Decomposing issue patterns in crisis communication: the case of the lost airliner

Abstract

This research explores the relation between a crisis and public discussion on related issues. In organisational crisis communication, a singleissue strategy is often proposed. Such a strategy, however, may not be adequate in more complex crises where the crisis lifecycle is likely to encompass shorter lifecycles of issues that generate media attention. Decomposing the online crisis debate into a pattern of issues supports understanding of public perceptions, and hence of crisis response and communication. This is investigated through an analysis of Facebook posts prompted by the loss of Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 in 2014. The analysis shows that during the life of the crisis a variety of related issues arose that became topics of public debate. Compassion for victims dominated in the early stages of the crisis, while later on reputation-related issues took over. The insights gained help in understanding the results of social media monitoring during complex organisational crises and facilitate organisational decision making. Jari Veijalainen, PhD, is a Professor of Software Engineering at the University of Jyvaskyla, Finland. His research focuses on heterogeneous transaction management, transaction models and mechanisms for computer supported cooperative work, workflow systems and electronic commerce systems, formal modelling, mobile computing, software engineering, mobile multimedia data management, and social media analysis. Keywords

A Visualization Analysis of Crisis and Risk Communication Research Using CiteSpace

“…We should not ignore that although a vital research route of crisis communication is from case study to theoretical study, we find that in the distribution of experimental methods, cases and theories coexist. For example, Zhang and Vos [ 39 ] investigated the Facebook discussion event triggered by the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 in 2014; Boys explored the crisis and risk communication issues in the case of sexual abuse by the Roman Catholic clergy; Gunawan et al [ 40 ] studied the impact of crisis communication strategies and media reports on catering enterprise image.…”

Setting research priorities in the field of emergency management: which piece of information are you willing to pay more?

“…In most cases scientific works aim to present by mean of case studies particular interventions (see for example Scott and Jane 2016), in other they present new checklists (see for example Kirkpatrick et al 2017) in order to prevent accidents. In other cases, the role of the team (see for example Green and Kolesar 2004) and the importance of coordination (see for example Majchrzak et al 2004), communication (see for example Zhang et al 2018), accountability (see for example Hwang and Hyung 2016), logistics (see for example Lee et al 2006) and information (see for example Wang et al 2017) during emergencies are emphasized. Sometimes, scientific literature aims at estimating the economic (see for example Irshad 2017) and social (see for example Joakim et al 2016) consequences of disasters or the impact in terms of psychological distress on victims or humanitarian staff (Schmidt 2017).…”