How Social Media Is Changing Crisis Communication Strategies: Evidence from the Updated Literature

Abstract

By incorporating social media strategies into the traditional framework of crisis communication strategies (CCS), this article presents a comprehensive review of the scholarship on CCS within a global context. Through a content analysis of articles published in 11 journals listed in the Social Science Citation Index (SSCI), 73 articles focusing on the social-mediated crisis management (SMCM) are identified. Findings show that new strategies such as enhancing and transferring from the organizational perspective are added, the stakeholders and their desired strategies are analysed and an asymmetrical CCS pattern from a contextual perspective is proposed within the SMCM research. Results also point out some weaknesses within the current literature. An interactive crisis communication (ICC) model is proposed for future research agenda.