Is the medium the message?

Is the medium the message? Perceptions of and reactions to crisis communication via twitter, blogs and traditional media.

Authors:

Schultz, Friederike1 f.schultz@vu.nl
Utz, Sonja1 s.utz@vu.nl
Göritz, Anja2 anja.goeritz@psychologie.uni-wuerzburg.de

Source:

Public Relations Review. Mar2011, Vol. 37 Issue 1, p20-27. 8p.

Document Type:

Article

Subject Terms:

*CRISIS communication
*PERCEPTION
*REACTION (Philosophy)
*BLOGS
*MASS media
*CRISIS management
*REPUTATION (Sociology)
*BOYCOTTS

Company/Entity:

TWITTER Inc.

NAICS/Industry Codes:

922190 Other Justice, Public Order, and Safety Activities
519130 Internet Publishing and Broadcasting and Web Search Portals

Abstract:

Abstract: 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 orcrisis 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. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

 

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Author Affiliations:

1VU University Amsterdam, Netherlands
2University of Würzburg, Germany

ISSN:

0363-8111

DOI:

10.1016/j.pubrev.2010.12.001

Accession Number:

58095734