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Apart from the side of crisis victims and stakeholders, social media are also ideal
communication tools for organizations in crisis. Social media are like organizations’ owned media, which enable organizations to take control of the information on their official page on the social media. Similar to the owned media, posting information on social media is usually free or at a low cost. These advantages make social media the logical place for instructing crisis response
information and providing updates. In addition, because social media have the characteristics of social interaction, it provides a chance for organizations to interact with stakeholders after a crisis (Coombs, 2012).
2.7 Roles of Social Media in Crisis
Quite a lot crisis studies have already discussed the behavior and effect of using Internet and blogs in crisis communication. For instance, Wu (2000) has generalized basic guidelines of Internet crisis communication strategies, which include: (1) announce organization’s statement about the crisis event on the official website as soon as possible, (2) update official website often with latest progress of the crisis management process, (3) offer bilateral communication on the website, (4) provide links to other websites which can support organization’s stance (e.g., government issued press release, health care institution, or other news website for people to check up related
information), (5) be able to clarify competitors or accusers’ statements immediately, (6) set up a crisis management team includes Internetwork expert, in order to solve any technical problems.
These guidelines are still useful after a decade, but it may need to be revised to take social media crisis communication into consideration.
Macias, Hilyard, and Freimuth’s study in 2009 found four main functions of blog use during crisis. First, blogs are used as a communication tool for stakeholders to share latest information,
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document experiences, and communicate with others directly. Second, blogs are used for supervising government and responsible departments. Third, blogs are the platforms to provide related
information when people are seeking for details of the crisis. Last, people can look for social support on blogs which stakeholders can exchange experiences and organizations can connect to provide rescue help (Macias, Hilyard & Freimuth, 2009).
Compared to crisis communication literature on traditional media, scholars have just begun to explore the effect of social media use. Past research indicated that because social media provide unfiltered, timely, and in-depth communication (Liu et al., 2013; Johnson & Kaye, 2010; Procopio &
Procopio, 2007; Taylor & Kent, 2007), individuals’ social media use increases with the need of seeking comprehensive information during crisis. Compared to traditional media coverage, public perceive social media coverage more credible, especially those who are active social media users.
(Horrigan & Morris, 2005; Liu et al., 2013; Procopio & Procopio, 2007; Sweetser & Metzgar, 2007).
Liu, Jin and Austin (2013) concluded three overall reasons why people seek out social media of a crisis context from previous research: Social motivation, self-expression, and utilitarian purposes.
Social motivation drives public to create their own content, as well consume and share existing content (Daugherty, Eastin, & Bright, 2008; Madden, 2007). Social media platforms and mobile applications provide multiple features for self-expression (Philips, 2008). People share their point of view, as well as a way to virtually band together, share information, and demand remediation for the crisis (Stephens & Malone, 2009). Utilitarian purposes represent attitudes based on self-interest. On social media platform, people create content primarily for their own personal incentives (Daugherty, Eastin, & Bright, 2008).
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Taylor and Perry (2005) found that the use of new media tactics during crisis helps the
organization rebuild consumer trust. Closely examining blog use in crisis communication, Sweetser and Metzgar (2007) also pointed out that public perceptions about the crisis change, and that people believe the crisis is not as serious when the organization is engaged in blogging for crisis
communication. Research by Yang, Kang, and Johnson (2010) indicated using more interactive media during crisis may encourage publics to have a more positive attitude about the organization.
When the affected organization uses social media during crisis response process, it is like building a bridge for the stakeholders to have conversations with organization. Similarly, Coombs (2012) suggested that two-way communication between the organization and stakeholders is the lifeblood of a favorable organizational-stakeholder relationship, which must be maintained during good times and in bad.
Another Crisis communication researcher suggested that crisis managers must integrate the online and traditional communication channels into the crisis response process (Wehr, 2007).
However, it was found that organizations did a rather poor job in taking advantages of the dialogic opportunities offered by new media such as websites (Kent, Taylor & White, 2003). A later study by Taylor and Perry in 2005 also had similar results. They discovered that organizations still less frequently used the Internet as part of their crisis communication tool. On the other hand, organizations were more likely to adopt traditional crisis communication tactics such as press releases (Liu et al., 2012; Taylor & Perry, 2005). Social media only complement, but have not yet replace the role of traditional media during crises (Jin & Liu, 2010; Palen et al., 2010).
Reviewing above literature, it can be concluded that using social media for crisis communication has many advantages, such as more interactivity, intermediacy, unfiltered
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information, and low cost. A report by Pew Research Center in 2014 showed that Facebook remained by far the most popular social networking site, and followed by other platforms like Twitter,
Instagram, Pinterest and LinkedIn. According to Dan Neary, the vice president of Facebook at Asia Pacific region, its largest market was in Asian region, with a total of 340 million users. In Taiwan, the ranking of popular social networking sites is slightly different as the result of the survey done by Pew Research Center in the United States. For instance, Twitter and LinkedIn are not as prevalent among Taiwanese netizens. But Facebook also claimed the top social networking site in Taiwan with more than 60% of penetration rate, which was the highest number within the Asian Pacific region (Business Next, 2013). In 2007, Facebook introduced a new feature called “Pages,” which are user profiles for brands (companies, organizations, and celebrities). Facebook pages can be customized by publishing stories, hosting events, adding apps and more depend on the brands. If a person likes a page, his/her friends can also get updates from the brand in their News Feed on Facebook. More and more brands set up Facebook page to publish the latest news and communicate with its stakeholders online. Thus, this study would analyze Taipei Lee-Chi’s Facebook fan page in order to explore the roles of social media in crisis. It is interesting to discuss how the organization perceived the
differences between the roles of traditional and new media during crisis. Following research question is aimed to understand Taipei Lee-Chi’s social media use in the crisis:
RQ3: How online and social media was employed by the organization during the crisis (e.g., frequency and purposes of use at different phases of crisis)?