Is it too late now to say we’re sorry? Examining anxiety contagion and crisis communication strategies using machine learning

1Citations
Citations of this article
31Readers
Mendeley users who have this article in their library.

Abstract

In this paper, we explore the role of perceived emotions and crisis communication strategies via organizational computer-mediated communication in predicting public anxiety, the default crisis emotion. We use a machine-learning approach to detect and predict anxiety scores in organizational crisis announcements on social media and the public’s responses to these posts. We also control for emotional and language tones in organizational crisis responses using a separate machine learning algorithm. Perceived organizational anxiety positively influences public anxiety, confirming the occurrence of emotional contagion from the organization to the public. Crisis response strategies moderated this relationship, so that responsibility acknowledgment lowered public anxiety the most. We argue that by accounting for emotions expressed in organizational crisis responses, organizations may be able to better predict and manage public emotions.

References Powered by Scopus

This article is free to access.

2410Citations
2810Readers
Get full text

Experimental evidence of massive-scale emotional contagion through social networks

2267Citations
2838Readers

Register to see more suggestions

Mendeley helps you to discover research relevant for your work.

Already have an account?

Cite

CITATION STYLE

APA

Gruda, D., & Ojo, A. (2022). Is it too late now to say we’re sorry? Examining anxiety contagion and crisis communication strategies using machine learning. PLoS ONE, 17(9 September). https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0274539

Readers over time

‘22‘23‘24‘250481216

Readers' Seniority

Tooltip

PhD / Post grad / Masters / Doc 4

44%

Researcher 3

33%

Lecturer / Post doc 2

22%

Readers' Discipline

Tooltip

Psychology 3

43%

Business, Management and Accounting 2

29%

Computer Science 1

14%

Nursing and Health Professions 1

14%

Article Metrics

Tooltip
Social Media
Shares, Likes & Comments: 19

Save time finding and organizing research with Mendeley

Sign up for free
0