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Public Health Crisis and Crisis Communication
PP 191
Communicating the Ebola Epidemic. A Comparative Study of Swedish News Media and Social Media
P. Rodin
1
, M. Ghersetti
1
1
University of Gothenburg, Journalism- media and communication, Gothenburg, Sweden
The latest Ebola outbreak was the most serious since the virus was discovered in 1976. From the first reported death in Guinea in December 2013 to January
2015, when the spreading of the infection flattened out, about 22,000 suspected cases of infection and 8,900 deaths were registered
(www.WHO.int). By
June 2014, some cases of Ebola had spread to the U.S. and Europe, and in January 2015 three Swedish citizens were sent home from Sierra Leone. None
of them proved later to be infected. News media play a fundamental role in crisis communication around social crises, like the Ebola pandemic. It is through
news media that people inform themselves, make sense of what is happening, and decide on which precautions to take. However, also social media are
growing in importance in these situations. On Facebook the Ebola epidemic was communicated and commented in less regulated ways than in news
media, and on Wikipedia, a fully user-generated platform, the public built up a joint and cohesive account of the situation. In social media users are often
anonymous, the argumentation more aggressive, and misleading and false information more present. The Ebola epidemic was widely reported in Swedish
news media during the autumn of 2014, when the rapid spreading of the virus encompassed three continents. In parallel, an intense and extensive com‑
munication on the infection went on in social media, including the sharing of news messages, personal experiences, rumours and expressions of anxiety.
This study departs in theories of media logic and of rhetorical arenas. The concept of media logic refers to the underlying formats, norms, organisation and
economics of news media (Altheide & Snow 1979) and of social media (van Dijck & Poell 2013) through which the media present and transmit communica‑
tion. The concept of rhetorical arena refers to an extended and complex communication space opening around a crisis, where various voices are contesting,
supporting, expressing feelings and influencing other participants (Frandsen & Johansen 2010, 2013).The purpose of the study is to compare Swedish news
media content on the Ebola infection with the content of corresponding communication in social media. Issues of special interest are how risks of infection
are described and perceived, how actions and preparedness of Ebola handling authorities are represented and interpreted, and whether the presence
of alarmism in news media correspond to expressions of anxiety in social media. The overall aim of the study is to describe and explain how news media
and social media constitute interrelated platforms for sense making and opinion building in the context of social crisis. The study builds on content analysis
of main Swedish news media, and of commentary threads on news articles and authorities’ publications on Facebook and relevant Wikipedia articles.
The time period for the empirical analysis is 1 August 2014 to 31 January 2015, a total of six months under which the spreading of the infection peaked in
Africa, the U.S. and Europe.
PP 192
The Tamiflu Case – How Pressure Groups Communicate About Organizations in Crisis via Social Media and Newspaper Coverage
and the Implications for Media Reputation
D. Vogler
1
, M. Schranz
1
1
University of Zurich, Research Institute for the Public Sphere and Society, Zürich, Switzerland
Purpose, Relevance and Originality: Social media is a major discontinuity for the field of communication research as it questions established theories and
methods (Veil et al. 2011). Social media offers new possibilities for stakeholder groups to communicate with and about organization and leads to a reduced
corporate control over communication (Kaul and Chaudri 2015). It therefore challenges the concept of media reputation which is usually applied to tradi‑
tional mass media. Looking at the example of theTamiflu crisis we ask how communication of pressure groups about an organization in crisis differs in social
media and newspaper coverage. By doing so we can compare reputation effects deriving from the two sources. Theoretical Approach: Media reputation
is defined as overall evaluation of an organization in the public sphere (Eisenegger 2005). Researchers disagree on how to integrate social media into
the traditional concepts of the public sphere e.g. the three-dimensional concept of encounter-, assembly- and media-publics (Imhof 2011). Hence, further
research on how to integrate social media into existing theoretical and methodological concepts that model reputation in dependency of public communi‑
cation is necessary. Methodology: The flu drug Tamiflu and its maker – the Swiss pharmaceutical company Roche – came under scrutiny after the efficacy
of the drug was questioned. This came after governments had stockpiled Tamiflu against the swine flu following a WHO recommendation. The criticism on
Tamiflu was prominently articulated by the UK-based NGO Cochrane.These events led to a major reputational crisis for Roche. By applying a content analysis
to Swiss and British newspaper articles as well as Twitter and Facebook posts we record how Roche and Tamiflu were evaluated in the coverage respectively
social media posts by pressure groups (e.g. Scientists, NGOs and authorities). (Expected) Findings: News media still act as a gatekeeper whereas stakehold‑
ers are able to articulate their opinion on a topic more or less unfiltered via their social media channels. As a consequence the tonality in the evaluation
of Roche in social media will be more negative and the variety of pressure groups higher. Time is a crucial factor in crisis due to rapidly evolving events (van
der Meer and Verhoeven 2013). Therefore pressure groups will articulate their opinion on the Tamiflu events in social media prior to appearance in newspa‑
per coverage. References: Eisenegger, M. (2005), Reputation in der Mediengesellschaft: Konstitution, Issues-Monitoring, Issues-Management. Wiesbaden:
VS Verlag. Imhof, K. (2011), Die Krise der Öffentlichkeit. Kommunikation und Medien als Faktoren des sozialenWandels, Frankfurt amMain: Campus Verlag.
Kaul, A., Chaudri, V. (2015), Social Media: The New Mantra for Managing Reputation. In: The Journal for Decision Makers 40 (4), pp. 455–491. van der Meer,
T., Verhoeven, P. (2013), Public Framing Organizational Crisis Situations: Social Media Versus News Media. In: Public Relations Review 39 (3), pp. 229–231.
Veil, S. R., Buehner, T. and Palenchar, M. J. (2011), A Work-In-Process Literature Review: Incorporating Social Media in Risk and Crisis Communication. In:
Journal of Contingencies and Crisis Management 19 (2), pp. 110–122.