ECREA16-Abstract

586

Friday, November 11

1 4 : 3 0 – 1 6 : 0 0

SCI PS

Poster session

PS 034

The Role of Social Media in Reputational Crises: Metaphors Drawn Out of Practice

P. Dias

, J.G. Andrade

Catholic University of Portugal, Research Centre for Communication and Culture, Lisbon, Portugal

The digitalization of contemporary society has triggered a paradigmatic change in the way organizations build relationships with their different stake‑

holders. The traditional dissemination model has evolved into a dialogue with increasingly informed, demanding and diversified publics. Organizations

are challenged to manage a consistent and appealing communication that cuts through the clutter of information overload, gets attention and fosters

engagement. This change has implications in the power balance between organizations and their publics. Going from transmission to conversation forces

organizations to abandon their monopoly as broadcasters and to actively listen to their stakeholders. Plus, organizations have no choice but to participate

in this dialogue, as digitally-empowered consumers talk about brands, products and services, whether organizations like it or not, and are elected as

trustworthy sources by other consumers. In this digital environment, organizations are therefore more exposed and more vulnerable. Public Relations

scholars and practitioners are therefore increasingly interested in Crisis Communication, as both research and experience have shown that the social media

increase the frequency and the reach of communication crises, and also building a strong reputation has become crucial for facing digital word-of-mouth,

recommendations and reviews. Our research explores the interdependency of theory and practice in Public Relations by looking into the role played by

social media in communication crises using grounded theory as our method. We have studied the main reputational crises cases involving social media in

the Portuguese context – including the brands Ensitel, EDP, TAP Portugal, Samsung, Sumol, Olá and Telepizza – in order to identify the role played by such

digital platforms in the development of the crises (precrisis, crisis and postcrises stages). The methods used were documental analysis, qualitative content

analysis of social media platforms (mostly Facebook but occasionally involving blogs and Twitter) and in-depth interviews to PR professionals involved.

Drawing from practice, we identified two axes along which the social media may play different roles in crises. One deals with crisis stages, ranging from

being the trigger of the crisis to widening its reach in a posterior phase. The other deals with the nature of the impact, as the conversation on social media

may intensify or mitigate the crisis. The crossing of these axes results in four metaphors that we propose as a way of categorizing the role played by social

media in reputational crises: the thermometer, the bomb, the megaphone, the bonfire, the fire extinguisher and the magic wand. Hence, our work comes

full-circle by suggesting a theoretical categorization inspired in practice and applicable to other scenarios and contexts, aiming to develop a useful tool for

practitioners.

PS 035

Cultural Discontinuity in Crisis Communication: Developing a Cross-National Taxonomy of Stakeholder Crisis Response Preferences

A. Diers-Lawson

Leeds Beckett University, Strategy- Marketing- and Communications, Leeds, United Kingdom

Since the 1970’s as the study of crisis communication has developed into an increasingly formalized and recognized field, many studies have been published.

However, the field has a very narrow understanding of the role of stakeholder cultural background in crisis management (Falkheimer & Heide, 2006; Lee,

Woeste, & Heath, 2007). Crisis communication theory is primarily based on a Western-oriented paradigm with little reference to its cross-cultural aspects

(Haruta & Hallahan, 2009). In recent years, there has been an increased recognition that national identity matters in crisis response (Chen, 2009; Molleda,

Connolly-Ahern, & Quinn, 2005; Rovisco, 2010). This suggests we must look beyond case analyses in individual nations to better understand crisis response

in a global communication environment because culture and crisis communication are likely linked at all levels from the decisions about what to communi‑

cate to the content of the messages communicated (Marra, 1998).Thus, the implications of existent limitations within crisis communication literature is that

theory falls short of effectively informing practitioners on how to protect their organization during and after a crisis (Kim, et al, 2009). In light of the increas‑

ing managerial importance of crisis communication in protecting organizational reputations, such gap needs to be addressed by academic research (Ulmer

& Sellnow, 2000). More directly, in a review of 268 crisis articles, theory, and case studies from 1973 to 2015, the overwhelming majority of these case stud‑

ies were American-centric (n = 230) and there were only eight direct cross-cultural comparisons of crisis response in any capacity. Therefore, the purpose

of this study is to build a multi-cultural cross-industry comparative assessment of the impacts of issues/crises and preferred response strategies to be able to

better design, understand, and predict public stakeholder reactions to crises and issues emerging in the public view comparing Chinese, Indonesian, Malay‑

sian, Czech, and British reactions to the crisis, organizational response, and its implications for the relationships between the organization and stakeholders.

PS 036

Local Government and Citizen Engagement in Environmental Activism in Spanish and English Cities

I. Ruiz-Mora

, A. Castillo-Esparcia

, M.B. Barroso

Faculty of Arts Computing Engineering & Science /Sheffield Hallam University, Media Arts and Communication, Sheffield, United Kingdom

Facultad de Ciencias de la Comunicacion / Universidad de Malaga, Comunicacion Audiovisual y Publicidad, Malaga, Spain

In the last 50 years environmental issues have played a part in citizens’concerns and protests and these issues have played a greater role in political agendas

(Levy and Zint, 2013; Dalton, Recchia and Rohrschneider, 2003). In 2013 citizens in Istanbul, led by Taksim Solidarity group, organised various protests to

save Gezi Park from corporate and government speculation (The Guardian, 2014) [1]. Activism and protest were the response of citizens to the politicians’

attitude to this environmental issue. This research aims to investigate how city councils are dealing with environmental issues such as green spaces. We

also propose to demonstrate how citizens use public relations strategies to influence local government's commitment to these concerns. To carry out this

study we will analyse and compare two campaigns by European citizens happening now in Malaga (Spain) and Sheffield (England, UK). In Malaga citizens

are demanding the local government to redesign an abandoned space to create an open and green park in one of the most populated suburbs, instead