Crisis Communication in Romania and Social Media Influencers and Followers. Case Study: Patient’s Death at the Sanador Hospital

Abstract

Social media urge researchers on crisis communication to go beyond an agency approach. Multiple voices could be heard in the on-line environment when a crisis situation occurs especially when an organization does not engage online. Using a collaborative approach, this paper will provide an analysis of the Sanador Hospital crisis which took place in October 2018 when a child died after an inguinal hernia surgery. The social-mediated crisis communication (SMCC) model constitutes our theoretical framework. Since online users are not passive consumers of online information, but seek emotional support, we will provide an insight into the online users' emotional responses. This study has a threefold purpose: (1) to identify the roles the Romanian influencers and online users played throughout this crisis at the Sanador Hospital; (2) to determine how key publics framed this crisis; (3) to identify the types of emotions embedded in the influencers' posts and followers' comments. The main findings revealed that this social-mediated crisis also brought 6