Is It the Message or the Medium? Relational Management during Crisis through Blogs,Facebook and Corporate Websites

Abstract

This is a quasi-experimental study comparing three modes of communication during crisis to examine whether they lead to differences in perception of relational maintenance. Crisis communication by an airline company was marginally modified to mask the organization’s identity, following which participants were exposed to crisis communication through a Facebook page (n = 47), corporate blog entry (n = 58) or corporate media release (n = 50). Contrary to the existing literature, the study did not find any significant differences based on participants’ exposure to different mediums. However, participants relying on Facebook for information about the crisis reported a better understanding of the crisis. The study underscores the importance of perceived user control and familiarity with the medium in determining stakeholder perceptions. It also calls for additional empirical studies to investigate the effectiveness of social media vis-à-vis conventional communication routes, especially when the same information is presented through different mediums.

Keywords

Crisis management social media relational maintenance blogs facebook online communication

Introduction

Social media has often been privileged by crisis management scholars for its potential in building relationships between organizations and their stakeholders (Moreno, Navarro, Tench & Zerfass, 2015). For the purpose of this study, social media has been defined as an online medium providing ‘various digital tools and applications that facilitate interactive communication and content exchange among publics and organizations online’ (Liu, Jin & Austin, 2013, p. 52). The digital tools of social media facilitate two-way dialogue and allows organizations to engage with a wide range of stakeholders (Eyrich, Padman & Sweetser, 2008; Kaplan & Haenlein, 2010), thus emerging as valuable mode of communication during times of crisis (Derani & Naidu, 2016). Social media is also preferred over traditional crisis communication channels (Porter, Sweetser & Chung, 2009) because it can potentially improve the relationship by humanizing the organization and creating a personal connection with the stakeholders (Kelleher, 2009; Men & Tsai, 2012).

According to Kelleher (2009), traditional form of organizational communication through corporate websites does not show enough concern for stakeholders. In contrast, social media provides greater opportunities to develop organization–stakeholder relationships, since it allows organizations to replace the conventional, formal tone of corporate webpages with a more personal tone that humanizes the organization (Men & Tsai, 2012). And yet, despite the widespread acceptance that organizations using social media are better positioned to engage in a dialogue with the public, and employ relational maintenance strategies and conversational human voice, Lovejoy and Saxton (2012) note that there is very little empirical evidence regarding the same. A common practice has been to design studies that compare communication via a particular platform (such as blogging) with corporate webpages or other corporate communication modes, when there are differences in the communication content. More than a decade ago, Perry, Taylor and Doerfel (2003) had lamented the lack of empirical research to examine the impact of organizations’ use of social media on relational maintenance during crisis situations. This article posits that not much has changed since Perry et al.’s contention, and little has been performed to bridge this gap or establish the link between crisis communication via social media and its effect on organizational relationship management.

To sum up, we do not have enough studies clearly demonstrating that social media use, as opposed to the use of conventional communication channels, leads to better organization–public relationship during crisis. Accordingly, this study examines the impact of the online medium during crisis by comparing three different modes of communication: corporate blogs, Facebook pages and media release through corporate websites. It examines differences (if any) in the way people understand crisis communication, and perceive relational maintenance strategies and conversational human voice depending on whether the communication is in the form of online media release or social media. This article begins by unpacking two core concepts in the review of literature section, namely, relational maintenance and conversational human voice, along with a review of relevant empirical studies related to these concepts and identification of major gaps within this body of literature. This is followed by a section on methodology, outlining the design of this quasi-experimental study, sources of data collection, data analysis and summary of findings. The conclusion section includes a discussion on findings, encapsulates the contribution of this study for academicians as well as practitioners alike and provides future directions.

Review of Literature

Relationship Maintenance through Social Media

Management scholars and practitioners have given a great deal of attention to strategies that can enable organizations to maintain a positive relationship with their stakeholders. Relational maintenance strategies have been found to be especially useful during crisis management, environment scanning, reputation building, issue management and trust building (Briones, Kuch, Liu & Jin, 2011). In their seminal work on relational maintenance, Hon and Grunig (1999) proposed six key strategies for establishing organization–public relationships. They drew on Stafford and Canary’s (1991) taxonomy of relational maintenance, which was originally intended for strategies related to interpersonal competence. In their study, Stafford and Canary (1991) investigated ways in which people used strategies to manage their romantic relationships, and identified five relationship strategy factors, namely, positivity, openness, assurances, social networks and task sharing. Hon and Grunig (1999) applied these relational maintenance strategies to organizational contexts by changing their focus and making them relevant for organizational stakeholders. In order to do so, they went on to include a sixth factor, namely, ‘access’, to the original five strategies. Since then, researchers have tried to explicate the numerous ways in which social media can be harnessed to enhance organization–stakeholder engagement and facilitate relationship cultivation (Smith, 2010).

Scholars have noted that blogs are particularly well suited for relationship maintenance because they can be frequently updated, provide links to other sites that include relevant and related discussions, and can mimic one-on-one conversations (Yang, Kang & Johnson, 2010). Sweetser and Metzgar (2007) were one of the first to highlight the role of blogs in relationship maintenance during crisis communication. In their study, they exposed participants to organizational blogs, personal blogs or assigned them to a control group, and found that exposure to blogs significantly impacts the perception of crisis. Around the same time, Seltzer and Mitrook (2007) performed a comparative analysis of blogs and websites, which indicated that blogs tend to incorporate dialogic principles, thus allowing for better relationship maintenance. Another study, partly along the same lines, was conducted by Cho and Huh (2010) when they analysed the content of blogs to examine the extent to which organizations used blogs to employ Hon and Grunig’s (1999) relationship management strategies. Thus, scholars have either pointed towards the potential of blogs in enhancing organization–public dialogue and thereby facilitating relationship management (Ledingham & Brunning, 2000), or examined the effectiveness of relational maintenance through the use of blogs (Kelleher & Miller, 2006; Xifra & Huertas, 2008).

There is a significant body of research postulating that blogs, more than any other online medium, are ideally suited for relationship building and interactive communication via conversations (Cho & Huh, 2010; Curtis et al., 2010). And yet, there is little or no empirical investigation facilitating deeper insights into whether relational perception by stakeholders actually does vary based on differences in medium. More specifically, extant studies have not examined the significance of choosing one particular social media platform over others when the overall content remains the same. Most of the studies have examined only blogs (e.g., Sweetser & Metzgar, 2007), or compared blogs with websites and reports (e.g., Seltzer & Mitrook, 2007), where there are differences in communication content. Some of the more recent studies have focused on blog typologies to explicate how and why a particular category of blog is more effective at engaging the audiences in conversations (Ahuja & Medury, 2010), with the underlying assumption being that blogs are the appropriate medium to do so.

In recent times, there have been a few studies that also look at other social media platforms such as twitter (e.g., Brown & Billings, 2013; Smith, 2010; Schultz, Utz & Goritz, 2011) and Facebook (e.g., Ki & Nekmat, 2014; Waters, Burnett, Lamm & Lucas, 2009). For instance, scholars have recognized Facebook as having immense potential when it comes to engaging in dialogic activity with the public (Bortree & Seltzer, 2009; Sweetser & Lariscy, 2008). In their examination of social media use by politicians, Sweetser and Lariscy (2008) noted that Facebook presence indicates an inclination to engage in a dialogue with the public, whereas Bortree and Seltzer (2009) identified six dialogic outcomes that can enhance organization–public relationship, and lamented that unlike organizational website and weblog, organizations have yet to utilize the potential of Facebook for dialogic communication.

More recently, Men and Tsai (2012) examined the cultural differences in the use of social network sites for relationship management by comparing organizations based out of the USA and China. However, such studies are few and far in between, since most of the studies examining the efficacy of social media for relational maintenance focus specifically on the impact of organizational blogs. This poses a significant research gap since Kelleher and Miller (2006) have demonstrated that difference in content, medium and topics also leads to difference in relationship maintenance. Accordingly, it is argued that perception of relational maintenance communication will differ based on organization’s online media use.

Blogs as Tools for Conversational Human Voice

The concept of relational maintenance is closely tied to an organization’s ability to project conversational human voice (Kelleher, 2009; Kelleher & Miller, 2006). According to Kelleher, conversational human voice refers to an informal, natural style of communicating with the audience such that it invites them to have a dialogue and humanizes the organization. Researchers have argued that through their blogs, organizations are able to communicate to stakeholders through a ‘human voice’, thus making it easier to forge relationships with them (Searls & Weinberger, 2001; Sweetser & Metzgar, 2007). According to Kelleher and Miller (2006), blogs are able to project such humanized voice, which in turn makes the organization appear to be less formal. In their study, Kelleher and Miller had exposed participants to either a printout of an organizational blog that discussed blog entries by an organization’s employees or a printout of the organization’s case study published online. They found that blogs reflected conversational human voice, whereas the case study did not do so. They also found a correlation between conversational human voice and relational outcomes such as trust, satisfaction, control and commitment.

Similarly, Dwyer (2007) tested a model relating blog content to reader responses and found that blogging provides human face to a company’s self-presentation, thus leading to increased subject matter involvement, trust and liking. The notion of conversational human voice has also been found to be extremely relevant in the context of crisis management because it includes characteristics such as being open to dialogue, welcoming two-way interaction between the organization and the stakeholders, being open to feedback, admitting to mistakes and so on (Kelleher & Miller, 2006). Again, most of the research related to human voice has concentrated primarily on blogs with scant attention to other forms of social media. Also, the studies focusing on blogs have either examined them in isolation, without taking into account other organizational communication channels, or have compared them to conventional corporate communication but disregarded differences in the context and the content of communication. Therefore, in an effort to gain a nuanced understanding of the impact of different forms of online media on conversational human voice, this study argues that perception of organization’s conversational human voice will differ based on organization’s online media use.

Social Media Use for Crisis Management

During crisis, organizations have been found to depend heavily on social media to establish a dialogue with stakeholders for relationship cultivation (Maresh-Fuehrer & Smith, 2016). Social media also serves as a tool to provide constant updates and facilitate quick responses from the public, leading to greater community engagement (Veil, Beuhner & Palenchar, 2011). Studies have indicated that blogs facilitate organizations in presenting persuasive narratives that serve to increase organizational credibility and create a sense of empathy among the audiences during times of crisis (Yang et al., 2010); ubiquitous presence of Facebook allows organizations to constantly update their audiences during crisis and forge connections through pictures and video uploads (Hysenlika, 2012), whereas Twitter provides a snapshot of public opinion during crisis (Maresh-Fuehrer & Smith, 2016).

We do not have enough studies, however, to gain an in-depth understanding of how social media, especially Twitter, can be best utilized during times of crisis and there is some disagreement among scholars regarding its potential use for crisis communication. While Maresh-Fuehrer and Smith (2016) posit that organizations to demonstrate their responsiveness as well as establish an instant dialogue through Twitter, Eriksson and Olsson (2016) argue that Twitter is more suited to provide updates and warnings during times of crisis. In their study, Helsloot and Groenendaal (2013) drew attention to other complexities associated with providing updates via twitter. In their examination of Twitter use during a fire outbreak in the Netherlands, they noted that tweets by crisis communication professionals often went unnoticed when large number of citizens posted tweets regarding the same phenomenon.

In comparison, Facebook has been found to be more effective during periods of crisis, especially if the organization concerned responds swiftly to the negativity resulting from the fallout. And yet, according to Eriksson and Olsson (2016), despite Facebook being used more often than Twitter for crisis management, most communication professionals fail to appreciate and effectively utilize all of the available Facebook tools. Along similar lines, Ki and Nekmat (2014) had found that organizations that do have presence on Facebook often fail to engage with the public via Facebook posts, thus underutilizing the interactive features of this medium.

Thus, while there seems to be a general agreement that social media can enable relationship cultivation during crisis, we have surprisingly limited evidence regarding whether audiences perceive the same crisis information differently, based on organizations’ use of social media vis-à-vis more formal communication channels (such as websites). We have increasing number of organizations using new media to converse with stakeholders as part of their crisis management strategy, but there are no empirical data to help us understand how this influences stakeholder understanding of the crisis. Accordingly, the study proposes that perceived understanding of crisis will differ based on organization’s online media use.

Objectives and Rationale for the Study

Since researchers posit that online communication can be used to frame organization’s position, provide explanations, take measures related to image restoration and establish trust, it is important to gain a nuanced understanding of how the use of online media influences stakeholder understanding of crisis and relationship cultivation during crisis. For instance, what happens when similar crisis management communication is presented by organizations through their corporate websites and social media? This issue is under-explored and requires attention of scholars as well as crisis management practitioners. Yang and Kent (2014) have noted that research examining the impact of new media on stakeholder relationship building is found lacking partly due to our tendency to draw conclusions by merely analysing the content of social media sites and corporate webpages, or surveying corporate communication practitioners.

So far, studies investigating the impact of social media for management of crisis through relational approach have either examined a particular medium in isolation, without taking into account other communication channels, or have compared social media with traditional communication (such as reports and websites) but disregarded differences in their context and the content. The objective of this study, therefore, is to bridge this gap and examine whether there are significant differences in the way stakeholders perceive the same crisis information based on organizations’ use of formal communication channels (such as websites) or social media (such as Facebook and blogs). Accordingly, this study asks: Is there a difference in stakeholder understanding of crisis based on organization’s online media use? And, are there any differences in perceived relational maintenance communication and conversational human voice during crisis based on organization’s online media use?

Methodology

This study attempts to examine the differences (if any) in the perception of crisis communication when presented through a corporate blog entry, corporate Facebook page and online media release. More specifically, the study examines the differences in perceived organization–public relationship, using the relational perspective.

Study Design

This was designed as a quasi-experimental study. A real crisis scenario faced by an Indian airline company was used, where pilots of an airline company went on a strike, causing a great deal of inconvenience to the passengers and the company. The choice of crisis case was based on the fact that it needed to come across as problematic enough to influence the organization’s image but at the same time not evoke extreme emotional reactions (such as air crash).

The airline company’s media releases were slightly modified by changing the organization’s name and other identifying information. The same media release content was rewritten in an informal style for a corporate blog and Facebook discussion post. In order to ensure conversion of crisis communication into informal language without compromising on consistency of the message content, two corporate communication professionals were asked to separately go through the informal version and compare it with the media release.

After slight modifications based on the input from the corporate communication professionals, the crisis communication was uploaded on mock corporate webpage in the form of news release entries and blog entries, as well as on mock corporate Facebook page in the form of discussion posts. Participants of this research were exposed to either one of the three: (a) media release uploaded on a mock corporate webpage, (b) corporate blog entries uploaded on mock corporate webpage or (c) Facebook posts uploaded on mock corporate Facebook page. This was followed by an online questionnaire examining their perceptions regarding the crisis and the organization. In order to ensure consistency in information dissemination across all three conditions, participants were able to view only one specific webpage and did not have the freedom to navigate online to view other corporate webpages or Facebook pages.

Pilot Study

In the first phase, a pilot study was conducted to ensure that the scenario was strong and the measures reliable. Convenience sampling technique was used to collect data for the pilot study. An email was sent out in three batches to approximately 40 acquaintances with a link to an online anonymous questionnaire. They were exposed to either one of the three crisis communication messages: mock news releases, corporate blog entries or mock Facebook discussion posts. After going through these crisis communication messages, the participants were asked to fill out the online survey. The pilot study helped in establishing the quality of the questionnaire, which was found to be robust and there were no additional modifications required. It also provided a clear estimate of the amount of time it would take to go through the airline communication and complete the questionnaire. This information was provided to the respondents when administering the questionnaire for the final study.

Data Collection

The participants of the study were identified with the help of undergraduate students from a US-based state university. The students were provided the option of earning an extra credit in return for their help with data collection. They were asked to identify potential subjects with at least five years of full-time work experience (outside the airline industry) who would agree to participate in the study. The participants were sent an online link which would take them to either of the three: (a) corporate news release webpage, (b) corporate blog page or (c) corporate Facebook page, along with a link to an online survey. One hundred and sixty-two survey responses were received, out of which 155 were complete and therefore usable. The age group of the participants ranged from 25 to 57 (average age 38 years), years of work experience ranged from five to 34 (average work experience 16 years) and there was adequate gender representation with 60 female and 95 male participants.

Measures and Scale Development

Participants’ perception related to crisis was measured by examining variables such as crisis understanding, organization’s relational management and organization’s perceived human voice in its crisis communication. In order to ensure that the crisis scenario was strong, respondents were asked questions related to their perception of crisis such as ‘do you believe this was a major crisis for the organization’, and ‘do you believe the organization faced crisis when its pilots went on strike’. The questionnaire also measured other control conditions such as general perception regarding airline companies, previous negative experience with flights, as well as familiarity with the use of blogs and Facebook. None of the respondents reported having a negative experience related to serious crisis such as airline crash or extreme flight delays causing major inconvenience.

Participants’ understanding of the crisis was measured by developing a five-item, five-point Likert-type scale. The five items were as follows: (a) ‘I understand what the crisis is all about’, (b) ‘I have some idea of what the crisis is all about’, (c) ‘I am confused about the crisis’, (d) ‘I am uncertain about the crisis’ and (e) ‘I have basic information about the crisis’. Cronbach’s alpha for these five items was 0.77 and the second item was deleted to increase the scale reliability at α = 0.85 (M = 2.4, SD = .95). The factor analysis indicated all items as loading greater than 0.8, thus indicating a single-factor structure.

Relational maintenance (refer Appendix A) was measured using 14-item, five-point Likert-type scale by Hon and Grunig (1999). The scale tested organization’s relational commitment (attempts to demonstrate that it is committed to maintaining a relationship with its stakeholders), task sharing (organization does not shirk duties), positivity (organization presents itself as optimistic regarding the future) and responsiveness (organization is willing to address concerns or queries). Cronbach’s alpha reliability for this scale was good at 0.93 (M = 2.6, SD = 1.1).

Conversational human voice (refer Appendix B) was measured using eight-item, five-point Likert-type scale developed by Kelleher and Miller (2006). Reliability for this scale was acceptable at α = 0.84 (M = 2.9, SD = 1.05). The human voice scale included items such as ‘the organization is open to dialogue’, ‘the organization uses conversation-style communication’ and ‘the organization would admit to a mistake’.

Analysis

One-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) revealed no significant differences in respondents’ perception of relational management [F (2, 152) = 0.14, p = 0.86], or human voice [F (2, 152) = 0.99, p = 0.37] based on their exposure to different online media. Thus, the study found that perception of relational maintenance communication did not differ based on organization’s online media use. Perception of organization’s conversational human voice also did not differ based on organization’s online media use.

The argument that stakeholder understanding of crisis will differ based on organization’s media use was tested using one-way ANOVA. The analysis revealed significant differences in perceived understanding of crisis between the three groups representing online communication methods [F (2, 152) = 6.24, p < 0.01, with ƞ2 of 0.08], indicating medium effect size. Post hoc analysis in the form of Tukey’s test was conducted given the statistically significant ANOVA F-test. Evaluation of pairwise differences among the means revealed significant differences between respondents who read Facebook posts and those who read blogs, as well as respondents who read Facebook posts and those who read media releases (p < 0.05 for both). However, there was no significant difference between respondents who read blogs and those who read media releases. Therefore overall, respondents who read Facebook discussion posts had higher perceived understanding of the posts (n = 47, M = 2.9, SD = 0.89) as compared to respondents who read blogs (n = 58, M = 2.3, SD = 0.99) or media releases (n = 50, M = 2.2, SD = 0.87).

Discussion

The study found some support for the argument that there is a difference in understanding of crisis based on online medium. However, despite strong literature advocating the use of blogs for better crisis management, findings indicated that only Facebook readers perceived a better understanding of crisis. These findings are interesting especially since the content was similar across all media. In that case, why was there a discrepancy in participants’ understanding of crisis? This section unpacks the implications of this finding, provides future directions for researchers and outlines contributions related to research as well as practice.

Scholars have often noted that user perceptions related to credibility, understanding, online interactivity and so on are highly situational and do not always correspond to objective reality. For instance, in her study on website interactivity, McMillan (2000) found no relationship between the actual inter-action-related features of the website and the perception of the level of interactivity reported by the users. Thus, she found that even those websites which were high on interactivity features were perceived as low or those with low interactivity features were perceived as high.

Similarly, Lee conducted a study comparing three different websites and found that despite the overall characteristics of those websites being similar, users perceived one or two sites as being more interactive than the others (cited in Song & Zinkhan, 2008). Researchers have noted that Steuer’s (1992) telepresence theory, more specifically, the notion of efficacy and user perception of control, might help us understand these inconsistencies. According to telepresence theory, it is not just the properties of the medium that determine the perception of interactivity. Perceptions are also influenced by users’ familiarity with the medium. Wu (1999) provides the term ‘internal based efficacy’ and explains that in their assessment of website characteristics, users are influenced by their perception of control and familiarity related to navigation of the site. Similarly, Flanagin and Metzger (2000) note that perception of website credibility is subjective and is highly dependent on user perception of the media as well as pre-message expectancies. Further, according to Gefen (2000), familiarity reduces complexity and increases understanding. In case of online communication, Gefen (2000) defines familiarity as ‘a specific activity-based cognizance based on previous experience or learning of how to use the particular interface’ (p. 727).

With regard to the participants in this study, over 90 per cent of the respondents had a Facebook account and are thus likely to have previous experience with Facebook discussion posts. As noted by Gefen (2000), familiarity reduces uncertainty because it establishes certain structure, thus reducing complexity. Participants who were provided a link to the Facebook page accessed crisis communication through a platform that was relatively standardized in terms of interface and navigation. In contrast, participants with a link to a blog entry or media release were unaccustomed to these corporate webpages in the form of weblogs and media release pages. Therefore, it is quite possible that respondents reading the Facebook posts would have had high degree of ‘internal based efficacy’ as defined by Wu (1999) with regard to site navigation. Thus, it is probable that participants visiting the Facebook page had increased perception of understanding due to high internal efficacy and perceived user control over the medium.

Despite literature indicating a strong presence of human voice in corporate blogs and better relational management through the use of blogs, results in this study revealed that their perception of crisis communication did not vary depending on the use of social media. Though there are strong arguments advocating the presence of human voice and relational management through social media, most of these assumptions are based on studies which focus primarily on blogs (Sweetser & Metzgar, 2007; Yang & Kang, 2009) and do not evaluate how these blogs would fare on dimensions such as relational management when they are weighed against other forms of communication. We already know that blogs, as compared to traditional corporate communication or corporate website, can facilitate greater relationship management and have the potential to score high on conversational human voice (Kelleher & Miller, 2006; Xifra & Huertas, 2008). The results of this study, however, become significant because the overall message for all three conditions—news releases, blog entries and Facebook posts—is similar, though the style has been slightly modified to suit the medium.

This has significant implications for managerial practice, since it seems as if familiarity with the medium increases perceived efficacy. Thus, the content on Facebook may be associated with greater understanding by the stakeholders, as opposed to the content on organizational blogs, if they are regular users of Facebook. Further, the findings of this study point towards the need to re-examine the notion that blogs are more closely associated with communication characteristics such as human voice and dialogic style, which are typically not believed to be associated with formal and more traditional communication channels. As indicated by results in this study, it is possible that the use of popular social network sites for corporate communication might lead to better stakeholder understanding of the corporate message, thus allowing organizations to frame their positions more effectively. According to Gefen (2000), familiarity is linked closely to trust and liking, since familiarity is an important antecedent to trust. Further, users formulate favourable behavioural expectations when they operate within contexts that are well known, thus indicating that the use of popular social network sites is more likely to lead to favourable corporate image formation.

Conclusion

The study examined the extent to which an organization’s use of conventional online communication influences the perception of conversational human voice and relational maintenance outcomes during crisis, as compared to the use of social media such as Facebook and blogs. Despite literature indicating a strong presence of human voice in corporate blogs and better relational management through the use of blogs, results in this study revealed that the audience perception does not vary based on the medium. The study also attempted to examine whether there are any significant differences in stakeholder perception of crisis understanding based on organizations’ use of formal communication channels vis-à-vis social media. Here, the study found that respondents who read the crisis communication via Facebook posts reported a better understanding of the crisis situation. This can possibly be attributed to respondents’ ‘internal based efficacy’ (Wu, 1999) with regard to Facebook site navigation.

We do not have enough comparative studies to help us evaluate the extent to which organization’s use of conventional online communication influences the perception of conversational human voice and relational maintenance outcomes during crisis, as compared to social media such as Facebook and blogs. This is an attempt to provide a more nuanced understanding by exploring the question of whether it is the medium itself that leads to increase in conversational human voice and effective relational management during our use of social media, or whether it is the content that also influences perceived human voice and relational management. The most important contribution of this study is that it does not examine social media in isolation, but provides an informed perspective regarding Internet-based communication by retaining consistency in comparison across all three mediums.

Limitations and Future Directions

Though this study used control mechanism by asking respondents about their previous flight experiences to avoid biased responses, it is still possible that participants might have responded based on their past experiences with flights or crisis in similar situations. Also, the findings were based on self-reported behaviour as opposed to real-time behaviour. The findings are bound to have greater significance if the participants are able to behave in a completely natural manner, as they normally would in their online browsing. For instance, in this case, users did not have the freedom to navigate to other webpages. Further, the users could not truly experience dimensions normally associated with social media such as interactivity and two-way communication, since they could not post their comments or view other users’ comments on blog entries and Facebook discussion posts. It is possible that these limiting conditions could have played a role in influencing perceptions related to relational management and human voice.

Future research can take into account these limitations in order to increase our understanding of the way in which social media influences crisis communication. Researchers have largely ignored the use of Facebook by corporate sector and we need more empirical evidence to help us understand how Facebook can be used effectively to communicate and manage relationship with stakeholders. According to Jha and Ye (2016), underutilization of social media by organizations can also be attributed to lack of understanding regarding perception of social media at an individual level. This, in turn, impacts effective utilization of various social media tools for corporate relationship building. Finally, as suggested by the findings in this study, there is a need to move away from focusing solely on the use of one particular medium and broaden our scope to undertake comparative studies that apply similar criteria to varied online communication modes. While there is some merit in examining the use of a particular social media in isolation, empirical studies that compare different communication forms in similar contexts, with similar information being disseminated to the stakeholders, will sharpen our understanding of how media use can influence stakeholder perceptions. Such studies will allow us to gain a more informed perspective, enable managers to refine their use of social media and enhance organization–public relationships.

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

The author is grateful to the anonymous referees of the journal for their extremely useful suggestions to improve the quality of the article. Usual disclaimers apply.

Relational Maintenance Scale (14 Items)

Conversational Human Voice Scale (Eight Items)

This communication seems inviting and conversational.

This communication seems as if this organization is open to dialogue.

This communication is informal.

The organization tries to communicate in a human voice through this communication.

The communicator probably has a sense of humour.

This organization would probably admit to a mistake.

This organization is likely to provide prompt feedback.

This communication treats me and others as human.

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