Society & Culture - Posted by Futurity-Jenny Leonard on Thursday, May 28, 2009 21:03 - 1 Comment 
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(No Ratings Yet) Loading ...Tweeting your way through a crisis
“Thanks to the Internet and social media applications, such as blogs, Facebook, and Twitter, the public is able to seek and share information quickly during a health or safety crisis,” says Keri Stephens, assistant professor of communication studies at the University of Texas at Austin.
TEXAS-AUSTIN (US)—Organizations involved in a crisis must get information out quickly, clearly, and directly to the public as well as to the media, otherwise audiences will seek information elsewhere, according to a study by a University of Texas at Austin researcher.
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“Thanks to the Internet and social media applications, such as blogs, Facebook, and Twitter, the public is able to seek and share information quickly during a health or safety crisis,” says Keri Stephens, assistant professor of communication studies at the University of Texas at Austin. “If an organization involved in the crisis doesn’t provide information quickly and clearly, the public will turn to third-party sources to fill the vacuum—and that information may not be accurate.”
The study, published in April 2009 issue of Journal of Public Relations Research, was coauthored by Stephens and Patty Malone, assistant professor of human communication studies at California State University Fullerton.
The study, conducted during a 2007 pet food recall, examined the types of social support messages desired by pet owners, the type of information shared by pet food companies, and how these messages varied across a variety of new media, such as Web sites and blogs.
The research findings have an impact on communication professionals planning for a crisis. In order to ensure a voice in the discussion, the company needs to communicate quickly, the researchers say.
According to Stephens, communication professionals should no longer gear press releases only toward the media. They should be written for the public, which is now linking to organizational press releases in blogs and on social media sites, and consider including dialogic links, or hot links, to Web sites where audiences can go for in-depth explanations of technical and scientific information.
“Emotions are high during a crisis and people find comfort in information—regardless of the quality of that information,” says Stephens. “The swine flu situation was an example of this. Thousands of people turned to Twitter to query each other and share news of the latest developments in Mexico and the U.S. Twitter status updates ranged from ‘Could it be germ warfare?’ to ‘Don’t eat pork from Mexico.’ Fortunately, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention did a good job of communicating quickly and clearly.”
University of Texas at Austin news: www.utexas.edu/news/
Please wait
As we all know the news these days comes out at such unimaginable speed, that it’s always good for any organization to step-in right away and voice their side of the story to confirm the integrity of the news.
Look at what happened to Tiger Woods. The story of infidelity came out on the internet and people are so fascinated by it, it forced him to respond to the public whether he likes it or not.