Analysis of the university reputational crisis through the social networks twitter and facebook. The case study of rey juan carlos university

Abstract

Image and reputation are the factors that govern competition today. Organizations are increasingly focused on enhancing their corporate image even more so than other aspects of their activity. In the university realm, this is no different. Given the reduction in economic resources and changes in legislation, universities have felt compelled to focus on managing their image and reputation in order to attract revenue. Within this context, this investigation presents a content analysis of the communications issued by Rey Juan Carlos University during the crisis resulting from the so-called “Master’s Degree case”. This analysis has been carried out from both a quantitative and qualitative point of view, based on a series of variables. The aim is to draw conclusions regarding how the crisis was handled, as such conclusions will help to clarify different aspects of the communicative actions after an exhaustive analysis of the electronic communications issued by the university under study. This paper focuses on investigating the variables involved in this particular case without introducing subjective aspects of judgement.