By Mónica Smienk Arnedo
Monday, 5 December 2022
Organisations, Media, and Society
Week 9: The communicative construction of risk and crisis
Reading 1: How audiences seek out crisis information: Exploring the social-mediated
crisis communication model (Austin, Fisher Liu & Jin, 2012)
• In this paper, we observe how audiences seek information from social and traditional
media, and what factors affect media use during crises > using the social-mediated crisis
communication (SMCC) model reveals that audiences 1) use social media during crises for
insider information and checking in with family/friends and 2) use traditional media for
educational purposes
- Convenience, involvement and personal recommendations encourage social and
traditional media use
- Information overload discourages the use of both
- Humour and attitudes discourage the use of social media
- Credibility encourages traditional media use
• The purpose of this study is to build upon the social-mediated crisis communication
(SMCC) model to understand how individuals and organisations use social media to
communicate in the event of organisational crises > this is done through 22 in-depth
interviews and an experiment with 162 participants > we examine information seeking
behaviours during organisational crises and primary factors affecting media use about
organisational crises
Literature review
Social media in strategic communication
• Social media is important for strategic communication since it can be a source of
information and news > these sources are ideal for generating timely communication and
interactive, two-way conversations with audiences
• During crises, social media can provide a new platform for online word-of-mouth
communication
Motivation for social media use
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, By Mónica Smienk Arnedo
• There is little research on social media use in organisations or crises > applied research
shows factors that may have an impact on the use of social media
• Motivation for consumers’ creation is tied to social functions and ego-defensive functions,
but not utilitarian knowledge functions > for young people, is mostly connected to their
need for connectedness, self-expression, and in less extent utilitarian purposes
• Consumers who share their opinions on the media utilise platforms in four ways:
- Topic-related utility - contributing to add value to the community
- Consumption utility - using contributions from other community members to the user’s
benefit
- Approval utility - feeling satisfaction when commanded by others
- Moderator-related utility - acting as a third party to aid community members in lodging
a complaint
- Homeostasis utility - maintaining equilibrium or balance in the user’s life
- Channel complementarity theory (Dutta-Bergman, 2004, 2006) suggests that audiences
select certain types of media based on the functions relevant to them > these forms tend
to match audiences’ perceptions and ways of thinking, reinforcing their beliefs >
individuals also choose forms more likely complementary to the forms they already use
> users use media that meets a larger number of combined needs, i.e. information-
seeking, socialisation, and emotional support
Role of social media in organisational crisis communication
• A crisis is an event that “creates an issue, keeps it alive, or gives it strength” > social media
use can change in times of organisational crises, as issues emerging online can be more
unpredictable, taking dramatic turns and multiplying more quickly than issues that emerge
offline > social media can allow more immediate response and interactive communication
during crises (Coombs, 2008)
• During crises, audiences’ social media use increases and they can perceive social media as
more credible than traditional mass media > social media may have a direct and indirect
impact on audiences in times of crisis
• Audiences seek out social media during crises because they provide an unfiltered, up-to-
date line of communication and provide unique information that audiences cannot get
elsewhere > social media can be used by consumers for emotional support and recovery
from crises
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, By Mónica Smienk Arnedo
Social-mediated crisis communication model (SMCC)
• Emerging research suggests information form may be as important as -or more important
than- the actual crisis response message
• The SMCC model describes the interaction between an organisation in crisis and three
types of the public who produce and consume information before, during, and after crises
1. Influential social media creators, who create crisis information for others to consume
2. Social media followers who consume the influence social media creators’ crisis
information
3. Social media inactive, who may consume influential social media creators’ crisis
information indirectly through word-of-mouth communication with social media
followers and/or traditional media who follow influential social media creators and/or
social media followers
• The model further describes how information is distributed by social media directly and
indirectly
• An example is: crisis information is transmitted directly from influential social media
creators to social media followers, but potentially indirectly from influential social media
followers to social media inactive > crisis information is transmitted directly between
traditional media and social media
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, By Mónica Smienk Arnedo
• This study seeks to add depth to our understanding of:
RQ1: Why, if at all, do audiences seek out social and/or traditional media for crisis
information?
RQ2: What factors affect whether audiences seek out social and/or traditional media for
crisis information?
• Based on the experiment as an additional question regarding information source (‘where
the crisis information originates from: either the organisation experiencing the crisis or a
third party such as an influential social media creator or journalist’) > crises have
encouraged researchers to focus on multiple actors instead of the organisation >
information form is whether the crisis information is transmitted via traditional media,
social media, and/or offline word-of-mouth communication
RQ3: How does the source and form of crisis information audiences are exposed to affect
their information-seeking behaviour?
Method
• In-person in-depth interviewee with 22 college students and an online experiment with 162
college students > because college students and young adults are the most avid social media
users and trendsetters > two social-mediated crisis communication phenomena emerged
from the interviews
Results
Study 1: Interviews
• Media use before crises. Participants use social media for four main reasons: entertainment,
relationship maintenance, networking, and education > traditional media was used for
education and entertainment
• RQ1 ‘Why, if at all, do audiences seek out social or traditional media for crisis
information?’ > they want to know why and how the crisis occurred, followed by
accountability > when being highly involved, they also want to know what response steps
to take > two themes explaining primarily used
1. Insider information, e.g. riots information is on Facebook before the news
2. Checking in with family/friends, e.g. texting or calling via social media to see how
someone is doing
3. Education - explains why participants use traditional media during crises
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