Citation

Kochigina A, Tsetsura K, Taylor M. Public Relat. Rev. 2021; 47(4): e102086.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2021, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1016/j.pubrev.2021.102086

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Crisis communication research focuses on how organizations use communication to manage crises and shows how publics respond to organizational crisis response. Yet, organizations do not always deal with the crisis alone. Sometimes, publics can be active participants in crisis communication when they publicly defend the organization (Brown & Billings, 2013). Drawing on the situational crisis communication theory (SCCT) (Coombs, 2015), faith-holders (Luoma-aho, 2015), the concepts of co-creation of meaning (Botan & Taylor, 2004), and framing research (Entman, 1993), this research compared three sets of crisis communication strategies aimed at defending Tesla Motors, a luxury electric car manufacturer. An analysis of messaging on the company's website, the kinds of organizational crisis communication strategies that were cited in the digital media news articles, and the crisis communication strategies offered by the organization's supporters, or faith-holders, in the comments left in response to the digital media articles indicates that organizational crisis communication is co-created by different actors across different media, and that faith-holders' communication plays an important role in this co-creation.

Language: en

Keywords

Co-creation; Crisis communication; Faith-holders; Framing; Publics