Improving automated crisis detection via an improved understanding of crisis language: Linguistic categories in social media crises

By applying the Linguistic Category Model (LCM) in crisis communication, this study explores the potential of verb tracking on social media to examine how linguistic categories can elucidate the intentional and/or unintentional communication of crisis attribution frames. Through a content analysis, linguistic categories used in both media posts reporting three clusters of crisis and public comments on Facebook were examined. Results indicated that linguistic abstraction in both media post and public comments describing the crisis varied based on crisis cluster, suggesting that the level of linguistic abstraction reflected perceived attribution of responsibility through stability, locus and controllability. Language used to describe preventable crisis tend to be more abstract than those used to describe accidental and victim crisis. Findings of this study empirically tested the integration of LCM in crisis communication and implied potential application of LCM in building automated environmental scanning and crisis prediction systems.     

Understanding motivated publics during disasters: Examining message functions,frames, and styles of social media influentials and followers

There has been a growing body of research regarding how organizations and general publics communicate on social media during crises. Integrating the uses and gratifications perspective, the social‐mediated crisis communication model, and the framing approach, our study offers a consolidated framework explaining how and why motivated social media publics communicate during crises. Namely, we examined whether and how influentials and followers employed different message functions through communicative devices including frames and styles. A content analysis was conducted on 800 tweets sampled from influentials and followers discussing the 2017 Ariana Grande concert bombing disaster. Our results (N = 800) suggested that influentials and followers adopted distinct communicative functions on social media during the disaster. Influentials engaged in information sharing and support exchange, whereas followers engaged in opinion expression and emotional coping. Influentials and followers also adopted specific frames and styles to achieve these communicative functions. Our findings can help crisis communicators understand the needs, concerns, and communication features of different publics and construct effective messages to reach them.     

Communication‐mediated psychological mechanisms of Chinese publics’ post‐crisis corporate associations and government associations

Through an online national survey in China, the study empirically examines the serial mediation effects of active communication behaviour and post‐crisis corporate associations in the relationships between initial crisis perceptions of problem, constraint, and involvement recognitions and government associations. The study suggested that higher problem and involvement recognitions were positively associated with more active communication behaviour in crisis, and such active communication behaviour was in turn positively associated with more favourable post‐crisis corporate associations. The findings also revealed connections between post‐crisis corporate associations and government associations, suggesting publics’ psychological associations of the company in crisis were extended to government associations in China.     

Exploring social media use in university crisis communication: An experiment to measure impact on perceived crisis severity and attitudes of key publics

This study seeks to investigate the impact of an exposure to a university's social media on publics’ perceptions during a crisis. Data from this study showed that participants (N = 269) expressed more favourable evaluations towards the university and their perceived severity was mitigated after viewing its official statement on university's Facebook posts. The results of this empirical research offer a meaningful suggestion to crisis communication scholars and practitioners interested in assessing the impact of universities’ statements in social media by providing ways to understand the importance of the organizational usage of social media during a crisis, why that is important, and why practitioners should make effective social media communication tactics a priority during a crisis.     

An Examination of Consumer–Company Identification as a Key Predictor of Consumer Responses in Corporate Crisis

Through an experiment, this study examined how varying degrees of consumer–company identification, crisis severity and different crisis response messages (i.e., two‐sided vs. one‐sided) affected consumers’ responses to corporate crisis and the crisis‐affected company. Results suggested that two‐sided response messages were more effective in reducing the attribution of crisis responsibility than one‐sided positive response messages for weak identifiers, while one‐sided positive response messages were more effective than two‐sided response messages for strong identifiers. But this message effect was only found in low but not high severity crisis. Findings of the study indicated that consumer–company identification may serve as one of the key factors in predicting consumer reactions to crisis.     

Ethical public typology: How does moral foundation theory and anticorporatism predict changes in public perceptions during a crisis?

This study proposes a new public typology utilising moral foundation theory and anticorporatism. The current paper conceptualised four ethical types of public (e.g., moralists, antagonists, optimists, and pragmatists) and conducted an online survey using a national sample (N = 1124) to test the applicability of the new typology. Our results suggest that different types of publics react differently in attributing crisis responsibility, expressing their emotional responses, and showing boycott intentions in evaluating a corporate crisis.     

Ability or social responsibility? Highlighting the effects of precrisis attitudinal foundations and certainty in product harm crises

Current corporate crisis literature is split on whether a good corporate reputation before a product harm crisis hurts or helps a company after the crisis. We argue that the current views on this issue miss two crucial elements: (1) the primary domain where the company's precrisis reputation lies in: corporate social responsibility contributions or corporate ability in providing quality products and services; and (2) consumers' attitude certainty developed from such precrisis reputation. Through an online experiment, our study not only provides a way to reconcile the current division in the literature but also provides insights for organizations to capitalize on their precrisis reputation when responding to the product harm crisis. Our results show that companies' precrisis reputation and consumer certainty developed from such a reputation matter more than companies' postcrisis communication in restoring consumer evaluations.     

Twittering the Little India Riot: Audience responses,information behavior and the use of emotive cues

In crises and disasters, social media not only facilitates mobilization, sharing of critical information, but also enables people to watch and participate as the crisis unfolds. Participation is now much more open to those beyond the immediately affected: the victims, the rescue workers and other stakeholders. This paper reports on a study of tweets collected during and after a rare occurrence of a violent riot in Singapore, illustrating the evolution of crisis responses, emotive cues information seeking and sharing behavior on Twitter over the lifecycle of the riot. Evidence of orientation of responses from the self towards the community as the riot progresses was found, contributing to ongoing research on community building in crises. Emotive cues were most dominant in the first hour of the riot, with various responses fluctuating over the riot's lifecycle. Emotive cues predicted most responses except for tweets that were reasoning about the riot, and also had an effect on informational tweets. Retweets drove most activity, and users also shared information and formed communal dialogue within their own networks. Despite the dominance of negative emotive cues and responses to the crisis, positive tweets – those singing praises and thanking stakeholders – were more likely to be retweeted.     

How people respond to military crisis: Exploring the role of military affiliation,gender and political ideology

The current research analyses people's trust in the military during military crisis. Also, this research explores whether the three demographic factors that were known to influence people's perceptions of the military (i.e. military identity, gender and political affiliation) played roles in military crisis. The results indicated that, compared to pre‐crisis situation, both civilian and military publics showed lower scores on their trust in the military after a military crisis than before. Also, the three factors were identified as the indicators of military crisis responsibility. Theoretical and practical implications of the findings are discussed.     

Dimensions of effective government pandemic-crisis communication in the context of COVID-19: A public-centric perspective

Drawing on two representative online surveys in Hong Kong (HK) and the United States (US) during the COVID-19 pandemic, this study investigates, from a public-centric perspective, public expectations of effective government pandemic-crisis communication. The study looks specifically at what the publics want to be communicated in times of a global pandemic and how. In each region, the findings identify four significant dimensions. Three are culturally universal dimensions—basic responsibility, locus of pandemic-crisis responsibility, and disfavour of promotional tone. The fourth is culture-specific—personal relevance for HK and frequency for the US. Among the significant dimensions, the most highly expected is what people consider to be the government's basic responsibility in pandemic communication, that is, a basic responsibility dimension. This includes providing instructing and adjusting information and securing accuracy, timeliness, and transparency in pandemic communication. In both regions, respondents preferred by far traditional media and nongovernmental sources to social media and governmental sources.     

Corporate Social Responsibility and Crisis Management: the democratic organisation and crisis prevention

This paper explores the concept and nature of corporate social responsibility and relates this to the process of crisis management. The paper begins by outlining a typology of corporate social responsibility which uses categories drawn from political and social theory to organize the vast literature on this topic. In setting out this typology, the paper notes some of the weaknesses and contradictions within these types of corporate social responsibility. On the basis of such indications, it is argued that a ‘democratic’type is the most adequate form of corporate social responsibility. The paper then shifts to note some recent arguments concerning the various phases of crises and the nature and significance of crisis management as a process of crisis avoidance. These considerations lead to a consideration of the various interrelationships that exist between the two phenomenon. It is argued that there is a close affinity between crisis avoidance and democratic forms of corporate social responsibility. The paper concludes by highlighting the provisional nature of the points raised and sets out elements of a potentially fruitful research agenda around the relationships between crisis management and corporate social responsibility.     

Use of Twitter in the Cameroon Anglophone crisis

ABSTRACT

A growing body of literature shows that social media plays a key role during crises and conflicts. In addition to traditional media, social media are used to mobilise people for a common cause and to communicate vital information. Very little is known about social media use during crises in the sub-Saharan African context. This article presents how Twitter is being used in the ongoing Cameroon Anglophone Crisis by several groups including the government, Anglophone activists, media organisations, and everyday citizens. Using critical theoretical perspectives to examine tweets from 1 September 2016 to 31 December 2018, this article identifies key themes. These include: placement of the crisis in a contested, historical context; debates about naming the crisis; key concepts; depiction of several forms of violence; and potential options for resolution. Social media is being used by the government, Anglophone activists, and non-affiliated people to sway public opinions on the crisis and solicit the attention of local, Diaspora, and broader international communities. Social media use has loosened the grip of governmental control of media messaging and expanded the public narratives available in Cameroon, yet at the time of the writing, this does not appear to have lessened the impact of the crisis.     

Can crisis management teams mitigate COVID-19's effects? A comparative case study between China and the United States

The COVID-19 pandemic has been the world's greatest challenge since World War II. As an unprecedented global public health crisis, crisis management teams (CMTs) in the infected countries need to rethink to cope with the similar uncertainty and urgency of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. The shared context of COVID-19 allows us to explore a cross-nation study of different constructs and CMT to communicate information about crises with the public effectively. Since the pandemic affected all countries, the comparison is warranted. Can CMTs mitigate the effects of COVID-19? Based on the analysis of China and the US cases, our study explores how shared and common knowledge cognition among crisis responders plays a pivotal role in effective CMTs' communication while technological failures and inadequate information disrupt the system, worsening pandemics like COVID-19. Furthermore, organizational dysfunction, such as institutional fragmentation, regulatory hurdles and bureaucratic arrogance, impede effective communication between CMTs. However, effective coordination and decisive leadership could improve coordination effectiveness and reduce crisis costs.     

Experiencing motivational conflict on social media in a crisis situation: The case of the Chick-fil-A same-sex marriage controversy

This study examined the relationship between motivational conflict involving social media use and attitude formation in a brand crisis situation. An online experiment was conducted with 658 participants using a 2 (news-article valence: positive vs. negative) × 2 (situational cue valence: positive vs. negative) between-subjects design. During the experiment, participants loyal to Chick-fil-A (defense-motivated) were asked to communicate the brand through the brand's social networking sites (SNSs) while receiving a cue for the SNS audience's general unfavorable opinions on the crisis issue, the Chick-fil-A same-sex marriage controversy (impression-motivated). It was found that when motivational conflict was experienced (defense vs. impression), (1) individuals' brand attitudes were affected more by objective information such as a news article than by a cue for audience opinion and (2) their positive brand-related cognitions were countervailed by their impression-related cognitions. Overall, the findings suggest that it is not always desirable for a company to encourage customers to engage in SNS-facilitated interaction in a crisis situation.     

Social media crisis management: Aligning corporate response strategies with stakeholders’ emotions online

The article focuses on how the analysis of stakeholders’ emotions online can help companies facing a social media crisis determine the response strategy that will best minimize the reputational threat. The article indeed questions the relevance of classical crisis management theory to an online environment. Results show that social media have increased the unpredictability of corporate crises. Consequently, on social media, crises cannot be addressed with the methods that have prevailed so far. Rather, incorporating emotion‐based analysis in six case studies showed how crisis analysis, and the subsequent response strategy, could be fine‐tuned. The article builds on recent literature to develop a new analytical framework for response strategies and a model for crisis resolution—the social media crisis management matrix.     

The effects of source cues on online news perception

Among various interface cues, expertise, identity, and bandwagon cues have been consistently found to have significant effects on media users’ perceptions of online news content. To examine the effects of these three types of heuristic cues in the context of online news consumption, the current study involved a 2 (expertise cue: low vs. high) × 2 (identity cue: in-group vs. out-group) × 2 (bandwagon cue: low vs. high) online experiment. A total of 121 undergraduate students participated in the study. Significant two-way interaction effects between the expertise and bandwagon cues on perceived credibility suggested the positive combined effect of these two cues. Moreover, significant three-way interaction effects among expertise, identity and bandwagon cues indicated that the interaction effects between expertise and bandwagon cues tend to work as a function of the identity cue. While confirming the importance of the identity cue in users’ perceptions of online news, three-way interaction effects confirmed the co-occurrence of heuristic and systematic processing. The interaction effects also suggested that people process news systematically when the recommenders are out-group members, whereas they process news heuristically when the recommenders are in-group members. Theoretical as well as practical implications have also been discussed in this article.     

Do we trust the crowd or information system? Effects of personalization and bandwagon cues on users' attitudes and behavioral intentions toward a restaurant recommendation website

Visual interface cues on many websites can influence Internet users' psychology, especially their perceptions about the site as well as its content (Sundar, 2008). Specifically, presence of commonly used interface cues (e.g., personalization, bandwagon cues) can substantially influence users' attitudes and their behavioral intentions toward websites and their content. This study examined the effect of personalization feature and bandwagon cues (i.e., star ratings, reviews) in a restaurant recommendation website, measuring (a) to what extent users positively perceive and plan on revisiting or sharing the site, and (b) to what degree users favored the recommended restaurant and plan to visit them. A 2 (personalization feature: present vs. absent) × 2 (bandwagon cues: high vs. low) between-subjects experiment showed that personalization feature and bandwagon cues increased positive perceptions and their behavioral intentions toward both the website and the recommended restaurant. Moreover, results revealed that users' perceived relevance as well as perceived novelty mediated the effects of interface cues on their attitudinal and behavioral consequences. Further, the impact of the interface cues on user psychology significantly differed as a function of the other cues. Theoretical and practical implications for future research on the effect of interface cues on user psychology are discussed.     

Online Conversation and Corporate Reputation: A Two‐Wave Longitudinal Study on the Effects of Exposure to the Social Media Activities of a Highly Interactive Company

In this paper, we investigate whether and to what extent exposure to a company's social media activities over time is beneficial for corporate reputation, and whether conversational human voice mediates this relation. In a two‐wave longitudinal survey among 1969 respondents, we assessed consumers' exposure to an international airline's social media activities, perceived level of conversational human voice and perception of corporate reputation. The results show that consumers' level of exposure to company social media activities precedes perceptions of corporate reputation. Also, conversational human voice mediates the relation between consumers' level of exposure to company social media activities and perceptions of corporate reputation. We discuss the implications of the results for the presence of organizations in social media.     

Social media in conflicts and crises

ABSTRACT

The growing importance of social media in conflicts and crises is accompanied by an ever-increasing research interest in the crisis informatics field in order to identify potential benefits and develop measures against the technology’s abuse. This special issue sets out to give an overview of current research on the use of social media in conflicts and crises. In doing so, it focuses on both good and malicious aspects of social media and includes a variety of papers of conceptual, theoretical and empirical nature. In six sections, the special issue presents an overview of the field, analytical methods, technical challenges, current advancements and the accepted papers before concluding. Specific topics range from cyber deception over information trustworthiness to mining and near-real-time processing of social media data.     

I am one of them: Examining crisis communication from an intergroup communication approach

This study took an intergroup communication approach and examined how two types of social identities, namely organizational identity and shared ethnic identity with the victim, affect publics’ reactions to a crisis. Data collected via a quasi‐experiment showed that organizational identity affects publics’ reactions, such that internal publics perceive the organization more positively and have less negative word‐of‐mouth intention. Internal publics feel guilty even if they are not personally responsible for the crisis. Publics do not react more negatively when their ethnic ingroup members are accidentally victimized. Organizations should mitigate the internal publics’ anger and guilt and also clarify that the crisis is nonethnicity‐related when the victims happen to be ethnic minorities to avoid any misunderstanding of victims’ ethnic ingroup members.