Social-mediated Crisis Communication Model Research Articles

What Motivates Information Seeking and Sharing During a Public Health Crisis? A Combined Perspective From the Uses and Gratifications Theory and the Social- Mediated Crisis Communication Model

Combining the uses and gratifications theory (U&G) and the social-mediated crisis communication model (SMCC), this study examined why and how Chinese publics sought and shared information during a public health crisis in China—the Quanjian crisis. Through a survey of 309 Chinese adults, we found that Chinese publics sought and shared crisis information to gratify socializing, guidance, medium appeal, mood management, and habitual diversion gratifications. In addition, publics sought medium appeal gratification through information seeking and sought competence and reciprocity gratifications through information sharing. Moreover, the study examined the relationships between gratifications-sought and forms (i.e., traditional media, social media, offline word-of-mouth communication) and sources (i.e., government, news agency, health professionals, Quanjian company, other public members) of information that Chinese publics sought and shared during the Quanjian crisis.

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.

Roles of Temporal Message Framing and Digital Channel Type in Perception and Dissemination of Food Risk Rumors

Now that online media channels have become important sources of risk information, online rumors about risks have become increasingly problematic. Guided by construal level theory and the social-mediated crisis communication model, this study tests direct, mediating, and moderating effects of temporal message frame and digital media channel type on people’s perceptions of food risk rumors and their intentions to share them. An online experiment with a 2 temporal frame (near vs. distant in time) x 2 channel type (web portal vs. social media site) between-subjects design was conducted among 413 Korean adults. Results show that risk perceptions are affected more by the channel on which rumor information is encountered than by the framing of the information. Specifically, rumor messages presumed to appear on social media generated (a) higher perceived susceptibility than those presumed to appear on web portals (main effects) and (b) higher levels of perceived susceptibility in a distant-future frame condition than in a near-future frame condition (conditional moderating effects). Perceived susceptibility also mediated the interaction effects of temporal frame and channel type on intention to share rumor. This study provides theoretical and practical implications for digital media channel effects on risk perceptions and dissemination intention for risk rumors.

Covid-19 and the tourism industry: An early stage sentiment analysis of the impact of social media and stakeholder communication

This paper examines tourist public responses to crisis communications during the early stages of Covid-19. Using the social-mediated crisis communication model, the paper explores the key factors that influence public sentiments during nascent periods of the crisis. The choice of data collection dates was determined by key milestones events with significant implications in relation to UK tourism. Sentiment analysis of data sets of public tweets and news articles were done in order to interrogate how the trends and performance of the airlines and the tourism sector have been shaped by the sentiments of the tourism publics, the crisis communication interventions from key institutional actors, and the news sentiments about tourism organizations, particularly airlines. Sentiment analysis, also known as opinion mining, falls under natural language processing (NLP) and is used to identify different sentiments and polarities in texts. Our findings indicate that institutional actors have a significant impact on the sentiments of tourism publics. Our study contributes to existing research on crisis communication by illuminating how public narrative about, and stakeholder responses to, crisis are shaped not just by organizational communication strategies but also institutional actors, on the one hand, and the interested publics too.

Social-Mediated Diffusion of Conspiracy Theories about COVID-19: A Study Integrating SMCC and TPB Models

ABSTRACT Two conspiracy theories that respectively attribute the origin of COVID-19 to a Chinese research institute and the US, were widely disseminated over China’s social media sphere in early 2020. By integrating the social-mediated crisis communication model with the theory of planned behavior, this study investigates predictors of public reactions to these conspiracy claims. The results of a cross-sectional survey discovered that message strategies and forms as well as user types and emotions can variously predict their believing in and diffusing conspiracy theories. Rational appeal and internet efficacy both predict diffusing the theory that attributes its origin to the US but have no effect on diffusing its counterpart. Moreover, family discussion has no effect on diffusing both two theories. These findings suggest that public reactions to coronavirus-related conspiracy theories should be examined in the contexts of not only social media applications but also China’s internet regulations, cultural values, and international relations.

Disaster communication behaviors in the U.S. and China: which channels do you use and with whom?

ABSTRACT Enriching the social-mediated crisis communication model (SMCC) with the media theories of information repertoire and curation as well as the literature of risk communication, this study examines the antecedents, processes, and protective outcomes of disaster communication in the form of information gathering and sharing across countries. Analysis of online survey data collected in the United States and China shows that while Americans and Chinese exhibit similar patterns in using repertoires for disaster information gathering, they differ in the repertoires used for sharing disaster information. Moreover, different inter-repertoire patterns are manifested in disaster information gathering and sharing. Both countries also exhibit similarities and differences in terms of the association between the repertoires of disaster communication and protective action taking. Furthermore, the results show that subjective norms are the most consistent predictor of all types of repertoires of disaster information gathering across countries.

Simplified Social Mediated Crisis Communication Model during Crisis in Indonesia: A Case Study on How Customers of Indonesia Commuter Line Train Company Seek Information on a Train Delay Due to the Double Track Trial on April 12, 2019

This study explores how audiences seek information from internet and social media platforms, and considers what factors affect social media use during a crisis. The paper is based on research conducted via a survey involving 162 active followers selected from the 875,200 followers of the Indonesia Train Company: PT Kereta Api Commuter Line official Twitter account (Info Commuter Line @CommuterLine). The study proposes the Simplified Social Mediated Crisis Communication Model (SSMCC) as a variation on the original Social-Mediated Crisis Communication (SMCC) Model by Jin & Liu (2010). This variation is based on the argument that during a crisis, audiences located nearby typically rely on social media (usually accessed via a mobile phone) rather than a traditional media outlet when seeking information. This study concludes that some of the themes related to the use of social media to search for information during a crisis, and word of mouth (WOM) communication, are present in the Social-Mediated Crisis Communication (SMCC) communication model. This study also discusses the differences between the original SMCC model and the Simplified Social-Mediated Crisis Communication model proposed by the researcher. There was no evidence of an inactive social media user’s influence on information retrieval during a crisis; in addition, there is no role of traditional media as a source of information retrieval during a crisis. This research contributes to developing scientific knowledge and practices in Indonesia.
 Keywords: crisis communication, social media, information search, simplified social mediated crisis communication model, social media followers

Exploring Crisis Communication and Information Dissemination on Social Media: Social Network Analysis of Hurricane Irma Tweets

This study utilized social network analysis to identify the top 10 Twitter influentials during the Hurricane Irma crisis period and examined the relationship between social media attributes and the bridge influence of controlling information flow. The number of a user’s followers and tweets significantly predicted one’s control of information. Crisis information tended to be shared in scattered subgroups. Social network boundaries impeded information diffusion, and the communication pattern was largely one-way. The findings partially supported the opinion leader argument while indicating that influentials can directly generate information, which is consistent with the social-mediated crisis communication model. Such findings will contribute to crisis literature and help emergency management professionals advance social media usage to disseminate crisis information, build effective communication, and provide immediate disaster relief responses

Information vetting as a key component in social-mediated crisis communication: An exploratory study to examine the initial conceptualization

In order to understand publics’ crisis information consumption in an increasingly competitive and conflicting media environment, this study addresses how and why individuals vet information (or not) in social-mediated crisis situations. Built upon the social-mediated crisis communication (SMCC) model as well as grounded in the elaboration likelihood model and the meta-cognition theory, this study proposes an initial conceptual framework of crisis information vetting. An exploratory study, including four focus groups and 13 in-depth interviews, was conducted to investigate: 1) indicators of information vetting behavior according to participants’ self-reported experiences; and 2) what motivate and what prohibit participants from engaging themselves emotionally and cognitively in the process of crisis information vetting. Our qualitative data provide evidences for a two-step process of crisis information vetting, namely, primary vetting and secondary vetting. The 14 sub-constructs and 48 vetting behavior indicators rendered may serve in future scale development and further conceptual model refinement of the new crisis information vetting construct. By connecting publics’ crisis information consumption with their crisis information transmission in social-mediated crisis communication, this study also extends and enriches the SMCC model.

How publics’ active and passive communicative behaviors affect their tornado responses: An integration of STOPS and SMCC

During imminent threat crises, such as natural disasters, publics have minutes to decide how to respond after receiving a warning. This study advances understanding of publics’ crisis communicative and noncommunicative behaviors in the context of tornadoes through combining and extending two theories: the social-mediated crisis communication (SMCC) model and the situational theory of problem solving (STOPS). Findings from a survey of Southeast U.S. residents (n = 1,585) indicate that STOPS is internally consistent and accurate at measuring its intended outcomes of communicative action in problem solving. However, the STOPS measures do not have a significant relationship with the desirable outcome for imminent threat crisis communication: individuals following government’s protective action guidance about tornadoes. In comparison, the expanded SMCC model predicts individuals’ self-reported compliance. Finally, variables from the SMCC model and tornado-specific variables were integrated into the STOPS model to explain individuals’ communicative engagement. Implications for theory and public relations practice are discussed.

Revisiting social-mediated crisis communication model: The Lancôme regenerative crisis after the Hong Kong Umbrella Movement

The widespread use of social media has stimulated the number of crises on a global scale and given rise to regenerative crises which involve multiple crisis stages and publics. Using the Social-Mediated Crisis Communication model and the regenerative crisis model, this study explores a real-life organizational crisis related to Lancôme Hong Kong, which was driven by the socio-political environment after the Umbrella Movement. It aims to examine the engagement strategies by different publics, and also the influence of information forms and sources on the trends of emotion among social media publics. Results also provided an empirical evaluation of the regenerative crisis model driven by a socio-political environment. An online content analysis of selected 10% sample with an online data acquisition and analysis tool (3902 Facebook posts and comments, 1178 forum posts and comments, and 244 online news articles) revealed the interlocking connection among the involved publics along with the social-mediated regenerative crisis life cycle. Followers’ emotional responses were not only attached to Lancôme, but also to third parties as information sources. Four subcategories of influential social media creators were identified. Refinement on the Social-Mediated Crisis Communication model and practical implications are suggested.

The Use of Social Media Among Qatari Youth During Crises- A Survey

In this paper, secondary crisis communication have been analyzed with respect to the effects of traditional media vs new media tools during the times of crises. The results confirms the strong relationship between the variables of SMCC model- Social Mediated Crisis Communication model. As the model highlighted the importance of word of mouth during crisis time, the results testing the cognitive dimension of acquiring news and updates indicated that the major source of information about the true crisis that happened before conducting the research was “friends and family” and social media –via what’s app and BBM. When testing the affective dimension, comparing traditional media to social media in terms of trustworthiness, the traditional media won over social media. Word of mouth also plays an important role in evaluating news as trustworthy. The direct and indirect channels of communication that transfer information about crisis appeared in testing the behavioral component of the information processing, where information is processed either directly by the receiver through social media or traditional media, or indirectly via inactive users who receive information reported by followers via twitter or Facebook or what’s app. The above mentioned results point to the need to extend crisis communication theories and shed more light on the mediated role of social networking sites in crisis communication as a shift from one to many communication mode to many to many communication mode. There are many intervening variables in the process of new media crisis communication that need to be examined and experimented such as interpretations use experiences (Schultz et al.,2011) in addition to users’ evaluation of medium credibility and the overall communication environment. Integration of social media into crisis and risk communication is crucial for crisis management, but it needs to be well planned. Using social media has the advantage of gaining fast information that would reduce rumors, but it has to be well planned to gain trust and credibility Having a comparison of a non-crisis information seeking situation builds the credibility of the results in times information seeking during crisis situations. The findings of this study have practical implications when designing communication strategies for government and organizations during emerging crisis situations. Using social media would result in a more positive evaluation of the situation, and achieving higher levels of awareness when information dissemination is needed. Communication of consistent messages via social networking sites in line with traditional media forms could assist in limiting rumors and achieve news credibility.

Parody social media accounts: Influence and impact on organizations during crisis

With the uptake of the use of social media, the communication field has seen a rise in a new phenomenon: parody social media accounts. Through study of five such accounts, this paper shows how parody social media accounts can arise from a crisis or paracrisis, which is “a publicly visible crisis threat” that is triggered online (Coombs & Holladay, 2012, p. 409). The study also examines the behavior of these accounts and how they enforce negative perceptions and impede an organization's efforts and initiatives. Using the social-mediated crisis communication model as its theoretical lens, this study seeks to examine parody social media accounts and their impact on organizations in times of crisis. Finally, the paper also gives recommendations on how organizations can respond effectively to these accounts.

The Tendency To Tell: Understanding Publics' Communicative Responses To Crisis Information Form and Source

Through 22 in-depth interviews and an experiment with 162 college students, this study applies the social-mediated crisis communication (SMCC) model to understand why and how publics communicate about crises. Specifically, the study focuses on how the source and form of the initial crisis information publics are exposed to affect their crisis communication. The findings confirm the validity of the SMCC model's core components related to publics' crisis communicative tendencies under the influence of traditional media, social media, and offline word-of-mouth communication. The results also indicate that traditional media, compared to other media forms, seems to exert a stronger influence on how publics communicate about crises.

Managing Turbulence in the Blogosphere: Evaluating the Blog-Mediated Crisis Communication Model with the American Red Cross

Through interviews with 40 American Red Cross communication professionals, this study examines how an organization that frequently responds to crises proactively manages on- and offline communication before, during, and after crises. The results provide the first empirical evaluation of an emerging model: the blog-mediated crisis communication model (BMCC). The lessons shared by the American Red Cross are insightful for researchers to understand the process of blog-mediated crisis communication in the nonprofit sector, which are also relevant for other public relations professionals. The findings support components of the original BMCC model, but also clearly indicate important revisions, including renaming the model the social-mediated crisis communication model (SMCC).

Examining the Role of Social Media in Effective Crisis Management

Publics increasingly use social media during crises and, consequently, crisis communication professionals need to understand how to strategically optimize these tools. Despite this need, there is scarce theory-grounded research to understand key factors that affect how publics consume crisis information via social media compared to other sources. To fill this gap, an emerging model helps crisis managers understand how publics produce, consume, and/or share crisis information via social media and other sources: the social-mediated crisis communication model (SMCC). This study tests essential components of the SMCC model through a 3 (crisis information form) x 2 (crisis information source) x 2 (crisis origin) mixed-design experiment ( N = 338). The findings indicate the key role of crisis origin in affecting publics’ preferred information form (social media, traditional media, or word-of-mouth communication) and source (organization in crisis or third party), which influences how publics anticipate an organization should respond to a crisis and what crisis emotions they are likely to feel when exposed to crisis information.

How publics respond to crisis communication strategies: The interplay of information form and source

Through an experiment with 162 college students this study empirically evaluates an emerging communication model: the social-mediated crisis communication model (SMCC). As part of a series of studies testing the SMCC model, this study focuses on two of the SMCC model's components: the effects of crisis information form (traditional media, social media, and word-of-mouth) and source (third party and organization) on publics’ acceptance of crisis response strategies and publics’ crisis emotions. The findings clearly indicate the importance of strategically matching crisis information form and source when organizations respond to crises. In addition, the selection of crisis information form and source affects publics’ attribution independent and dependent emotions.