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The role of social media in local government crisis communications
Abstract
Using survey data collected from more than 300 local government officials from municipalities across the United States, this study examines social media use in a relatively unexplored context, local governments. It specifically addresses the adoption and use of social media tools for crisis communication and social media's part in managing a crisis. Results indicate the extent of social media use, but not the number of tools used, is positively associated with local city officials’ assessments of their ability to control a crisis situation as well as their overall evaluations of the strength of their responses. Implications and importance of findings are discussed.
... Many organisations have invested in incorporating Social Media into their crisis response strategies [41]. It is important to observe how crisis management agencies currently leverage Social Networks to enhance both situational awareness and decision-making. ...
... In general terms, Social Media provide solid support for communication [41,119], as shown in several situations. For instance, during the Hurricane Sandy period in 2012 [124], there were more than 20 million tweets sent [125,126]. ...
... Annual Review of Sociology [2] Disaster Prevention and Management: An International Journal [3] Public Administration Review [4] International Conference on Information Fusion [8] International Conference on System Safety, Incorporating the Cyber Security Conference [9] European Conference Information System [12] Information Systems for Crisis Response And Management [13,59] Journal of Applied Communication Research [18] IEEE International Conference on Technologies for Homeland Security [20] Information System Frontiers [22,86,167] Journal of Homeland Security and Emergency Management [24] Public Relations Review [41] Journal of Contingencies and Crisis Management [45] International Journal of Strategic Communication [46] International Journal of Information Management [69,161] Computers in Human Behavior [168] European Journal of Information Systems [159] Working Conference on Information Systems and Organisations [57] IEEE Internet of Things Journal [65] Australasian Journal of Information Systems [66,140] Disaster Medicine and Public Health Preparedness [72,74] Natural Hazards [75] Journal of Public Health Management and Practice [76,77] Journal of Contingencies and Crisis Management [91] Workshop on Social Media Analytics [80] International Conference on eDemocracy & eGovernment [81] Online Social Networks and Media [94,96] Journal of Economic Perspectives [95] International Workshop on Semantic Evaluation [98] IEEE International Conference on Technologies for Homeland Security [78] Social Science Computer Review [79] MIS Quarterly [83] Disaster Prevention and Management: An International Journal [84] Communication of the ACM [85] ...
This review proposes a concise literature review aimed at identifying the current body of knowledge on the adoption of Social Networks in crisis management. The major input is a structured research question based on the initial reading about the topic. Before the recent pandemic, most literature focused on local crises, with relatively few exceptions. Additionally, self-organising systems are spontaneously established between people who are affected by a crisis. The fundamental assumption underlying this study is the huge potential of Social Networks in the field of crisis management. That is supported, directly or indirectly, by a number of previous studies, which emphasise how effective adoption leads to better decision-making for crisis managers and local communities. Among the identified challenges is the need to integrate official communication by emergency agencies with citizen-generated content in a contest for credibility and trustworthiness. In certain cases, it has been reported that there is a lack of specific competence, knowledge, and expertise, as well as a lack of sufficient policies and guidelines for the use of Social Networks. Those challenges need to be framed by considering the classic difficulties of providing timely and accurate information to deal with fake news, unverified or misleading information, and information overload. Bridging major gaps through advanced analytics and AI-based technology is expected to provide a key contribution to establishing and safely enabling the practice of effective and efficient communication. This technology can help contrast dissonant mental models, which are often fostered by Social Networks, and enable shared situational awareness. Future research may take a closer look at AI technology and its impact on the role of Social Networks in managing crises.
... Furthermore, recent studies have examined the differences between different types of content, specifically in times of crises and emergencies (Graham et al., 2015;Johnston et al., 2020). ...
... Since the first documented cases of social media adoption by government authorities, it has been demonstrated that social media use by local authorities positively correlates with authorities' ability to handle a crisis (Graham et al., 2015;Yates & Paquette, 2011). ...
... Although the literature suggests an increasing trend of local governments adopting social media in times of crises and emergencies (Criado et al., 2020;Graham et al., 2015;Jiang & Tang, 2022), our review still revealed a gap in the knowledge regarding the use of social media by local governments during armed conflicts and army operations. Previous studies examined the use of social media during natural disasters, concentrated terror attacks and health-related emergencies and pandemics (as in the case of COVID-19). ...
Social media has been widely adopted by local governments during emergencies and crises and its role as a communication platform has been discussed in various studies on natural hazards, pandemics and terror attacks. However, research in the field has not addressed how municipalities use social media to communicate valuable information during armed conflicts and military operations. The current study examined the ways five major cities in Israel used their Facebook pages to connect to their residents during operation ‘Guardian of the Walls' in 2021. We examined the social media usage and the strategies of these cities during the 12 days of the operation. The findings revealed significant differences between cities that are considered as home front versus frontline regions regarding content type and information dissemination strategies. Additionally, differences regarding content types in terms of sentiment and overall rates of engagement were also identified. These findings highlight the need to further investigate local municipalities' usage of social media during armed conflicts concerning the civil population.
... Second, the restrictions associated with the pandemic, particularly the requirement to stay home and reduce personal contacts turned social media into an obvious option for communicating politically relevant information substituting traditional administration channels (see Osei-Appiah 2021;Coman et al. 2021). Despite this global incentive, most literature on the use of digital technologies including social media for crisis communication focus on the Global North (Graham et al. 2015;Alexander 2014;Kim and Liu 2012;Hagen et al. 2018). COVID-19 offers a lens to include more Southern perspectives and to explore whether and how local governments in the Global South intensified the use of social media for political communication in reaction to the COVID-19 pandemic. ...
... In local governments of advanced democracies, social media is often deployed to communicate important information in crises, including national catastrophic events such as earthquakes and flooding (Graham et al. 2015;Hagen et al. 2018;Alexander 2014). The generally fewer district posts in our data constrain a critical analysis of the crisis communication functions of these platforms, especially with the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic and concurrent restrictions. ...
... see Mohammed 2013;Graham et al. 2015;Guillamón et al. 2016;Lappas et al. 2018), the adoption and uptake of social media for political communication purportedly fills the participatory gap in local policymaking, particularly in emerging democracies of the Global South. As a platform for political communication, the contents of Facebook posts and commentary generated help us gauge the nature of interaction and citizens' assessment of the platforms' effectiveness. ...
The University of Bayreuth African Studies Working Papers are published by the Institute of African Studies (IAS) in Bayreuth, Germany. The IAS promotes African Studies at the University of Bayreuth by supporting scholars from a wide range of academic disciplines from almost all faculties. It facilitates cooperation between researchers and institutions engaged in Africa-related projects, as well as teaching, both on campus and around the world. The IAS consists of three central bodies: the Iwalewahaus, the Africa Multiple Cluster of Excellence, and the Africa Research Center (Forschungszentrum Afrika), which is currently under construction. The Working Papers give scholars the space to present empirical studies, theoretical reflections, and report preliminary findings, ongoing projects, and current research. The Working Papers usually reflect works-in-progress and invite discussion and feedback. The Institute of African Studies (IAS) at the University of Bayreuth promotes and coordinates African studies in 12 subject groups distributed over the six faculties of the University of Bayreuth. It coordinates research and teaching, training junior researchers, and promotes the exchange of information between persons and institutions engaged in research and teaching in or on Africa. The 'Bayreuth African Studies Working Papers' report on ongoing projects, the results of current research and matters related to the focus on African Studies. Contributions may be submitted to the Editor-in-chief Antje Daniel (antje.daniel@uni-bayreuth.de). The 'Bayreuth African Studies Working Papers' is chronicled on the EPub document server at the university library:. Topics of his research interests are sociology of Africa (social structure, middle classes, decentralization, democratization, and civil society), post-conflict reconstruction (including reintegration of child soldiers), sociology of development policy (NGOs, emergency aid, and participation), risks and disasters, local knowledge, participative methods, and globalisation. He has conducted research mainly in Africa (Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda; also Mozambique, Ghana) and secondarily in Vietnam and Thailand.
... in line with the research conducted by Graham, Avery, and Park that in times of crisis, such as during natural disasters, health crises, etc. the use of social media is increasing. [7]. However, this situation must anticipate the correctness of the information that social media users must accept. ...
... Especially at the beginning of the pandemic, no vaccine could prevent the spread of Covid-19. This argument is corroborated by Graham's opinion in his research, that in a state of a health crisis like now, the use of social media is increasing [7]. Apart from the state of the Health crisis as studied by Graham, the emergence of a lot of information also occurred when a disaster occurred. ...
This research aims to find out the competence of digital literacy of citizens to infodemic received through WAG neighborhood association 09 Dipowinatan. This research was conducted using qualitative interpretative research with research method of netgraph analysis. The data collection method used in this study was participant observation at the Dipowinatan neighborhood association on WAG. Research findings in this study are infodemic which occurred during the pandemic, also hit neighborhood association’s WAG 09 Dipowinatan. Two more years passed the Covid-19 Pandemic in Indonesia. The Indonesian people, especially the residents of neighborhood association 09 Dipowinatan, are taking a new order in dealing with Covid-19, including experiencing an infodemic. Infodemic occurs because of digital media and social media, which is very fast in disseminating information to receive the information quickly. The information regarding Covid-19 was no exception that the residents of neighborhood association 09 Dipowinatan received through the WhatsApp Group (WAG) Thus, digital literacy is needed for residents in dealing with this infodemic situation. This situation does not rule out that the information is disseminated, the information included in the disinformation group. However, this situation can anticipate with the digital literacy skills that residents must select and sort out the right information during the infodemic. State apparatus through the Head of neighborhood association / hamlet, and religious leaders in practice in neighborhood association’s WAG O9 can also be an alternative to mediating in situations if there is a debate in finding the truth regarding misinformation in WAG.
... Public relations plays an essential role in the public sector, providing a variety of communication and relationship management functions to government entities, such as public information (Graham et al., 2015), crisis and disaster response (Chen, 2009;Waymer & Heath, 2007), building national images (Taylor, 2000), citizen and community engagement (Lendingham, 2001), as well as defending, facilitating and sustaining social democracy (Waymer, 2013). This area of scholarship is known as government public relations (GPR), and it focuses on the value, function, and influence of public relations and communication in the public sector . ...
... Facebook (n = 13, 30 %) and Twitter (n = 16, 36 %) were the two main social media platforms, followed by YouTube (n = 3, 7 %) and Pinterest (n = 2, 5 %). Vimeo, Flick, and Google Plus were also mentioned (n = 1, 2 %, see Graham et al., 2015). Additionally, two Chinese social media platforms were examined, which are Weibo and WeChat. ...
... With the rapid development of the internet, the communications of public opinions and social attitudes have changed in multiple ways (e.g., Gainous et al., 2019;Graham et al., 2015;Meshi et al., 2015). People can post articles, forward others' articles, and comment on them on social media. ...
... The rapid development of digital media brings about new challenges to public risk control and crisis management (Graham et al., 2015). We explored a quick way of nonverbal analysis of public opinion with emojis. ...
As a popular means of nonverbal communication in social media, emojis provide quick predictions about public sentiments towards social events. Previous analyses of emojis reported that people use positive emojis more frequently than negative emojis. However, psychological research reveals a negativity bias in sentiment, as seen in the phenomenon of loss-aversion, where negative sentiment due to a loss possesses a greater psychological valence than positive sentiment due to a gain of an equal amount. We propose that the frequency and intensity of emojis are dissociable. Whereas the frequency of emojis reflects social norms in public communication, the intensity reflects hedonic values and loss-aversion. We first developed a text-free emoji sentiment lexicon based on a survey with more than 900 users of Weibo (a Chinese version of Twitter). Using the sentiment lexicon, we then analyzed 8822 Weibo comments containing the indexed emojis in reaction to three controversial events (i.e., a murder case in which public opinion largely opposed the final verdict, a manslaughter case in which public opinion was supportive of the final verdict, and a public debate on an award-winning subject). The results showed that positive or negative emoji frequency was consistent with the majority sentiment (social norm) towards a controversial event. In contrast, the average intensity of negative emojis was stronger than positive emojis across all three samples, revealing a public sentiment version of loss-aversion. In all three samples, emoji polarity analysis served as a proxy for text sentiment analysis to capture public attitudes towards a social event.
... With the rapid development of the internet, the communications of public opinions and social attitudes have changed in multiple ways (e.g., Gainous et al., 2019;Graham et al., 2015;Meshi et al., 2015). People can post articles, forward others' articles, and comment on them on social media. ...
... The rapid development of digital media brings about new challenges to public risk control and crisis management (Graham et al., 2015). We explored a quick way of nonverbal analysis of public opinion with emojis. ...
As a popular means of nonverbal communication in social media, emojis provide quick predictions about public sentiments towards social events. Previous analyses of emojis reported that people use positive emojis more frequently than negative emojis. However, psychological research reveals a negativity bias in sentiment, as seen in the phenomenon of loss-aversion, where negative sentiment due to a loss possesses a greater psychological valence than positive sentiment due to a gain of an equal amount. We propose that the frequency and intensity of emojis are dissociable. Whereas the frequency of emojis reflects social norms in public communication, the intensity reflects hedonic values and loss-aversion. We first developed a text-free emoji sentiment lexicon based on a survey with more than 900 users of Weibo (a Chinese version of Twitter). Using the sentiment lexicon, we then analyzed 8822 Weibo comments containing the indexed emojis in reaction to three controversial events (i.e., a murder case in which public opinion largely opposed the final verdict, a manslaughter case in which public opinion was supportive of the final verdict, and a public debate on an award-winning subject). The results showed that positive or negative emoji frequency was consistent with the majority sentiment (social norm) towards a controversial event. In contrast, the average intensity of negative emojis was stronger than positive emojis across all three samples, revealing a public sentiment version of loss-aversion. In all three samples, emoji polarity analysis served as a proxy for text sentiment analysis to capture public attitudes towards a social event.
... In this context, linked government networks are represented by color as the modularity of government actors. Visualizations help in understanding the communication and interaction of actors linked in a collaborative network (Graham et al., 2015;Schweinsberg et al., 2017). The data collected can be a limitation when analyzing organizational networks; as such, interview data can be useful for checking the validity of network indicators (Copes & Miller, 2015). ...
Focusing on Indonesia’s Riau Province, this study examines the complexities of managing networks for forest governance, and how local governments should adopt and enforce policies in network settings based on multi-stakeholder participation. Data were collected through interviews and document analysis, and analyzed using network analysis. The finding show that network governance through regulation should be enforced through the network’s political structure, involve several local actors, and facilitate coordination and communication for mutual benefit, especially in forest land-use management. Trust and costs reflect the development of collaborative behavioral frameworks which can influence coordination capacity, including intergovernmental networks in forest land-use policy. Further, the separation of network governance from multiple linked actors, which seems more “ally” (i.e., lead-organization governed networks) than “join” (i.e., shared/participatory governance networks), is undoubtedly problematic. The network and building of trust between network stakeholders may never transform into multi-stakeholder management structures without enabling network governance.
... Unfortunately, this also might mean that a crisis happening in one part of the world could influence the tourism sector on a larger scale (Telfer & Sharpley, 2015). However, it is not always necessarily uncontrollable, as long as tourist organisations can get ahead of these crises and prepare themselves for those circumstances (Graham et al., 2015). ...
Social media is gaining popularity nowadays and is increasingly
being used by many small and large organisations. Organisations are adopting new social platforms and technologies to achieve their
key and effective management strategies. However, there are still
opportunities to explore the role of new technologies in developing
useful strategies. In current research, the utilisation of technological
tools especially social media was examined to improve the customer
value analysis in the organisations. Besides, the research of social
media use for crisis management is also increasing and the relevant
strategies are still being-investigated. To overcome this gap, this
research aims to evaluate the impact of the use of social media on
customer value analysis and crisis management. To attain this, a
detailed questionnaire was adapted from several different studies.
Data were collected from a diverse targeted sample of tourism-related
firms from all over Malaysia, including hotels, resorts, travel agencies
and transportation companies. The model was tested using Smart PLS
software and the results were generalised. Overall, this research will
add a noteworthy contribution to the literature by highlighting the
significance of social media and recognising its urgency during crisis
for businesses. It will also help in answering questions regarding
the role of social media usage towards customer value analysis and
crisis management of organisations in the Malaysian tourism sector.
Moreover, the practitioners will use the findings to make strategies for
crisis management and build customer value chain.
... The recent COVID-19 pandemic triggered a discussion on the accountability relationship with regard to public health issues (Graham, Avery, & Park, 2015;Lee et al., 2019;Mansoor, 2021). Governments have gained tools to communicate more efficiently with citizens and execute accountability relationships more efficiently and dynamically. ...
A growing body of research has explored the emergence of new digital forms of public accountability. Studies in this area show how digital technologies are equipped to support more participative information-sharing and provide dialogic tools for interactions with forums. However, no research has yet examined how to engage forums and enable web-based accountability relationships. We address this gap by highlighting the need to adapt social media communication strategies for topic-specific discussions. Our analysis builds on a database containing 25,485 posts extracted from social media platforms used by 13 Polish municipalities and focuses on two different matters of discussion: posts related to public health during the COVID-19 pandemic and non-COVID-19 related posts. Moreover, during the analysis, we consider two social media communication strategies: passive and participatory. Our findings indicate that both communication strategies can generate forum engagement, which subsequently supports web-based accountability. They also demonstrate that, to support forum engagement, municipalities should avoid one-style-fits-all approaches to communication and instead tailor strategies to the specific subject of discussion. This study contributes to expanding academic debates on web-based accountability by illustrating how the use of social media communication strategies can help engage citizens in public forums to enhance accountability relationships.
... Many organizations have invested in incorporating social media into their crisis response strategy [33]. It is important to observe how crisis management agencies currently leverage Social Networks to enhance both situational awareness and decision-making. ...
This paper proposes a concise literature review aimed at identifying the current body of knowledge on the adoption of Social Networks in Crisis Management. The major input is a structured research question based on the initial reading around the topic. Before the recent pan-demic, most literature has focused on local crises, with a relatively low number of exceptions. Additionally, self-organizing system are spontaneous established between people who are af-fected by a crisis. Among the identified challenges, there is the need to integrate official commu-nication by emergency agencies with citizen-generated contents in a contest of credibility and trustworthiness. In certain cases, it has been reported a lack of specific competence, knowledge, and expertise, as well as a lack of sufficient policies and guidelines in the use of Social Networks. Those challenges need to be framed by considering the classic difficulties to provide timely and accurate information, to deal with fake news, unverified or misleading information, and infor-mation overload. Bridging major gaps though advanced analytics and AI-based technology is expected to provide a key contribution to establish and safely enable in practice an effective and efficient communication, to contrast dissonant mental models, which are often fostered by Social Networks, and to enable a shared situational awareness.
... Other relevant articles are , who discusses open government directives and plans in the USA; Hood (2007), who focuses on good governance; and Bertot et al. (2012), Kim et al. (2009), Bonsón et al. (2012), and Venkatesh et al. (2016), who deal with e-government. Social media is also a frequently analyzed research topic in the area of transparency (Graham et al., 2015;Lee and Kwak, 2012;Bonsón et al., 2015;Mossberger et al., 2013;Mansoor, 2021). Finally, we can highlight the classical works of 5 One of the exclusion criteria indicated in the protocol is "articles not written in English." ...
Purpose
Literature about transparency in public-sector organizations has been attracting the attention of scholars for the last two decades. This study reviews the existing literature with the intention of creating a description of the state of the art, categorized by geographical areas, levels of government, topics, and methodologies.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors have developed a structured literature review following a rigorous protocol. The initial search was launched on 25 April 2022 on Scopus and Web of Science, resulting in 3,217 articles. After removing duplicates and studies that did not meet all the inclusion criteria specified in the review protocol, the final sample includes 956 articles from 1991 to 2021.
Findings
The analyses show a considerable increase in studies since 2005, especially in the last two years, when 30% of the publications have been produced. Most of the studies analyze the national/central level of government. Many authors compare different countries, while other scholars focus on specific countries, overall, the USA and the UK. The local level of government has also been widely studied, especially in the Spanish and Chinese contexts. The most frequently used methodologies are quantitative and empirical techniques, and the most common topics are those associated with accountability.
Originality/value
This study uses a huge sample (956 articles over the period 1991–2021), which has never been used before, to examine the literature on transparency. The structured literature review facilitates the identification of gaps that can be filled by future studies. These include analyzing transparency in specific geographical areas like Africa, Asia, and Latin America, studying transparency at different levels of government, especially at the regional and federal levels, and providing comparative studies and case study collections.
... Recently, we have seen government institutions leveraging social media to engage the public during times of crisis, such as weather catastrophes and viral epidemics over short periods [12][13][14]. Studies on these contexts are largely oriented toward local levels of e-governance, as local governments are the closest to citizens and can more effectively achieve interaction goals, such as participation and public service delivery [3,15]. ...
Background:
Social media is an important way for governments to communicate with the public. This is particularly true in times of crisis such as the COVID-19 pandemic, during which time government officials had a strong role in promoting public health measures such as vaccines.
Objective:
In Canada, provincial COVID-19 vaccine rollout was delivered in three phases aligned with federal government COVID-19 vaccine guidance for priority populations. In this study, we examined how Canadian public officials used Twitter to engage with the public about vaccine rollout and how this engagement has shaped public response to vaccines across jurisdictions.
Methods:
We conducted a content analysis of tweets posted between December 28, 2020, and August 31, 2021. Leveraging social media artificial intelligence (AI) tool Brandwatch Analytics©, we constructed a list of public officials in three jurisdictions (Ontario, Alberta and British Columbia) organized across six public official types, then conducted an English/French keyword search for tweets about vaccine rollout and delivery that mentioned, retweeted, or replied to the public officials. We identified the top 30 tweets with the highest impressions in each jurisdiction in each of the three phases (approximately a 26-day window) of the vaccine rollout. The metrics of engagement (impressions, retweets, likes, and replies) from the top 30 tweets per phase in each jurisdiction were then extracted for additional annotation. We specifically annotated sentiment towards public officials' vaccine response (I.e., positive, negative, neutral) in each tweet, and also annotated the type of social media engagement. A thematic analysis of tweets was then conducted to add nuance to extracted data characterizing sentiment and interaction type.
Results:
Of the six categories of public officials, 142 prominent accounts were included from Ontario, Alberta and British Columbia. 270 tweets were included in the content analysis. Public officials mostly used Twitter for information provision (65.6%), followed by horizontal engagement (17.5%), citizen engagement (11.3%), and public service announcements (5.7%). Information provision by government bodies (e.g., provincial government and public health authorities) or municipal leaders are more prominent than tweets by other public official groups. Neutral sentiment accounted for 51.1% of all tweets, while positive sentiment (43.2%) was the second most common sentiment. In Ontario, 60% of the tweets were positive. Negative sentiment (e.g., public officials criticizing vaccine rollout) accounted for 12.6% of all tweets.
Conclusions:
As governments continue to promote the uptake of the COVID-19 "booster" doses, findings from this study are useful in informing how governments can best utilize social media to engage with the public to achieve democratic goals.
... However, since the irruption of social media, some elements that the SCCT model oversees such as the form and strategy of the message have gained a bigger consideration. As social media became a powerful instrument to manage both the physical and emotional consequences of a crisis as well as a great tool to prevent reputation damage (Graham et al., 2015;W. Liu et al., 2018), there has been an increasing number of researchers interested in studying the role of social media in crisis communications (Coombs & Holladay, 2014;DiStaso et al., 2015;du Plessis, 2018;Liu & Kim, 2011;Zhao et al., 2019) In fact, in the specific case of the volcanic eruption of Las Palmas, social media was used by different agents such as the local government or the emergency service as the main channel to approach the population. ...
This study examines and evaluates how the government communicated the volcanic eruption that occurred in La Palma (Spain) in 2021. For that purpose, SCCT and the SMCC models were used to perform a content analysis of the online communication approach followed on Twitter by Cabildo de La Palma (@CabLaPalma), 112 Canarias (@112canarias), and the Spanish Home Office (@interiorgob). Findings suggest that these three institutions aligned their communications by using complementary strategies, message framings and styles to successfully handle the crisis. However, this study also highlights areas of improvement in the approaches taken by these three public entities.
... At the moment of crisis situations, the reaction of social networks' users is instant (Wei, 2018). A characteristic feature of social media texts is block syntax, which is alternation and combination of standard, expression and associations (Graham et al., 2015). This manner of issue presentation fosters repeated and exhaustive presentation of socially significant events (for example, the Covid-19 pandemic). ...
In modern media, the names of fairy-tale and mythological images are used to convey certain emotions and connotations. The aim of the study is to analyze the characteristic associative strategies presented with the mythological images of a dragon, a paper tiger and a chimera in news texts of European and Chinese mass media. In this article, the method of text analysis was used to identify patterns and the most possible interpretations of lexical units. 100 articles from Chinese and European publications were selected for the analysis (About People's Daily Online, China News Service, Guardian and France 24). The required lexemes were most widely used in articles on political topics. The most used was the image of a paper tiger (4001 and 3587 units). This is due to its well-known metaphorical meaning in both cultures, while dragon differs in Chinese and European ones. Further research may focus on the search and analysis of other fairy tale and mythological images in mass media. The present study results may also be applied for further research in the field of linguistics and journalism.
... This combination of convenience and authority creates a transparent medium for people to keep track of the incidence of the crisis, thus gear themselves up to reduce potential post-disaster damage and chaos. It also helps the government responders to better sensitize the focal needs from affected locals [17,23] thus re-allocate national resources to support regional infrastructure operations in short term. Our findings for Phase II, III and IV also demonstrated the quick escalation of post-disaster discussion related to the used water. ...
The 2011 Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster has led to worldwide disruptive discussions related to crisis. In April 2021, the news that the Japanese Cabinet decided to discharge the stored wastewater into the Pacific Ocean drew global attention once again. Social media platforms like Twitter are ubiquitously used to gain information and exchange opinions during and after a crisis. Analyzing crisis-related tweets can help capture insights for public situational awareness development, crisis global response coordination, and post-disaster policy-making. We examined corresponding Twitter discourse in different languages about the nuclear disaster in 2011 and the follow-up discharge of the stored water until 2021. We utilized NLP techniques including topic modeling and sentiment analysis to identify the dominant topics related to the nuclear disaster, the post-disaster discourses, and the public attitudes towards these topics in different time phases. Our work revealed multilingual disparities of post-disaster discourse dynamics and the regional public attitudes towards the post-disaster management in the long run.
... The building of a clear municipal brand may improve governance because it encourages better management and communication of governmental images (Eshuis & Klijn, 2012). In addition, a survey of local government officials found a positive relationship between the extent of social media usage and the perceived capacity of the government for crisis control (Graham et al., 2015). ...
Local governments are enhancing their governance through various information communication technologies (ICTs). This article presents an exploratory case study of three municipalities within the United States, examining how each applies YouTube for communication. Using content analysis and selected statistical tests of mean difference, the authors analyzed the videos uploaded between January 2020 to August 2020. The three municipalities used YouTube to document policymaking, publicize programs and services, update critical information during times of crises, and, in some cases, create unique brand images. The average number of views per video were similar across the three YouTube channels. However, one of the municipalities received a statistically significant number of average likes per video, which spotlights its positive brand image. In conclusion, the authors suggest directions for future research and recommend practices for social media adaptation in government.
... Although social media as a form of crisis management and crisis communication is nowadays utilised during all types of crises, Graham and colleagues (2015) have demonstrated that social media is used significantly more during public health crises. One explanation is that the need for information is more widespread if a health crisis poses an imminent threat to the well-being of the general public, in comparison with disasters or social or political crises (Graham et al., 2015). In an international study of political communication during the Covid-19 pandemic (Lilleker et al., 2021b), one conclusion is that social media played a significant and positive role during the pandemic (Lilleker et al., 2021a). ...
This chapter analyses how Nordic health authorities and prime ministers used social media during the first wave of the Covid-19 pandemic. The research questions address the extent to which they interacted with other actors on social media and what communication objectives they pursued in messages to the public. The data consists of health authorities' Twitter communication and prime ministers' Instagram posts. The results show that both the health authorities and prime ministers primarily interacted internally with domestic governmental and administrative actors. Still, they pursued different communication objectives. Whereas the health authorities mainly instructed the public on how to act, the prime ministers provided support and appealed for solidarity. National differences are observed. The Danish case stands out, as both the national health authority and the prime minister clearly focused on communicating support to the public.
... Although social media as a form of crisis management and crisis communication is nowadays utilised during all types of crises, Graham and colleagues (2015) have demonstrated that social media is used significantly more during public health crises. One explanation is that the need for information is more widespread if a health crisis poses an imminent threat to the well-being of the general public, in comparison with disasters or social or political crises (Graham et al., 2015). In an international study of political communication during the Covid-19 pandemic (Lilleker et al., 2021b), one conclusion is that social media played a significant and positive role during the pandemic (Lilleker et al., 2021a). ...
This edited volume compares experiences of how the Covid-19 pandemic was communicated in the Nordic countries – Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden. The Nordic countries are often discussed in terms of similarities concerning an extensive welfare system, economic policies, media systems, and high levels of trust in societal actors. However, in the wake of a global pandemic, the countries’ coping strategies varied, creating certain question marks on the existence of a “Nordic model”.
The chapters give a broad overview of crisis communication in the Nordic countries during the first year of the Covid-19 pandemic by combining organisational and societal theoretical perspectives and encompassing crisis response from governments, public health authorities, lobbyists, corporations, news media, and citizens. The results show several similarities, such as political and governmental responses highlighting solidarity and the need for exceptional measures, as expressed in press conferences, social media posts, information campaigns, and speeches. The media coverage relied on experts and was mainly informative, with few critical investigations during the initial phases. Moreover, surveys and interviews show the importance of news media for citizens’ coping strategies, but also that citizens mostly trusted both politicians and health authorities during the crisis.
This book is of interest to all who are looking to understand societal crisis management on a comprehensive level. The volume contains chapters from leading experts from all the Nordic countries and is edited by a team with complementary expertise on crisis communication, political communication, and journalism, consisting of Bengt Johansson, Øyvind Ihlen, Jenny Lindholm, and Mark Blach-Ørsten.
... Numerous works on image restoration frameworks have been published, with the majority focusing on text analysis in the context of business organisations and CEOs (Avery, Lariscy, Kim, & Hocke, 2010;T Coombs & Schmidt, 2000;Hanna & Morton, 2020;Hillman, 2018;Nazione & Perrault, 2019). At the same time, public organisations and public officials have actively adopted and integrated social media as one of their primary communication tools (Brainard & McNutt, 2010;Gesuele, 2016;Graham, Avery, & Park, 2015;Santoso, Rinjany, & Bafadhal, 2020). The usefulness of visuals as a vital source of data and the influence of visual media on online communication between government officials and the public cannot be overlooked in this vast digital arena (Steinmetz et al., 2020;Vykydalova, Jibril, Pilik, & Kwarteng, 2019). ...
Most studies on image restoration concentrate on text analysis of firms and CEOs in the Western context; hence, there is a need to explore similar practices in public organisations or public officials in an Eastern context. This study intends to investigate tactics and methods for repairing the image of public officials in eastern nations, including Indonesia, to fill this void. Visual and thematic analysis was performed on a dataset containing 2,000 Instagram posts from seven public officials in Indonesia. According to our findings, the visual analysis identifies six content kinds, while the thematic analysis identifies ten content types. They constitute image restoration methods, such as compensation, bolstering, corrective action, and shifting the blame, and image recovery strategies, such as reducing offensiveness of event, corrective action, and denial. This study reveals that, contrary to western literature, public authorities in Indonesia tend to employ the method of minimising the offensiveness of an occurrence.
... In addition, the number of Weibo accounts of Chinese government agencies certified by Sina Weibo is 177,437. Government agencies can use social media to disseminate information, communicate with public and survey public opinion, especially as a system to quickly distribute information in times of crisis (Graham, 2015;Zhang et al. 2021). Government agencies are increasingly using social media to establish contact with the public and encourage the public to participate in government social media in order to eliminate information asymmetry and enhance public sentiment (Meltzer et al., 2018;Barberá, et al. 2019). ...
In the period of public health crisis, effective and efficient transmission of crisis information to the public through social media is an important support for achieving social stability and orderly online public engagement. From the perspective of public value management, this study systematically investigated how local government agencies in China used social media to promote public engagement and raise public sentiment during the COVID-19 crisis. Using data captured from the “Wuhan Release” Sina Weibo account, the authors studied the factors that influence public engagement, including information sources, language styles, and media types. Further, it explores the influence of the interactive effects of public value with information sources, language styles, and media types on public engagement and public sentiment. The results show that the consistency of government response content and public value promotes public engagement and raises public sentiment. This research provides enlightenment and ideas for cognition, understanding and governance of public opinion in practice.
This study aims to display the results of scientometric analysis from a database related to the use of social media in local government communication. In line with social media users increasing everywhere, the use of social media in government doesn’t stop at the central government level, but also local governments. This study used 166 documents consisting of journal articles and conference proceedings between 2013-2022. Then the data is processed by Scientometric analysis using the CiteSpace app. Based on the analysis of the Scopus Bibliometric database, it was found that research on related themes shows fluctuations in the number of studies within ten years. The highest number of studies occurred in 2021 (36 documents) and the lowest number of studies occurred in 2013 (8 documents). In addition, it was also produced that the United States (44 documents) became the most contributing country and Nurmandi, A (4 documents) became the author with the most contributions in this research with related themes. Meanwhile, the results of the Scientometric analysis using CiteSpace resulted in 9 clusters including public sector adoption, Facebook content, case study, American local government, local government use, e-government interactivity, enabling smart participation of local governments, American grass root, and multi-level functionality..
This study aims to analyze government communication during the Covid-19 pandemic through social media. This study uses qualitative methods and secondary data obtained through documentation techniques. The unit of analysis for this research is the official social media accounts and websites of the National Disaster Management Agency (BNPB), the Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Communication and Informatics, and the Covid-19 Task Force. The findings show that in the 2019-2020 pandemic, the government is experiencing stuttering and has not been able to carry out crisis communication properly through official social media, even though it already had regulations on crisis communication and management in disaster management. In the 2020-2021, the implementation of crisis communication through official social media can be seen with the Crisis and Emergency Risk Communication (CERC) model which integrates risk communication and crisis communication. Three communication indicators in social media have high scores: be right, be capable, and promote action. Meanwhile, 3 communication indicators in social media have low scores: be first, be emphatic, show respect. This shows that communication indicators related to the community are still lacking compared to communication indicators related to the government. Government apparatus must understand the operational level, not only the conceptual level.
Gündelik hayatın önemli bir parçası haline gelmiş olan sosyal medya, yönetsel süreçlerin ve kamu otoritesi-vatandaş ilişkilerini de etkilemiştir. Bu çalışmanın temel amacı, yerel yönetimlerin en küçük birimi olan mahalle yönetimince sosyal medya kullanımının mahalle sakinleri ile ilişkileri ve mahalle yaşantısını nasıl etkilediğini “yeni mahalleler” kavramsallaştırması çerçevesinde incelemektir. Çalışmada yarı yapılandırılmış derinlemesine görüşme tekniği kullanılmıştır. Araştırmada elde edilen bulgulara göre, iletişim, dayanışma ve yönetsel süreçlere katılımın yüz yüze veya telefon ile gerçekleşmekte olduğu geleneksel mahalle yaşamının bir kopyasının sosyal ağlarda oluşturulan gruplar ya da sayfalar aracılığıyla sanal ortamda da uygulanabilir olduğu görülmüştür. Böylece, sosyal medya platformlarında mahallenin sanal bir varlık göstermesi ile ortaya çıkan “yeni mahalleler”, mahalle muhtarı ve mahalle sakinlerinde vücut bulan devlet-vatandaş etkileşiminin de farklı bir boyut kazandığını göstermiştir.
After the outbreak of the COVID-19, there is an overload of misinformation related to the epidemic, causing the dangerous phenomenon of “infodemic” where it is impossible to distinguish the true from the false. The current problem faced is that the public is viciously involved in the spread of rumors, as well as disinformation that spreads much faster and more widely than correct information. False information is more likely to promote public engagement because of its high emotional intensity and its ability to fill the public’s information needs in a timely manner. Government social media, such as microblogging and WeChat accounts of official agencies, serve as the main sources for releasing information on the progress of the epidemic, dispelling rumors, popularizing science and spreading positive energy. How should government social media promote public engagement to achieve infodemic management? this study takes 2827 tweets related to the epidemic posted by official government microblogging account, “Wuhan Publishing”, and examines the factors and mechanisms that promote public engagement from the perspective of public value management theory and public sentiment. The theoretical contributions of this study are (1) further exploring the influencing factors and mechanisms of public engagement in government social media from the perspective of public value preferences and social emotional safety, and (2) expanding the application of public value management theory and social emotional safety theory in emergency management.KeywordsInfodemicGovernment Social MediaPublic EngagementPublic ValuePublic SentimentCommunication Strategies
Amaç: Hızla gelişmekte olan dijitalleşme sonucu geleneksel iletişim araçları gittikçe önemini kaybetmekte ve yerini her geçen gün gelişmekte ve yaygınlaşmakta olan bilgi ve iletişim teknolojilerine bırakmaktadır. Özellikle sosyal medya sadece bireyler için değil, kurum ve kuruluşlar için de vazgeçilmez bir iletişim aracı haline gelmiştir. Günümüzde özel sektör işletmeleri kadar kamu kuruluşları da sosyal medya araçlarından yoğun bir şekilde yararlanmaktadır. Bu kapsamda çalışmanın temel amacı Kırgızistan’daki belediyelerin sosyal medya kullanım durumlarını analiz etmektir.
Gereç ve Yöntem: Bu amaç doğrultusunda Kırgızistan’daki 32 belediyenin Facebook, Instagram, Twitter ve Youtube platformlarını kullanıp kullanmadıkları, Facebook hesaplarında 1 Eylül – 30 Kasım 2022 tarihleri arasında yaptıkları paylaşımlar içerik analizi ile değerlendirilmiştir.
Bulgular: Araştırma sonuçlarına göre, Bişkek, Oş ve Calal-Abad gibi büyük şehir belediyelerinin dışındaki belediyelerin sosyal medya kullanım durumlarının oldukça düşük olduğu, Facebook
ve Instagram’ın belediyeler tarafından en çok tercih edilen platformlar olduğu görülmüştür.
Sonuç: Araştırmanın bulguları belediyelerin sosyal medya kullanım
durumlarının genel olarak anlaşılması, belediyelerde bu konuda yapılacak farkındalık oluşturma çalışmalarına önemli ipuçları sağlaması açısından önem arz etmektedir.
My contribution in the conflict resolution conference, on the possibility and efficiency of a UN peacekeeping mission in Myanmar, in relation to its fight for democracy (on page 177)
This article elaborates on the utilization of social media for practices of interaction in the city during the COVID-19 pandemic and discusses its potential in providing for the wellbeing of urban communities. During the early periods of the pandemic when preventative measures were taken intensively to decrease contamination, communities lacked physical relationships with and within cities. Interactions realized in physical spaces in normal conditions were compensated with practices in social media. While such shift can be perceived to have decreased the meaning of cities in the pursuit of daily life and interactions, efforts which were localized upon physical human settlements yet were realized in the digital realm seem to have opened alternative paths for connection among residents. Within this context, we explore Twitter data through three hashtags which were promoted by the local government of Ankara and used densely by the residents in the early periods of the pandemic. Considering that social connection is one of the fundamental enablers of wellbeing, we aim to provide insights into the strive for wellbeing in times of crises where ruptures in physical interaction prevail. The patterns we observe in the expressions that gather around the selected hashtags shed a light on the ways the cities, their people and local governments are positioned in the struggles pursued in digital realm. Our findings support our arguments that social media has significant potential in contributing to the wellbeing of people especially in times of crisis, local governments can increase the quality of life of their citizens with modest actions, and the cities hold significant meanings for people as loci of communities and thus of wellbeing. Through the discussions we pursue, we seek to contribute to the stimulation of research, policies, and community actions that aim at the enhancement of wellbeing of urban individuals and communities.
Amaç: Hızla gelişmekte olan dijitalleşme sonucu geleneksel iletişim araçları gittikçe önemini kaybetmekte ve yerini her geçen gün gelişmekte ve yaygınlaşmakta olan bilgi ve iletişim teknolojilerine bırakmaktadır. Özellikle sosyal medya sadece bireyler için değil, kurum ve kuruluşlar için de vazgeçilmez bir iletişim aracı haline gelmiştir. Günümüzde özel sektör işletmeleri kadar kamu kuruluşları da sosyal medya araçlarından yoğun bir şekilde yararlanmaktadır. Bu kapsamda çalışmanın temel amacı Kırgızistan’daki belediyelerin sosyal medya kullanım durumlarını analiz etmektir. Gereç ve Yöntem: Bu amaç doğrultusunda Kırgızistan’daki 32 belediyenin Facebook, Instagram, Twitter ve Youtube platformlarını kullanıp kullanmadıkları, Facebook hesaplarında 1 Eylül – 30 Kasım 2022 tarihleri arasında yaptıkları paylaşımlar içerik analizi ile değerlendirilmiştir. Bulgular: Araştırma sonuçlarına göre, Bişkek, Oş ve Calal-Abad gibi büyük şehir belediyelerinin dışındaki belediyelerin sosyal medya kullanım durumlarının oldukça düşük olduğu, Facebook ve Instagram’ın belediyeler tarafından en çok tercih edilen platformlar olduğu görülmüştür. Sonuç: Araştırmanın bulguları belediyelerin sosyal medya kullaım durumlarının genel olarak anlaşılması, belediyelerde bu konuda yapılacak farkındalık oluşturma çalışmalarına önemli ipuçları sağlaması açısından önem arz etmektedir.
Technological revolution has fundamentally changed the way we live, work and relate to one another, in addition to redefining consumers’ preferences. Through a desk-based review, this chapter explores social media adoption in public sector communication. Specifically, the chapter reviews current development in public sector marketing with a focus on social media adoption in public sector communication. The chapter highlights the relevance of social media adoption in public sector marketing amidst public sector reforms as well as explores the two main strategic implications of social media for the marketing of public services, which include co-production in public service delivery and public service branding. These concepts are key for policies and practice of service delivery in the public sector, especially in an era where citizens expect improved services and better value from public sector organisations (PSOs). The chapter proposes a typology of public sector service and how social media fosters the management of these unique service characteristics.KeywordsSocial mediaPublic sectorCommunicationAfrica
Communication is crucial for human survival and the development of society. For this reason, communication is present in any activity, in order to avoid the errors of misinterpretation of information, but also to frame the behavior of all the members of society.
Communication has taken place in physical space for thousands of years, meaning verbal, written, or sign discussions. But technology has brought another dimension to communication by introducing a new communication tool, namely social media. It allows the exchange of information and the negotiation of knowledge at a much faster speed than the old methods of communication such as letters or telegrams.
In the case of social media, technology created a virtual communication space where information circulates at high speed. Although this is largely a positive aspect for development, the greater the amount of information received, the greater the chance that at least some of that information will be incorrect. Hence the problem that gave rise to this study, namely the social problems created by social media, like, disinformation and crisis creation through misinformation and fake news. In this context we ask ourselves if social media must be considered a good tool for managing crises and conflicts, or a tool that triggers them.
Social media has seen a rise in usage especially for disaster communication. Existing research that investigated the use of social media for disaster management have focused on information dissemination affordance of social media especially at the initial response phase, hence, the full potential of social media is not being realized. Social media offers many affordances in all phases of disaster management and holistic integration of the affordances may lead to better communication outcomes. This paper studied the extent of the knowledge gap through systematic literature review using the preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analysis (PRISMA) technique. Open, axial and selective coding strategies were used for the data analysis which also guided the study in defining a holistic framework for social media affordances for disaster management. The study provides disaster responders with an understanding of the social media functionalities that are best suited for each phase of disaster management. Essentially, the holistic understanding of social media functionalities in all disaster management phases can assist in minimizing the impact of disasters and help in managing them better.KeywordsSocial media affordancesTechnology affordancesDisaster managementDisaster phasesAffordances theory
Social media and crowdsourcing (SMCS) are increasingly proving useful for addressing the effects of natural and human-made hazards. SMCS allow different stakeholders to share crucial information during disaster management processes and to strengthen community resilience through engagement and collaboration. To harvest these opportunities there is a need for better knowledge on SMCS for diverse disaster scenarios. These challenges are being addressed within the LINKS Horizon 2020 project. The project aims at strengthening societal resilience by producing advanced learning on the use of SMCS in disasters. This is done through an in-depth study across three knowledge domains (disaster risk perception and vulnerability, disaster management processes, disaster community technologies), the establishment of an interactive Framework, and an online platform in which a community of relevant stakeholders can learn and share knowledge and experiences. This paper provides an overview of the project objectives and approaches and a summary of the initial results.
The issue of poor ethics and integrity among students as well as in the working communities is an alarming issue that needs to be addressed. The value of ethics can be built and instill during the school days especially during the tertiary level because entering the workforce will be their next milestone. Nevertheless, the issue of online academic cheating has been rampant in most universities, mostly due to the advancement of technologies and there are various creative methods to cheating these days and these students have improvised from the usual traditional cheating methods. Traditional classroom learning also has transcend to online learning these days due to COVID-19 pandemic that swept across the world since end of year 2019 till today. This chapter will discuss the concept of online learning, definitions of academic cheating, reasons for online cheating by students, various online cheating methods as well as the ways to mitigate the problems of online academic cheating among students in the twenty-first century.
Social networks are important communication channel where individuals and emergency agencies can exchange information during disasters. The ability to detect disaster information or ‘reporting’ tweets would provide many advantages in disaster management during crowded events. This study explores Twitter behaviour during the Mina stampede tragedy in the 2015 Hajj by processing tweets posted over seven days during and after the incident (24–30 September 2015). Statistical features were derived from tweets, such as the number of hashtags, user mentions, and links, to provide an overview of the use of Twitter during this disaster. A classification model was built to filter reporting tweets using two Arabic natural language processing tools: Farasa and MADAMIRA. A support vector machine with a radial basis function kernel generated the best results in both tools (F-score: 88%–89%). The results will be useful to those who manage large, crowded events such as Hajj in Arabic-speaking regions.
As disasters increase in frequency and intensity, government leaders bear the responsibility of sharing potentially life‐saving information with the public. Social media have begun to emerge as powerful tools for two‐way crisis communication, allowing officials to reach, inform, and motivate at‐risk publics at all stages of the catastrophe lifecycle. Several crisis communication theories have been used to investigate the utility of social media as channels for disaster‐related messages. This scoping review provides an overview of four prominent theories in the field (situational crisis communication theory, the social‐mediated crisis communication model, discourse of renewal theory, and dialogic communication theory) and their implications for sharing crisis messages via social media. This review concludes with a general evaluation of the benefits and potential concerns of using social media to share official messages during natural disasters.
Government agencies struggle to use social media effectively to engage and involve the public. However, we know little about how individuals and groups on the other side of these efforts actually use social media to participate in government decision‐making processes, independent of government‐led engagement efforts. This exploratory study aims to address this by looking closer at how Twitter users self‐mobilize after a particular event in which they may be motivated to participate. Specifically, the study examines Twitter activity before and after the United States Department of the Interior proposed changes to its Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) regulations that would limit public access to agency records. Computational text analysis of 5000 tweets using #FOIA over a 99‐day period showed significant changes in the sentiment of the dialogue before and after the proposed rule was announced. Furthermore, structural topic models show evidence of a diverse set of stakeholders using Twitter to exercise voice and share information about the proposed rule. Findings suggests that citizens and interest groups are taking to Twitter to mobilize participation in the rulemaking process prompting the need for more research on how the public uses social media to influence government decision‐making, absent of government‐led engagement efforts. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.
Logistics planning in disasters involves dispatching relief commodities (such as food, medical commodities, rescue equipment, etc.) to local distribution centers and transfer of wounded people in affected areas to temporary on-site clinics or hospitals. In this context, an important part of relief operations is collecting and sharing and analyzing disaster information about affected areas before, during and after disasters in order to optimal decision making for relief operations. Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) and Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) can be used in order to collect data and Big Data (BD) and Cloud Computing (CC) are applied to analyze data. In this paper, the application of three concepts, including CC, BD and UAVs in disaster management, are reviewed. The aim of this review is to identify the challenges and provide a research gap and future research directions. The correlation between these concepts in collecting and analyzing disaster data and also their potentials in optimizing the relief operations has been the motivation for this research. In this study, for the first time, about 170 papers related to CC, BD and UAVs in emergency and disaster situations are reviewed. Finally, after analyzing the reviewed paper, some future research directions are represented.
Since the research questions of the present research are concerned with national image and crisis response, this chapter elaborates on PR research in terms of these two concepts and then advances an integrated approach combining political public relations and critical discourse analysis.
Using survey data collected from 463 local government officials from municipalities across
the United States, this study examines the use of social media tools by local governments
and their perceptions of social media use by their citizenry. It specifically addresses how
social media are used as public relations functions to serve democratic, participatory, and
transparency models across a range of government contexts. Results indicate that social
media are somewhat underutilized by local governments, with about a 70% overall use
rate. Perceived importance of social media predicted actual use; however, it was
disappointing to find that these officials’ perceptions of whether or not their citizens
expected them to use social media did not predict use. Facebook and Twitter were the
most commonly used tools; the vast majority of posts and tweets they write are about
special events. Well over one-third used at least one research or conferencing social meia
tool. Implications and importance of findings are discussed.
Previous research based on Situational Crisis Communication Theory (SCCT) suggests that an organization’s past crises history affects the reputational threat posed by a current crisis when that crisis results from intentional acts by the organization. The study reported on in this article provides a wider test of crisis history to better assess its role in crisis communication. Results from the present investigation showed that a history of similar crises intensified the reputational threat of a current crisis even when the crisis arose from the victimization of the organization or from an accident, rather than from the organization’s intentional acts. The threat to reputation was primarily direct, rather than indirect, through perceived responsibility for the crisis. There was little difference in the perceptions of organizations identified as having had no history of past similar crises versus those for whom no information about past crises was provided. Perception of an organization’s responsibility was negatively correlated with the perceived impact on reputation. Implications for the practice of crisis communication and further development of SCCT are discussed.
Crisis managers benefit from understanding how crisis communication can be used to protect reputational assets during a crisis. Situational Crisis Communication Theory (SCCT) offers a framework for understanding this dynamic. SCCT provides a mechanism for anticipating how stakeholders will react to a crisis in terms of the reputational threat posed by the crisis. Moreover, SCCT projects how people will react to the crisis response strategies used to manage the crisis. From its empirical research emerges a set of evidence-based crisis communication guidelines. The development of SCCT is discussed along with the presentation of its guidelines for crisis communication.
Value changes and the rapid emergence of media innovations (internet, social web) in society lead to an institutionalization of crisis communication, in which especially new media play a crucial role. The key contributions of the paper include deepening and refocusing the theoretical foundations of crisis communication by experimentally analyzing the effects of traditional and social-media strategies on the recipients’ perceptions of reputation; and by analyzing the effects or crisis responses on the recipients’ secondary crisis communications (e.g., sharing information and leaving a message) and reactions (e.g., willingness to boycott). The results indicated that the medium matters more than the message. For all three dependent measures – reputation, secondary crisis communication and reactions – main effects of medium occurred, whereas the message had only a significant main effect on secondary crisis reactions.
Researching and evaluating social media initiatives is essential to encourage usage, continually improve the tools and policies governing their use, and develop governance processes that incorporate social media participation in its many forms.
Social media are forms of information and communication technology disseminated through social interaction. Social media rely on peer-to-peer (P2P) networks that are collaborative, decentralized, and community driven. They transform people from content consumers into content producers. Popular networking sites such as MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, and Google are versions of social media that are most commonly used for connecting with friends, relatives, and employees. The role of social media in disaster management became galvanized during the world response to the 2010 Haiti earthquake. During the immediate aftermath, much of what people around the world were learning about the earthquake originated from social media sources. Social media became the new forum for collective intelligence, social convergence, and community activism. During the first 2 days following the earthquake, "texting" mobile phone users donated more than $5 million to the American Red Cross. Both public and private response agencies used Google Maps. Millions joined MySpace and Facebook discussion groups to share information, donate money, and offer comfort and support. Social media has also been described as "remarkably well organized, self correcting, accurate, and concentrated," calling into question the ingrained view of unidirectional, official-to-public information broadcasts. Social media may also offer potential psychological benefit for vulnerable populations gained through participation as stakeholders in the response. Disaster victims report a psychological need to contribute, and by doing so, they are better able to cope with their situation. Affected populations may gain resilience by replacing their helplessness with dignity, control, as well as personal and collective responsibility. However, widespread use of social media also involves several important challenges for disaster management. Although social media is growing rapidly, it remains less widespread and accessible than traditional media. Also, public officials often view P2P communications as "backchannels" with potential to spread misinformation and rumor. In addition, in absence of the normal checks and balances that regulate traditional media, privacy rights violations can occur as people use social media to describe personal events and circumstances.
Web 2.0 offers both technology and an environment that facilitates transparency and communication for users and stakeholders. With this opportunity, public sector e-services are given tools to engage their own employees in an atmosphere that not only fosters new ideas, but provides a framework for managing prototypes and pilot projects that encourage experimentation. In addition, this environment encourages collaboration and breaking down walls of information asymmetries between various stakeholders. Public sector e-services has a legacy of a risk adverse environment where many times the focus is on the politically charged short-term delivery of goals and results, lacking a long-term strategy of managing the risk and renewal cycle around service innovation. The promises and potential that Web 2.0 technologies may provide still have to deal with fragile systems that are currently in place in public sector e-services. Government regulators, consumer advocacy groups, and e-services need to understand how Internet innovation affects the end user/consumer directly. The central premise being that these groups are modeling consumer trends and may be making decisions on false or fabricated information, even suggesting this could lead to inhibiting overall Internet innovation.
A 34-year review of communication technology research published in six public relations journals reveals applications and perceptions studies far outnumber investigations focused on usability, concerns, or theoretical contributions related to scholarly and practitioner understanding of new media. Six trends observed in the 321-article dataset are noted, along with suggestions for theory building and other areas for future research.
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.
Local governments in the Phoenix metropolitan area have begun to create official government Facebook pages as an additional way to reach citizens. Using social media at the local government level seems to offer the promise of increased citizen engagement, reaching citizens on a common platform and allowing for citizen comments. This article explores those cities' Facebook pages for evidence of citizen engagement from the perspective of Farmer's speaking-from power and speaking-to power theoretical framework, illuminating the paradox between adopting a technology intended for many-to-many engagement and utilizing that technology in a one-to-many or authoritative manner. Through this exploratory investigation of Farmer's three layers—transparent, disciplinary symbolic, and cloacal symbolic—we find evidence that cities continue to take a speaking-from power stance on a platform that is designed to encourage speaking-to power.
As public expectations continue to grow in terms of how governments should monitor social media during disasters, it is critical to provide empirical support for the extent to which governments should continue to invest in social media as essential disaster communication tools. This 3 × 4 × 2 between-subjects experiment (N = 871) tested which, if any, disaster information forms and sources were more likely to generate desired public outcomes such as intentions to seek and share information through an array of communication channels. The study also tested related influences of person-made versus natural disaster type. Finally, this study examined whether a known real-world disaster potentially affected participants' responses to hypothetical disaster information. Key findings include: (1) there were significant main effects of disaster information form and source, but no single form and source combination consistently predicted behavioral intentions; (2) there were no main effects of disaster type on all tested outcomes; and (3) there were no differences in how disaster information form and source affected participants' intentions to seek information before and after the 2013 Boston Marathon Bombings.
Using data collected from more than 450 local government officials from municipalities across the United States, this study examines the impact that various community features have on local governments' social media use. It specifically addresses how staff and time resources, privacy concerns, citizen expectations, social media effectiveness, staff size, and public records requirements affect extent of use of social media for networking, research, and conferencing purposes. Ultimately, this examination of social media use reveals how they are used as a strategic and public relations function to promote more participatory and transparent government. Results indicate that, overall, citizen expectations and perceived social media effectiveness by government officials are strong predictors of social media use.
Several studies underlined the impact of social media in the public sector, investigating the adoption process and uses of these digital platforms by public administrations. This paper adopts a public-oriented perspective to investigate citizens’ voices and engagement within 10 Italian municipalities’ Facebook Pages. In particular, it investigates the motivations to become Facebook fan of a municipality, and the variety of digital practices carried out by citizens to communicate and relate with this type of public administrations. The study was carried out through the administration of an online survey of 35 questions to 1196 Facebook users. The research proposes an active digital public typology (likers, mono interaction users, multi-interaction users, full interaction users) based on the extension of the activities that citizens carry out on municipalities’ Facebook Pages. The thematic analysis of the digital publics’ opinions reveals that citizens ask for a tangible and actual two-way communication with local administrations on social media. Theoretical and practical implications for public sector institutions using social media are discussed.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0363811114001854
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.
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.
This study investigated Internet communication and use in a crisis situation, Hurricane Katrina, to explore the role of the Internet in supporting or diminishing geographically- based community during a crisis. The researchers conducted an online survey of Internet users (n � /1192) from the dispersed metropolitan New Orleans area. The survey focused on amount, type, function, and importance of Internet use to creating and maintaining social capital, supporting geographically-based communities, activating social networks, reducing uncertainty, and achieving both expressive and instrumental communication goals. The results indicated that Internet users in a crisis situation went online to seek interactive fora specific to their neighborhoods and to activate weak ties in their social networks. They engaged in more uncertainty reduction behavior when experiencing higher degrees of damage. They turned to the Internet in place of other media as a result of disruptions caused by the crisis. Women valued online expressive communication more than men did. The findings suggest that social capital theorists would benefit from a communication perspective on the Internet. The study also led to the formation of suggestions for emergency preparedness agencies, shelter providers, crisis victims, and online news providers that can improve emergency response.
Various authors have highlighted the potential contribution of the internet to enhance the interactivity, transparency, and openness of public sector entities and to promote new forms of accountability. The search for new styles of governance which promote higher levels of transparency and the engagement of citizens is viewed as a way of improving citizens' trust in governments. As the social media are becoming ubiquitous, both academics and practitioners need some initial and reliable background data about the deployment of this kind of technology at all levels. The aim of this work is to provide an overall view about the use of Web 2.0 and social media tools in EU local governments in order to determine whether local governments are using these technologies to increase transparency and e-participation, opening a real corporate dialog. In addition, the paper tries to identify which factors promote the level of development of these tools at local level. Our results show that most local governments are using Web 2.0 and social media tools to enhance transparency but, in general, the concept of corporate dialog and the use of Web 2.0 to promote e-participation are still in their infancy at the local level.
Through a quantitative content analysis, this study applies situational crisis communication theory (SCCT) to investigate how 13 corporate and government organizations responded to the first phase of the 2009 flu pandemic. The results indicate that government organizations emphasized providing instructing information to their primary publics such as guidelines about how to respond to the crisis. On the other hand, organizations representing corporate interests emphasized reputation management in their crisis responses, frequently adopting denial, diminish, and reinforce response strategies. In addition, both government and corporate organizations used social media more often than traditional media in responding to the crisis. Finally, the study expands SCCT's response options.
Practitioners and academics are buzzing about the impact of the blogosphere on public relations practices. Emerging evidence indicates that strategically managing blog-mediated public relations may be especially critical for crisis managers. Yet, no known research provides a comprehensive, theoretically sound approach indicating how crisis managers should engage with the blogosphere. Therefore, this study proposes a new conceptual model to help public relations professionals navigate the evolving blogosphere: the blog-mediated crisis communication model. This model helps crisis managers monitor the blogosphere and respond, when appropriate, to influential bloggers. Future research will test the model in applied contexts, working with corporate, government, and nonprofit organizations.
This study reports findings from a survey of 281 public relations practitioners in public health departments serving 4 distinct sizes of communities—urban, suburban, large town, and rural—in 48 states. Based on diffusion of innovations theory, the overall purpose of the study is to examine the extent to which social media are adopted within public health agencies and moderators of adoption. Findings demonstrate overall low adoption rates for social media tools. However, significant differences were observed for adoption based on size of communities, with urban communities exhibiting highest adoption rates, followed by suburban, large town, and rural communities. The most frequently cited barrier practitioners named for why they don't think constituents would benefit from health information distributed online was lack of home access to the Internet. Among the 17 percent of practitioners who indicate they use social media to disseminate health information, the most commonly used tools are social networking sites followed by the new media release, blogs, and discussion boards. Rural areas, although lowest in overall social media use, report highest use of podcasting. Implications regarding health and health information disparities are discussed, a potentially new motivation for innovation adoption is introduced, and future studies to follow the S-shaped adoption curve are proposed.
This work-in-process literature review gives an overview of recent insight in the incorporation of social media in risk and crisis communication. By marrying literature and examples of social media use with best practices in risk and crisis communication, this study demonstrates how communicators can embrace social media tools to better manage a risk or crisis. Best practices in risk and crisis communication are summarized, examples of social media tools used to manage risks and crises are expounded, and recommendations for practitioners are provided to incorporate social media tools in risk and crisis communication.
In recent years, many governments have worked to increase openness and transparency in their actions. Information and communication technologies (ICTs) are seen by many as a cost-effective and convenient means to promote openness and transparency and to reduce corruption. E-government, in particular, has been used in many prominent, comprehensive transparency efforts in a number of nations. While some of these individual efforts have received considerable attention, the issue of whether these ICT-enabled efforts have the potential to create a substantive social change in attitudes toward transparency has not been widely considered. This paper explores the potential impacts of information and ICTs – especially e-government and social media – on cultural attitudes about transparency.
The US response to the 2010 Haiti Earthquake was a large effort coordinated by three major agencies that worked in tandem with the Government of Haiti, the United Nations, and many countries from around the globe. Managing this response effort was a complex undertaking that relied extensively on knowledge management systems (KMS). For the first time, however, US government agencies employed social media technologies such as wikis and collaborative workspaces as the main knowledge sharing mechanisms. In this research we present a case study developed through action research of how these social media technologies were used, what influences they made on knowledge sharing, reuse, and decision-making, and how knowledge was effectively (and at times ineffectively) maintained in these systems. First-hand knowledge of the response is used, offering strategies for future deployment of social media and important research questions that remain regarding social media as knowledge management systems, particularly for disaster and emergency management.
Using telephone surveys of business/financial journalists in the United States (n = 200), this research investigates the agenda-building role of social media content in journalists’ work. Understanding that more non-public relations content from user-generated and social network sites, like YouTube and Twitter, are fast becoming resources for journalists to get story ideas, break scandals, and find sources, we began this scholarly work to determine the frequency of such uses of social media. Overall, findings indicate very little use of social media by these business journalists. Results and implications for public relations practitioners are discussed in detail.
The effectiveness of user interactions and engagement with e-government hinges on the extent to which the information and services being offered are user-centered, and in particular citizen-centered. E-government is not effectively serving users if they cannot find the information and services that they seek due to organizational, educational, policy, or management issues; do not have the skills to properly interact with e-government; do not understand the results that they get; or do not trust the information that they receive. As such, user-centered design and evaluation must be a key consideration in the development and management of e-government. Building on a range of previous research by the authors, this article will examine the issues of the designing for, evaluation of, and research about user-centered e-government and implications for e-government policy and management.
Twitter is a microblogging and social networking service with millions of members and growing at a tremendous rate. With the buzz surrounding the service have come claims of its ability to transform the way people interact and share information and calls for public figures to start using the service. In this study, we are interested in the type of content that legislators are posting to the service, particularly by members of the United States Congress. We read and analyzed the content of over 6,000 posts from all members of Congress using the site. Our analysis shows that Congresspeople are primarily using Twitter to disperse information, particularly links to news articles about themselves and to their blog posts, and to report on their daily activities. These tend not to provide new insights into government or the legislative process or to improve transparency; rather, they are vehicles for self-promotion. However, Twitter is also facilitating direct communication between Congresspeople and citizens, though this is a less popular activity. We report on our findings and analysis and discuss other uses of Twitter for legislators.
Leveraging web 2.0 in government Impact of past crises on current crisis communications: Insights from situational crisis communication theory
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Social media and disasters: Current uses, future options, and policy considerations Retrieved from http://www.fas.org/sgp How publics respond to crisis communication strategies: The interplay of information form and source
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