Risk, Crisis and Social Media: A Metastudy of Six Years’ Research

• In Event: Risk Communication and Perception

Abstract

The literature on social media use in risk and crisis communication has grown tremendously over the last few years. This paper presents a meta-study covering 80 empirical studies published in peer-reviewed journals and of the few literature reviews that have been conducted so far. It is illustrated how the literature has increasingly focused on causality, explaining the impact of different communicative choices on citizens' perceptions of organizations in crisis. How organizations model communication through social and traditional media choices, sources, tone, frequency of updates, etc., affect perceived credibility and attitudes. In reviewing the literature, however, we also found that there are certain aspects that are largely missing. In addition to the lack of generalizable samples and studies of actual, preventive risk communication, very little attention is given to the effects of the digital divide on social mediated risk and crisis communication. In order to better encompass different citizens’ living conditions and life trajectories, the paper calls for more attention to questions of channel complementarity through new and older media.

Authors

• Joel Dag Rasmussen, University of Oslo

• Oyvind Ihlen, U of Oslo