into four main themes: "information on processes, support services, announcements, and disinformation and communication." The findings suggest that the posts were predominantly made during the initial period of the crisis characterized by high uncertainty, with the most shared content focusing on search and rescue operations. Another research objective was to determine the interaction rate of AFAD's crisis communication messages. Accordingly, it is noteworthy that the theme with the least frequency of sharing, "disinformation and communication," received the highest interaction from users. The findings of this study, which focuses on the transformative power of social media in crisis communication, confirm that the need for reliable communication channels and verified information/sources increases during crises, and it confirms the significant role of institutional social media accounts in combating disinformation.

Who has dominated information spreading on social media during the early stage of COVID-19 pandemic in China? A temporal network analysis

In times of crisis, social media emerges as a pivotal channel for government-public communication. This study delves into the dynamics of a temporal weighted network on Weibo, analyzing 39,567,227 reposted data points related to the COVID-19 pandemic, specifically during its critical early stage. We examine the information dissemination roles of eight distinct user types: state-run news media, non-state-run news media, influential we media, normal we media, celebrities, organizations, governmental departments, and normal users. This is achieved through the application of three centrality metrics: temporal weighted degree centrality (TWDC), temporal weighted closeness centrality (TWCC), and temporal weighted betweenness centrality (TWBC), focusing on three cases (Top 10, Top 20, and Top 50) based on ranking results. Our findings reveal that while state-run news media were prolific in information publishing, their roles as central and mediator agents in information spreading were comparatively weaker than those of non-state-run news media and we media, especially influential we media. This pattern underscores potential risks in false information propagation and highlights gaps in the government's information dissemination strategy during the early stages of the pandemic. The study offers targeted theoretical and practical implications, suggesting how governments might more effectively leverage social media for crisis communication, thereby enhancing their role in combating misinformation and guiding public perception. These insights are crucial for framing more responsive and adaptive communication strategies in the initial phases of a crisis, providing a global blueprint for effective information management in public health emergencies.

The role of social media in Crisis Communication - challenges of professional media

The role of social media in Crisis Communication - challenges of professional media

Determinants of the Use of Social Media in Crisis Communication: An Analysis of Microblogging by Chinese Local Government

ABSTRACT The public sector increasingly adopts social media to respond to crises.. We utilize the technology-organization-environment theory to examine factors influencing the performance of social media use in crisis communication during the pandemic. Based on data from China, we find four factors that significantly impact the performance of social media use: organizational resources, policy environment, severity of COVID-19, and leadership. Performance is also found to be better for those places led by leaders from younger generations with medical science or mass media experiences. The study shares implications for swift government responses to pandemic health emergencies through effective information collection and dissemination.

Adapting social media strategies: a comparative analysis of Turkish Airlines, Qatar Airways, and Emirates before, during, and after the COVID-19 Pandemic

In recent years, the aviation industry has transformed significantly, driven by the increasing importance of digital technologies and social media for communication and marketing. The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated this transformation, posing unprecedented challenges to airlines. The present study investigates how Turkish Airlines, Qatar Airways, and Emirates adapted their social media strategies before, during, and after the pandemic. The research has a threefold focus: (i) assessing pre-pandemic social media strategies, (ii) examining strategy evolution during the pandemic, and (iii) comparing the effectiveness of these strategies before and after COVID-19. By exploring how these airlines leveraged social media to navigate pandemic-related disruptions and maintain vital connections with passengers, this study provides valuable insights. These findings hold significant implications for aviation stakeholders, marketing professionals, and researchers, shedding light on the evolving role of social media in crisis communication and marketing. The study uncovered interesting changes in how airlines use Twitter. After the pandemic, they started using more emojis, and their messages shifted from promoting services to expressing hope during the pandemic and back to promotions afterward. They played with visuals and hashtags. Pricing-wise, they offered discounts for students, different ticket options, and bundled services. In promotions, they focused on being environmentally and socially responsible, user convenience, and specific events. They mainly shared updates on flights, achievements, and travel advice. To engage people, they used quizzes, replied directly to customers, and targeted specific groups. For marketing managers, the study suggests being more customer-focused, emphasizing environmental and social responsibility, offering diverse pricing, celebrating milestones, and creating engaging content. Overall, the findings provide practical insights for adjusting marketing strategies in the ever-changing world of airlines, especially considering the challenges brought by COVID-19.

Impact of ByteDance crisis communication strategies on different social media users

The impact of corporate crisis communication strategies on users’ attitudes across different platforms has emerged as a new focal point in crisis management. This study is rooted in Social Media Crisis Communication (SMCC) and employs the case of Trump’s sanctions on TikTok to analyze variations in the effects of ByteDance’s crisis communication strategies on different social media platforms. We initally identified five announcements that generated significant discussions on Toutiao and Weibo and collected the corresponding user comments (a total of 50,702). Subsequently, we utilized two approaches, machine learning and deep learning, to conduct sentiment classification tests on the text to identify the best-performing model. This model was then applied on the entire dataset for sentiment classification, followed by semantic network analysis based on the sentiment classification results. The results demostrated that the pre-trained ERNIE model outperformed the other tested models (F1 = 82.40%). Following the fourth crisis communication event, users on Toutiao and Weibo exhibited contrasting sentimental tendencies. Theoretically, we observed that users on different social media platforms relying on distinct information sources, expressed different sentimental responses to the same crisis. Social media users have a tendency to anthropomorphize corporate personality traits. In practical terms, we recommend that companies engage in crisis communication on multiple social media platforms and do not overlook the most influential platforms in the market.

European emergency managers on social media: institutional arrangements and guidelines

PurposeThis paper offers an empirical overview of European emergency managers' institutional arrangements and guidelines for using social media in risk and crisis communication.Design/methodology/approachThe authors collected and analysed material including publicly accessible relevant legal acts, policy documents, official guidelines, and press reports in eight European countries – Germany, Italy, Belgium, Sweden, Hungary, Finland, Norway, and Estonia. Additionally, the authors carried out 95 interviews with emergency managers in the eight countries between September 2019 and February 2020.FindingsThe authors found that emergency management institutions' social media usage is rarely centrally controlled and social media crisis communication was regulated with the same guidelines as crisis communication on traditional media. Considering this study's findings against the backdrop of existing research and practice, the authors find support for a “mixed arrangement” model by which centralised policies work in tandem with decentralised practices on an ad hoc basis.Practical implicationsComparative insights about institutional arrangements and procedural guidelines on social media crisis communication in the studied countries could inform the future policies concerning social media use in other emergency management systems.Originality/valueThis study includes novel, cross-national comparative data on the institutional arrangements and guidelines for using social media in emergency management in the context of Europe.

The Role of Social Media in Crisis Communication during COVID-19 Period

The COVID-19 pandemic continues to cause great impact on countries around the world. During this health crisis, political communication is crucial as the governments ability to govern is challenged and it needs to make timely decisions that will affect a large number of people based on the spread of the virus. COVID-19 is changing the way people interact with each other, and social media is playing a more important role in peoples social life than ever before. Due to its convenience in obtaining information and its widespread application, social media has become an important channel for the government and the public to participate in crisis management. From the perspective of social-mediated crisis communication (SMCC) and media richness, this paper mainly analyzes the roles of social media in COVID-19 crisis communication from the aspects of communication efficiency, social solidarity, information epidemic and celebrity effects, thereby providing the government with recommendations for a more comprehensive understanding and employment of social media in COVID-19 crisis communication.

The use of social media for crisis communication during the COVID-19 pandemic: The case of Lebanon

La crise sanitaire du COVID-19 a créé de nombreux défis pour les gouvernements, notamment en ce qui concerne l’utilisation de communications appropriées sur la pandémie et du renforcement de la confiance du public dans les décisions du gouvernement. L’étude adopte une approche qualitative pour explorer l’utilisation des médias sociaux par les autorités libanaises durant la pandémie de COVID-19 et analyser ses communications à partir de la théorie de la réparation d’image ( image repair theory ). Les résultats montrent que pendant la pandémie de COVID-19, le gouvernement libanais, qui a souffert de crises majeures dans le pays et du manque de confiance de la majorité de la population, a été confronté au dilemme de préserver la liberté individuelle tout en recherchant le bien commun. Pour cela, il a utilisé un ensemble d’outils de communication visant à inquiéter, à expliquer et à rassurer la population. En outre, les médias sociaux ont été utilisés pour dissiper les rumeurs et combattre les fake news.

NETWORK ANALYSIS OF SOCIAL MEDIA RESEARCH IN ENTREPRENEURSHIP DEVELOPMENT

Over the past decade, social media has emerged as a major research area in entrepreneurship development, as firms increasingly utilize social media platforms to engage with customers and promote their products and services. However, despite this growth in research, there remains a lack of consensus on the definition and understanding of social media marketing, as well as its impact on entrepreneurship performance. To address this gap in the literature, this paper applies network analysis to a corpus of social media research to identify key topics and themes that have emerged over time, and to explore the relationships between different research areas. The research question that guides this paper is: What are the key research topics and themes that have emerged in social media research in the past decade, and how do these topics relate to each other? To answer this question, we employ network analysis to map the connections between different research areas and to identify the most influential articles and authors in the field. Our analysis reveals several distinct clusters of research, including studies on user behavior, social media metrics, and the role of social media in marketing and branding. We also find evidence of cross-cutting themes that bridge different research areas, such as the impact of social media on customer engagement and the use of social media for crisis communication. Finally, we discuss the implications of our findings for future research and practice in the area of social media and entrepreneurship development.

Social media: Connecting and sharing in a bushfire crisis

Social media has become an integral channel for official agencies to communicate with citizens in a natural disaster crisis and increasingly time, effort and money are being spent on improving social media strategies and practices. However, there is much less research focused on understanding how people engage with official social media content, a significant piece of the crisis communication puzzle. As the use of social media for crisis communication in natural disasters is increasing and the amount of information threatens to overwhelm people, understanding how people engage with official social media content is vital. Using quantitative content analysis, this study examined the use of Facebook by two Australian emergency response agencies during a specific bushfire event and explored how the attributes of social media content are related to user engagement with the information. The findings show that the two agencies had markedly different approaches which resulted in differences in user engagement.

Public sectors and nonprofit organizations use of social media to communicate compassion during crisis

Using compassion is an important public communication strategy associated with many positive outcomes. While research on compassion has grown in many fields, few studies have explored the role of compassion in crisis communication. This study fills the gap in the research to examine if public sectors and nonprofit organizations used compassion on their social media content and how it impacts public emotion in a winter freeze crisis in Texas. Facebook posts from four local agencies were analyzed to investigate the role of compassion in crisis communication during this emergency. The results highlight the value of using compassion on social media in crisis communication. Facebook posts containing compassion components significantly increased online public engagement. Furthermore, compassion functioned to decrease negative emotions and bolster positive emotions among the public. Media richness did not exert any significant impact on public reactions. Policy implications for government agencies and non-profit organizations are discussed.

Exploring customer concerns on service quality under the COVID-19 crisis: A social media analytics study from the retail industry

The COVID-19 pandemic has triggered a set of government policies and supermarket regulations, which affects customers' grocery shopping behaviours. However, the specific impact of COVID-19 on retailers at the customer end has not yet been addressed. Using text-mining techniques (i.e., sentiment analysis, topic modelling) and time series analysis, we analyse 161,921 tweets from leading UK supermarkets during the first COVID-19 lockdown. The results show the causes of sentiment change in each time series and how customer perception changes according to supermarkets’ response actions. Drawing on the social media crisis communication framework and Situational Crisis Communication theory, this study investigates whether responding to a crisis helps retail managers better understand their customers. The results uncover that customers experiencing certain social media interactions may evaluate attributes differently, resulting in varying levels of customer information collection, and grocery companies could benefit from engaging in social media crisis communication with customers. As new variants of COVID-19 keep appearing, emerging managerial problems put businesses at risk for the next crisis. Based on the results of text-mining analysis of consumer perceptions, this study identifies emerging topics in the UK grocery sector in the context of COVID-19 crisis communication and develop the sub-dimensions of service quality assessment into four categories: physical aspects, reliability, personal interaction, and policies. This study reveals how supermarkets could use social media data to better analyse customer behaviour during a pandemic and sustain competitiveness by upgrading their crisis strategies and service provision. It also sheds light on how future researchers can leverage the power of social media data with multiple text-mining methodologies.

Sociodemographic and Psychosocial Profiles of Multi-Media Use for Risk Communication in the General Population.

Although disaster research has acknowledged the role of social media in crisis communication, the interplay of new (e.g., mobile apps) and traditional media (e.g., TV, radio) in public warnings has received less attention, particularly from the recipients’ perspective. Therefore, we examined sociodemographic and psychosocial correlates of different types of media use (i.e., traditional, new, mixed) for receiving public warning messages in a population survey (N = 613, 63% female; Mage = 31.56 years). More than two-thirds (68%) reported mixed media use, with 20% relying on new media and 12% on traditional media. Traditional media users were older and reported lower levels of education, while new media users were significantly younger and reported lower trust toward traditional media (i.e., TV). Migrants were more likely to use new but not mixed media. In sum, most participants utilized a mixture of traditional and new media for warning purposes, which has implications for crisis communication. Though, vulnerable populations (e.g., older and less educated participants) mainly rely on traditional media, stressing the need for continued support. Thus, it is paramount to increasingly use mixed methods designs and concurrently examine multiple channels to reflect real-world warning practices and generate ecologically valid results.

" Rumor Correction in Social Media Crisis Communication: A Case of Connective Sense-breaking"

Large-scale societal crises require individuals and organizations to make sense of ambiguous situations. Nowadays, users use social media such as Twitter to seek and contribute crisis-related information. However, contradictory cues such as rumors increasingly break up their sense- and decision-making processes. We examine how sense-breaking (i.e., rumor-supporting and -correction messages) impact rumor spreading and how different user archetypes contribute to this process. Against the theory of connective action as a backdrop, we conducted a case study on the German Chemnitz 2018 riots and associated Twitter communication. With an analysis combining semi-automated content analysis and social network analysis, we identified five rumor-spreading networks. Characteristic user behavior and deduced user archetypes revealed that impeded connective action negatively impacted rumor correction. From those findings, we theoretically derive a concept that we call “connective sense-breaking”; that is, connective efforts by involved user archetypes and their supporting and correction behavior to achieve information consensus. This new perspective on rumor spreading provides IS researchers with an expedient lens for future work and helps crisis communication stakeholders such as emergency management agencies to define their role in rumor spreading and, consequently, improve their ad hoc decision-making.

A Multistage Analysis of Predicting Public Resilience of Impactful Social Media Crisis Communication in Flooding Emergencies

A Multistage Analysis of Predicting Public Resilience of Impactful Social Media Crisis Communication in Flooding Emergencies

Communicating on social media during a #FestivalEmergency

PurposeThe purpose of the study was to explore multidirectional flows of information over the course of an emergency. The following research questions were designed to guide this study: How does social media communication unfold over the course of an emergency at a cultural event? How does the nature and purpose of social media communication between all SM users change once an emergency occurs that affects event operations? How does the sentiment of social media communication change once an emergency occurs that affects event operations?Design/methodology/approachThis study explored how social media was used to communicate about on-site emergencies at community cultural events. Three events were studied before, during and after an on-site emergency that disrupted the event. The Twitter and Facebook posts referencing emergencies that took place at Shambhala, Detonate and Zombicon were explored, and the nature and purpose of the posts revealed how online communication changed throughout the emergencies. The Social Mediated Crisis Communication Model guided this research and findings contribute to the model's ongoing development by incorporating additional theories and models.FindingsThe research demonstrates that social media communication shifts during an emergency and how communication moves through a network changes. Once an emergency is underway, communication increases and who is talking with whom changes. The nature and purpose of the social media conversation also evolves over the course of an emergency.Research limitations/implicationsThis study examined the social media communication during three on-site emergencies at three different cultural events. The findings contribute to the understanding of the Social Media Crisis Communication Model. Specifically, the research confirms the various actors who engage online but also shows that two-way communication is not common. As this study only examined three events experiencing three different emergencies, we have a limited understanding of how the type of emergencies affects social media communication.Practical implicationsThe findings show the need for pre-crisis work by event organizers. It is necessary for the events to build trust with their online communities to ensure that when an emergency occurs the event will be seen as a trusted source. Also, staff training is needed to ensure people are prepared to handle the complexities of communicating online during an emergency. Issues like misinformation, influencers and the rapid pace of social media communication create a challenging environment for staff who are unprepared.Originality/valueEmergencies can threaten the survival of event organizations and put the health and wellness of attendees, staff and other stakeholders at risk. The study of crisis communication in special event contexts has received little theoretical attention and yet it is an important area of event management practice. Social media is an essential part of communication strategies and should be integrated into emergency planning to best reach people when an emergency threatens the safety of those involved with the event. The Social Media Crisis Communication Model offers some insight, but understanding its relevance is necessary if it is to be integrated into event emergency management.

Crisis communication on social media - lessons from Covid-19

ABSTRACT Social media networks are increasingly important tools for crisis communication and the Novel Coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) provides a unique opportunity to explore the role of social media in crisis communication. The goal of this research is to better understand how from political leaders adapt their communication strategy to on-the-ground changes during a crisis and how the communication of crisis-relevant information on social media affects the public’s perception of the response effort. We achieve this through an analysis of pandemic data from The Covid Tracking Project at The Atlantic, survey data from the Covid States Project, and pandemic-relevant Twitter statuses posted by US state governors. Our results show that governors alter their communication patterns and tone after developments in the pandemic and that such changes in communication patterns are accompanied by subsequent changes in public perception of the governor’s response to the pandemic. Implications for theory and practice are discussed.

Letting the team down? Examining sport fans reactions to Aaron Smith’s ‘Toilet Tryst’ on social media

ABSTRACT Recent scholarly attention in the field of sports crisis communication has focused on audience reception and participation in crisis communication messages in digital and social media. While studies find that fans launch their own defence of their favourite stars, a comparative analysis of fan enacted crisis communication across multiple social media networks is lacking. This study extends Situational Crisis Communication Theory in the context of athlete reputational crises (ARCs) and examines the use of crisis communication messages in the sporting arena through a study of New Zealand’s All Black Aaron Smith’s 2016 ‘Toilet Tryst’. It builds on previous findings by comparatively analysing 1) the crisis communication messages voiced by Smith and All Blacks management; 2) associated elite opinion in media coverage; and 3) comparative analysis of communication strategies used by fans across a range of social media networks. While Smith and All Blacks employed traditional strategies of apology, we found that fans on social media often defended Smith and the All Blacks, and used newer strategies of expression of disappointment and humour to diminish and curtail reputational impact. However, while there was a little variation in crisis response strategies between the social media networks, there was more within the sub-rhetorical spaces within a social media platform. Implications for and future research in sport fans social media crisis communication strategies are discussed.

Lies, Damned Lies, and Social Media Following Extreme Events.

With the increased use of social media in crisis communication following extreme events, it is important to understand how the public distinguishes between true and false information. A U.S. adult sample (N = 588) was presented 20 actual social media posts following a natural disaster or soft-target terrorist attack in the United States. In this study, social media posts are conceptualized as truth signals with varying strengths, either above or below each individual's threshold for believing the post is true. Optimally, thresholds should be contingent on the (incentivized) error penalties and base-rate of true posts, both of which were manipulated. Separate receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analyses indicate that participants performed slightly better than chance for natural disasters and moderately better than chance for terror attacks. While the pooled thresholds are ordinally consistent with the base-rate and error penalty manipulations, they are underadjusted compared to the optimal thresholds. After accounting for demographic and cognitive variables, the base-rate manipulation significantly predicted sensitivity, specificity, and true response rates in the expected direction for both content domains, while the error penalty manipulation had no significant effect in either domain. Self-identified political conservatives performed worse at classifying false content as false for natural disasters, but better for terror attacks.