Communication Management in Crises

The role of the media in strategic crisis communication

Dr. phil. Marc Otterpohl

Mainz, Germany

Abstract

In the strategic communication of organizational crises, the mass media play a key role in conveying crisis messages and communication strategies to the stakeholders of the organization. However, the media aspect of crisis communication has not been sufficiently investigated so far, even though the Situational Crisis Communication Theory (SCCT) already offers a theoretical basis. This paper therefore builds on the findings of crisis communication research on the role of the media and proposes a model that places them at the center, which is why it is called the Crisis Communication Media Model (CCMM). In doing so, various research approaches and theories that can contribute to the knowledge interest are integrated in the model. As an extension of SCCT, it aims to increase understanding of how traditional and social media can be used effectively in crisis communication. According to the model, mass media function as a filter between the communication strategies of the crisis organization and its perception by stakeholders. According to this model, communication strategies can positively influence reputational perceptions of the crisis organization, although this influence is also determined by intervening media or actor variables. Possible empirical tests of the model are discussed.

1) Introduction

The communication management of organizations is particularly challenged in crisis situations. In an organizational crisis, the expectations of the organization’s stakeholders[1] are at stake, which can cause a serious crisis of trust. Thus, in the Corona crisis, political actors are responsible for appropriate action planning and credible communication on the crisis to citizens and their constituents (Arendt et al., 2020; Barua et al., 2020). Numerous food scandals or recalls in the automotive industry have also repeatedly demonstrated the grave consequences of organizational crises for companies and their customers or consumers in recent years (Belaya & Hansen, 2011; Böcker & Albrecht, 2001; Bowen & Zheng, 2015; Gissel, 2006).

In crisis communication research, there are a number of research directions and theoretical approaches to describe or explain the behavior of organizations in crises and possible effects on organizational reputation (Schwarz, 2010, 2015; Schwarz & Löffelholz, 2014). The role of the media in this communication process has not yet been systematically studied (Schranz & Eisenegger, 2016, pp. 165-166). This seems problematic especially with regard to strategic communication management (Röttger et al., 2018, pp. 7-8.; Zerfaß & Volk, 2019, pp. 6-7). Because otherwise the analysis, planning, organization, and control of corporate communication (Zerfaß & Volk, 2019, p. 7) cannot be conducted broadly. Therefore, this paper aims to clarify which research directions or approaches have been conducted in crisis communication research so far and which references to the role of the media exist. Based on this, a model of crisis communication will be developed which focuses on the importance of the media. This will help to answer the question of how communication strategies in crises have a certain media resonance that can contribute to the reputation restoration.

2) The media aspect in crisis communication research

According to a classification by Schwarz, the existing research lines of crisis communication research can be related to an institutional, instrumental and a symbolic-relational research perspective (Schwarz, 2015, pp. 1003-1011). In the institutional perspective, the organizational structures or characteristics of organizational functionaries and their influence on the effectiveness of crisis anticipation or crisis management are considered (Fredriksson, 2014; Marra, 1998; Pauchant & Mitroff, 1988; Sandhu, 2014). The instrumental perspective looks at the implementation, use and effectiveness of instruments in the divergent phases of crisis management, such as the use of different technologies for effective information dissemination like mobile communication and social media (Muralidharan et al., 2011).

In contrast, the symbolic-relational perspective is concerned with the identification of rhetorical communication strategies of organizations and the situational impact of such strategies. The most comprehensive approach in this area is offered by the Situational Crisis Communication Theory (SCCT) by W. Timothy Coombs (Coombs, 2006, 2007a, 2007b, 2012, 2015; Coombs & Holladay, 1996, 2002), which builds on Benoit's Image Restoration Theory (Benoit, 1995, 1997). In addition, the multivocal model of crisis communication by Frandsen and Johansen attempts to relate different actors with their interpretations of the crisis to each other (Frandsen & Johansen, 2010, 2016, 2020). The latter two approaches offer particular points of departure for examining mass media in crisis communication, which is why the corresponding research is discussed in more detail below. First, the term 'mass media' should be defined in detail (Neverla, 2005).

In addition to the aspect of communication to a dispersed audience (Maletzke, 1963) and in contrast to Maletzke's classic definition, not only the technical instruments that indirectly convey messages are meant by mass media, but also the institutionalized contexts of action in media organizations (Burkart, 2019, pp. 38-39). According to the classification by Pross (Pross, 1972), a distinction can be made between primary (e.g., language), secondary (media with a technical prerequisite at the sender of the communication, e.g., book, newspaper) and tertiary media (media with a technical prerequisite at the sender and recipient of the communication, e.g., film, radio, television, internet). Digital media are also referred to as quaternary media to emphasize their special characteristics such as interactivity (Burkart, 2019, p. 37). In this paper, mass media are understood as the technical and organizational mediators of communication content to a dispersed audience (e.g., press, radio, television, internet) in the sense of Neverla's definition:

"Mass media are institutionalized contexts of action that make use of complementary communication channels and techniques and, in forms of organization based on the division of labor, perform meaningful functions for public communication according to certain rules and routines for society." (Neverla, 2005, p. 209)

In the underlying definition of mass media, online media (e.g., wsj.com, ft.com, cnbc.com or the German news outlets spiegel.de and zeit.de) and social media channels (e.g., Facebook, Twitter) are also included, since they are offered on an internet basis by media organizations according to certain processing rules. From this point of view, Neverla's definition also seems to apply in times of social media. Although social media do not provide for any significant editorial processing by the provider - except for the deletion of content that violates the provider's ethics rules[2] - their contributions are also subject to general rules of the media organization, such as technical processing possibilities.[3]

For example, according to an online survey of around 3,000 Europeans aged 18-30, the dissemination of social media content via algorithms is perceived overwhelmingly, and by a quarter also as unpleasant. Against this background, there is a discussion on the protection of privacy rights in the implementation of algorithms (Gagrčin et al., 2021, pp. 36-42, 69). For the purpose of this paper, traditional mass media are limited to journalistic media. This includes the online editions of newspapers and magazines, for example, in contrast to the social media platforms of Web 2.0 technology, which are characterized by increased opportunities for user interaction (Burkart, 2019, pp. 125, 317-327). According to the definition by Weischenberg et al. from the study 'Journalism in Germany', a journalistic medium is understood to be a medium with the following characteristics (Weischenberg et al., 2006, pp. 31-34):

Editorially independent with its own editor-in-chief, publisher, or client neither companies, parties, clubs, associations, authorities or the like, not produced exclusively by volunteers, regular publication, independent editorial section in addition to advertising, fiction, music, games, puzzles and the like.

This definition is related to the understanding of journalism as a context of meaning and action, in which journalists, as actors in media communication, are at the center of various contexts of action, such as contexts of norms, structure and function (Weischenberg, 1998, pp. 69-70). The following definition of journalism corresponds to this view:

"Journalism is more (and different) than just a collection of actors called 'journalists'. The term can be understood as a context of meaning and action that is to be distinguished from other areas of society by a special competence: to select and present topics that are new, relevant and factual." (Weischenberg, 2005, p. 132)

Based on this understanding of the media, the following section deals with lines of crisis communication research in which the media aspect is dealt with in more detail. SCCT represents the research direction with a special reference to the role of the media, which will be explained in the following. It therefore forms the starting point and the central theoretical basis for further considerations. In its basic conception, SCCT refers to attri-bution theory (Coombs, 2007a, p. 137; Weiner, 1986, 2000) and was first published by Coombs and Holladay in 1996 (Coombs & Holladay, 1996).

In the perspective of SCCT on crisis communication[4], primarily rhetorical response or communication strategies and their effect in relation to the crisis situation are examined. Following the attribution theory, a chain is assumed between causality attributions and the resulting consequences (Weiner, 2000, pp. 382-383). The theory contains the following basic assumptions: Stakeholders perceive crises[5] differently. The perception of the crisis depends essentially on the attributed crisis blame. This in turn indicates the extent to which the organization's reputation is at risk, as this is negatively influenced by the attributed crisis blame. (Coombs, 2007a, pp. 137-138; Coombs & Holladay, 2002, p. 181; Coombs & Holladay, 2006, pp. 133-135; Thießen, 2011, p. 90-93).

Coombs assigns the possible crisis situations to the crisis types victim crisis (e.g., natural disasters, rumors), accident crisis (e.g., product recalls due to technical failure) and preventable crisis (e.g., product recalls due to human error) (Coombs, 2007a, p. 137; Coombs, 2007b, p. 168; Coombs & Holladay, 2002, p. 179; Thießen, 2011, pp. 92-93). Coombs identified a number of response strategies that can be used to react to crisis situations. Coombs defines such crisis communication strategies as communicative resources used to protect an organization's reputation during a crisis (Coombs, 2006, p. 242). He divides the communication strategies into three clusters: denial strategies (e.g., denial of guilt), diminish strategies (e.g., justification) and rebuild strategies (e.g., apology, compensation) (Coombs, 2012, p. 155).

Depending on the type of crisis, Coombs recommends the use of strategies from different clusters to effectively protect reputation. For example, in the case of certain accident crises, diminish strategies could be used, while in the case of all preventable crises, the author recommends using rebuild strategies. In the case of rumors or slander, denial strategies should be used. (Coombs, 2012, p. 159) There are various criticisms of the SCCT. Thießen, for example, criticizes the low inclusion of mechanisms of the media society and findings of reputation research (Thießen, 2011, pp. 94-95). Schwarz criticizes that causal attribution is not distinguished from attribution of responsibility. Therefore, the assumption that several types of crises generate different degrees of responsibility attri-bution neglects the observer-dependence of the crises (Schwarz, 2010, p. 107).

Neoinstitutional crisis communication research tries to take the perspective of the stakeholders as well as the organizational and communicative framework conditions of crisis communication more into account. Fredriksson, for example, examines the role of employees in crisis communication (Fredriksson, 2014) and Sandhu emphasizes the cultural context (Sandhu, 2014). Even though the stakeholder perspective is not the main focus of SCCT, in contrast to the perspective of the organizations affected by the crisis, experimental results indicate that basic crisis and strategy types can be assumed in the perception of stakeholders. In addition to experiments by Coombs (Coombs, 2006, 2007b), Ma and Zhan, for example, conclude in a meta-analysis of 24 empirical studies on SCCT in the period from 1990 to 2015 that the two central assumptions of SCCT could generally be confirmed empirically in the studies examined. According to these findings, the perceived organizational reputation generally depends strongly on the attributed crisis blame. The choice of communication strategies that fit the crisis type according to SCCT generally showed a positive correlation with perceived organizational reputation. (Ma & Zhan, 2016, pp. 113-117).

Although the aspect of media is hardly included in SCCT originally, there are further considerations on this as well as studies by Coombs and Holladay, to which a dedicated investigation of the media aspect can be linked. The concept of media frames[6] plays an important role here. Coombs assumes that stakeholders obtain their information about the crisis primarily through the classic news media or the internet, which is why crisis managers should adapt their communication strategies to this. Organizations could try to place a crisis in a context that seems advantageous to them with the help of appropriate frames in crisis communication, explains Coombs. (Coombs, 2007b, p. 171)

In two studies, Coombs and Holladay examined the framing of media coverage in crises (Coombs & Holladay, 2010; Holladay, 2010). They found that while framing had an influence on the attribution of responsibility to stakeholders, the influence on reputational perception was strongly pre-determined by the perceived reputation before the crisis (Coombs & Holladay, 2010, pp. 196-199). Holladay's study also showed that the statements of the press spokespersons on the crisis were relatively rarely taken up in the media reports in relation to other sources (e.g., emergency services at the accident site), which Holladay explains with the selection process of the traditional media. Possibly this is why social media channels are better suited to communicate the communication strategies in comparison, concludes the author (Holladay, 2010, pp. 170-178). Mason analyzed the effect of media frames on key variables within SCCT such as attributed responsibility for the crisis and perceived organizational reputation, finding an influence of framing on reputational perceptions (Mason, 2019).

The importance of media frames for the portrayal of a crisis and the associated opportunities for economic and political actors was scrutinized by An and Gower, Iannarino et al. and Luther and Zhou in content analyses of media coverage (An & Gower, 2009; Iannarino et al., 2015; Luther & Zhou, 2005). Some studies state that crisis organizations are often portrayed critically or negatively in media frames (Bowen & Zheng, 2015; Nijkrake et al., 2015; Strauß & Vliegenthart, 2017). Conversely, some studies find that organizations can use public relations tools to positively influence media frames on crises (Schultz et al., 2012; van der Meer, 2014; van der Meer & Verhoeven, 2013; van der Meer et al., 2014). In several studies, Olsson came to the conclusion that crises that could hardly be influenced, such as natural disasters, were often reported in a descriptive, uncritical and event-related manner with so-called 'issue framing' (Olsson, 2010; Olsson & Nord, 2014; Olsson et al., 2015).

In addition to studies on media frames in articles about crises, there are numerous studies that deal with specific aspects of crisis reporting without the special focus on a theoretical concept. Examples are the study by Miller and Littlefield, who categorized communication strategies of US food companies during product recalls (Miller & Littlefield, 2010), discourse perspectives on risk, climate change and industrial forestry (Öhman et al., 2016) or the dramatization of swine flu in Spanish dailies (Cortiñas-Rovira et al., 2015). Other studies deal with patterns in war reporting (Nohrstedt, 2016), media portrayal of terrorism (Rothenberger, 2016) and communication planning for media relations during disaster events (Horsley, 2016). Koerber sees the media portrayal of crises as part of a social discourse in which there are breaks or twists in the conception of norms and values (Koerber, 2020).

In an experiment with over 200 journalists on a fictitious crisis case, Herrmann investigated how the active communication of the crisis organization was assessed by the journalists and how they evaluated the communication strategies (Herrmann, 2012). It turned out that the interviewed journalists did not generally reject public relations material but saw it as a starting point for future enquiry (Herrmann, 2012, p. 175). With regard to the perception of the crisis organization, it was found that the experimental group of journalists who had received public relations stimulus material in the form of a press release on the crisis assessed the organization as more professional, less irresponsible, more transparent and more credible than the experimental group of journalists without stimulus material (Herrmann, 2012, pp. 182-183).

Studies and theoretical concepts are also already available regarding the role of social media in crisis communication (Coombs & Holladay, 2012, p. 414; Eriksson, 2018, pp. 529-531; Jin & Austin, 2020, pp. 479-490; Liu & Fraustino, 2014, p. 545). The study by Schultz et al. deals with the influence of the media channel (newspaper, blog, Twitter) on the assessment of the organizational reputation of the crisis organization (Schultz et al., 2011). The results of the experiment with approx. 1,900 online panel participants showed that the media channel had a greater correlation with organizational reputation than the communication strategies examined. Experiment participants rated organizational reputation highest in the blog and Twitter conditions. This finding has triggered a discussion about the importance of social media channels for crisis communication. Coombs suspects that the higher impact of social media channels is less related to their specific characteristics than to the fact that they were used to communicate faster than traditional media, which is referred to as the 'stealing thunder' effect (Claeys & Cauberghe, 2012; Coombs et al., 2018). In an online experiment, Coombs could demonstrate that different reputational perceptions were actually more attributable to the 'stealing thunder' effect of the crisis organization than to the different media channels (Facebook, Twitter, online news story) (Coombs et al., 2018, p. 166).

Austin and Jin have designed the so-called 'social-mediated crisis communication model' (SMCC), in which they model the flow of information between the crisis organization and stakeholder groups according to their use or non-use of social media channels, whereby oral communication and traditional media are also included as forms of communication. The SMCC focuses on the direct and indirect communication relationships, however, without describing the consequences for organizational reputation in more detail. (Austin et al., 2018; Cheng & Cameron, 2018; Jin & Austin, 2020; Liu et al., 2012) North et al. examined the use of Twitter in crises of Fortune 500 companies in this way (North et al., 2018). The use of Facebook in a university scandal in the US was analyzed by Formentin et al. with reference to the SMCC (Formentin et al., 2017). Coombs notes that the study of media channels did not initially play a major role in the SCCT (Coombs, 2018, p. 25). Regarding social media, he advocates for specific communication strategies such as counter-argumentation. These could counteract a crisis in social media in advance before the actual crisis erupts. He calls the emergence of crises in social media 'paracrisis'. (Coombs, 2018, 2020; Coombs & Holladay, 2012)

When analyzing social media in crisis communication, the communication relationships of different actors in a network structure must also be taken into account. The multivocal model of crisis communication and the associated Rhetorical Arena Theory (RAT) are suitable for this purpose (Frandsen & Johansen, 2010, 2016, 2020). Frandsen and Johansen conceptualize crisis communication as a rhetorical arena in which different actors meet with their interpretations of the crisis. In this arena, they speak to each other, with each other, against each other or about each other. (Frandsen & Johansen, 2010, pp. 430-433). The authors also discuss which actors can meet in the rhetorical arena in addition to the crisis organization:

„Among the actors to be found inside a rhetorical arena during an organizational crisis, besides the organization itself, are the media, political actors (government, political parties, and individual politicians), activists, consumers, citizens, and experts commenting on the crisis and especially the crisis management or crisis communication capabilities of the organization concerned in the media.” (Frandsen & Johansen, 2010, p. 432)

Since different actors communicate with and about each other on social media platforms, the analysis of the network structure of such an arena seems promising for social media. In this way, communication relationships between the crisis organization and stakeholders affected by the crisis (e.g., customers, politicians, journalists) could be investigated on social media platforms. The RAT model has already been used in studies on crisis communication via social media, showing the importance of different actors or subarenas for communication success (Brown & Billings, 2013; Coombs & Holladay, 2014; Johansen et al., 2016). The close relationship between the stakeholder approach and the multivocal model is highlighted by Frandsen and Johansen in a review of 20 years of research practice on RAT (Frandsen & Johansen, 2020, pp. 196-198).

In a meta-analysis of 104 professional articles and conference papers on the use of social media in crisis communication published between 2004 and 2017, Eriksson concludes that the recommendations for effective crisis communication derived from them do not differ that much overall from existing concepts of crisis communication. For example, the recommendation for crisis communication via social media is to enter a dialogue with the stakeholders, to build trust with them in the run-up to the crisis and to develop the appropriate response messages in the crisis (Eriksson, 2018, pp. 540-542). He sees an explanation for this in basic patterns for effective crisis communication that apply to both traditional and social media, even if their particularities must be considered:

„Effective social media crisis communication might be about the same overall basic logics and patterns as effective crisis communication in general – but there are likely to be differences in the contextual factors and situational variables connected to a mobile and social-media-dominated landscape.” (Eriksson, 2018, p. 541)

3) The role of the media in crisis communication as a research desideratum

As mentioned in the introduction, the aspect of media in crisis communication has not been sufficiently analyzed so far, although in SCCT research it is assumed that stakeholders inform themselves about crises in particular via the mass media (Holladay, 2010, p. 161) or generally that media play an important role in the process of crisis communication (Seeger et al., 2003, pp. 3-7; Sellnow & Seeger, 2021, p. 157). Holladay states: “In spite of the corpus of research studies examining crisis communication, the nature of the media coverage of organizational crisis responses has not been systematically studied.” (Holladay, 2010, p. 159) A theoretical model of the role of the media in crisis communication seems necessary, especially in view of the immense importance of traditional media work within crisis communication. In their analysis of crisis communication activities in Europe, in which the data of more than 2,700 communication managers from 43 European countries were collected in an online survey, Verhoeven et al. (2014) found that classic media work via press releases and interviews was the most important instrument used by more than three quarters of the communication managers. About 40 % of the respondents communicated via social media. (Verhoeven et al., 2014, p. 109) In view of the research desideratum, a model of crisis communication will be developed in the following, which focuses on the influence of communication strategies on the assessments of the crisis organization in both traditional and social media.

4) Model on the importance of the media in crisis communication

Against the backdrop of previous research on the role of the media in crisis communication, a model is proposed that integrates different theoretical approaches. On the one hand, according to SCCT, it is assumed that communication strategies can have a positive effect on the perception of reputation, including the reputation of the crisis organization as conveyed in media content. According to a definition by Eisenegger, reputation comprises a functional and a social dimension. While functional reputation describes how well organizations serve their purpose, social reputation describes the fulfilment of socio-moral expectations of the organization. Consequently, reputation always implies certain evaluations of the organizations. (Eisenegger, 2005, pp. 23-24, 37-38) In the model, the evaluations of the crisis organization in media reports are therefore referred to as evaluation tendencies on organizational reputation. The influence of communication strategies in traditional media can be explained via assumptions from determination research and in particular via the inter-enabling model, in which a mutual dependency relationship between journalism and public relations is assumed, in which both sides condition and influence each other (Bentele et al., 1997; Bentele & Fechner, 2015).

According to the results of determination research on the influence of public relations on journalistic content (Baerns, 1991, p. 98; Bentele et al., 1997, p. 240; Fröhlich & Rüdiger, 2004, pp. 130-135; Schwarz, 2016, pp. 619-626), it can be assumed that the content of public relations sources and the communication strategies they contain are also partially adopted in media reporting on crises. Press releases are taken up more frequently by journalists when they deal with crisis topics (Bentele & Fechner, 2015, p. 332; Seidenglanz & Bentele, 2004, pp. 113-115). In addition, it can be assumed that evaluations related to the communication strategies are also partly taken over from the public relations sources into the media reports. In the inter-enabling model, such evaluations are called tendency inductions. (Bentele & Nothhaft, 2004, pp. 75-80, 89-91; Mathes et al., 1997, pp. 161-163; Salazar-Volkmann, 1994, p. 201). The tendency inductions enable the influence of the communication strategies on the evaluations of the crisis organizations in the media reports, as the strategies are usually associated with positive evaluations in order to maintain the company's ability to act and to protect or restore its reputation (Coombs, 2012, pp. 152-159).

According to the model, the communication strategies influence the evaluation tendencies of the organization's reputation in traditional media reports. If the communication strategies from the public relations sources of the crisis organization are taken up in the media reports, the evaluations of the organization are more positive; if they are not taken up, they are more negative. The influence of the communication strategies on the ratings of the crisis organization in the traditional media can thus be described using the inter-enabling model. Accordingly, it is related to lower or higher induction performance in the reciprocal relationship between public relations and journalism.

If, for example, public relations statements are increasingly adopted in media reports on a crisis topic due to the increased media resonance (Seidenglanz & Bentele, 2004, p. 115), which goes hand in hand with a neutral to positive overall assessment of the crisis organization, there is increased induction on the part of public relations. If, on the other hand, journalists present the crisis organization in a particularly critical light through their own evaluations, as indicated by the results of a study by Barth and Donsbach (Barth & Donsbach, 1992, pp. 157-163), journalism's induction performance will be higher. Several types of strategies and crises can have a more positive or negative effect on the evaluation tendencies of organizational reputation in media reports, analogous to the assumptions of the SCCT.

In addition, intervening variables on the part of the media play a role in this influencing process, e.g., the widely studied media frames. Other possible media variables are the editorial lines of the media and reporting patterns. In this context, interplays between the media variables and the evaluations of journalists in the traditional media are assumed. A qualitative-quantitative content analysis of public relations statements on food scandals and their resonance in national media of the daily and weekly press in Germany could confirm corresponding correlations within a dissertation project.[7] It therefore seems sensible to test the model extensively in studies to gain further results regarding the assumptions.

When communication strategies are communicated via social media channels, it can be assumed that they can usually be received directly by the stakeholders who can be reached via them, as editorial processing of the messages/posts by the social media platforms only takes place in exceptional cases, as mentioned above. According to current research findings, the model assumes that it is not so much the technology of the channels that plays a role in the perception of the messages and the associated reputation perception of the crisis organization (Coombs et al., 2018), but rather the commentary on the public relations statements by different actors, such as stakeholder groups like customers and journalists, as well as their reactions, for example in the form of likes or shares. It is assumed that there are interplays between the actor interactions and the evaluations in the social media posts. The stakeholders' reputational perception of the crisis organization thus crystallizes in a kind of rhetorical arena (Frandsen & Johansen, 2010, 2016, 2020).

Overall, both traditional and social media function as filters through which the stakeholders' reputational perceptions can emerge. Even when communicating via social media, the crisis organization cannot convey its messages to the stakeholders completely unfiltered, as might be assumed in contrast to traditional media (Holladay, 2010, pp. 170-178). Instead, the way in which the crisis organization is evaluated in social media posts is also determined by user interactions. Thus, it seems conceivable that communication messages trigger waves of indignation among users, which results in a negative evaluation tendency towards the organization. It can be assumed that the ultimately perceived reputation of stakeholders for the crisis organization also depends on individual predispositions such as existing attitudes and beliefs, as media impact studies on the influence of media on recipients generally point out (Schenk, 2000, pp. 71-73, 81-82; Wirth & Kühne, 2013, pp. 316-317, 321-325).

The model thus describes a process of influence that starts from communication strategies and is mediated via traditional or social media. It represents a theoretical brick for the media aspect within SCCT and is therefore called the Crisis Communication Media Model (CCMM). In contrast to existing models, the CCMM focuses on organizational reputation as a central variable in the crisis communication process and describes influencing factors related to it. In addition to communication via traditional or social media, there is also the possibility of direct communication of strategies to stakeholders, for example via the crisis organization's website (Holladay, 2010, p. 161) or via public information events, which, however, is regarded in the model, analogous to the understanding in SCCT research, as a rare form of reception with a correspondingly lower potential for influence. The variable relationships of the model are illustrated in the following schematic diagram.

Figure 1: Model for the influence of communication strategies on media-mediated reputation perceptions of stakeholders on the crisis organization - Crisis Communication Media Model (CCMM)

5) Discussion

The proposed model offers an approach to consider the media impact in crisis communication within communication management. Thus, this paper is intended to provide a starting point for future research to examine the assumptions of the model. On the one hand, the variable relationships presented could be explored in depth through social science surveys of journalists on how they deal with the communication strategies and how they evaluate the crisis organizations. The aim here is to understand the reasons why and which communication strategies journalists address in traditional media reports and what signi-ficance the strategies have for the evaluation of the organization. Possible intervening media variables such as media frames as well as the directions of influence between them and the evaluations in the media reports are to be examined more closely in this way, too. In addition, it seems useful to explore the interactions of the actors on social media platforms with the statements of the crisis organizations, e.g., in network analyses, to gain more insights into the impact of the communication strategies in social media. Finally, stakeholder surveys should provide information on the effect that the communication strategies conveyed in mass media can ultimately have on stakeholders’ reputation perceptions.

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1. The stakeholder concept goes back to the American economist R. Edward Freeman. He defines stakeholders as groups and individuals who are either influenced by the achievement of an organization’s goals or can influence them themselves. These are, for example, customers, employees, owners, suppliers, but also the media, competitors, or non-governmental organizations (NGOs) such as environmental activists. (Freeman, 1984, pp. 24-27) ↑

2. For example, Facebook publishes the rules for deleting posts as well as statistical information on this in its semi-annual transparency report in accordance with the provisions of the German Network Enforcement Act (NetzDG). In the period July 1 till December 31, 2022, out of 34,806 deleted or blocked contents, 33,700 contents were deleted due to a violation of Facebook's community standards worldwide. In addition, 1,106 pieces of content were blocked in Germany due to a violation of a provision of the German penal code listed in the NetzDG. (Facebook, 2023) ↑

3. The sociologist Hanno Scholtz understands media in a general definition as "producers of derived perceptions" (Scholtz, 2020, p. 9), which emphasizes the media services as well as selection and interpretation processes between actors (organizations and individuals) in media communications. In addition to the actor dimension, which is particularly important for understanding individual media actors in social media, he also describes a technical and systemic dimension of the media, thus not ignoring the organizational component of mass media. (Scholtz, 2020, pp. 8-10) ↑

4. Coombs’s definition of crisis communication states: "Crisis communication can be broadly defined as the collection, processing, and dissemination of information required to address a crisis situation." (Coombs, 2010, p. 20) ↑

5. Coombs defines the term 'crisis' within SCCT as follows: "A crisis is the perception of an unpredictable event that threatens important expectations of stakeholders and can seriously impact an organization's performance and generate negative outcomes." (Coombs, 2012, p. 2) ↑

6. Coombs uses the term 'frame' partly as a synonym for crisis types or frames (Coombs, 2012, p. 157). He writes: "Frames in communication involve the way (words, phrases, images, etc) that information is presented in a message. For instance, the media naturally feature certain aspects of a problem or situation in a story [...]. Frames in thought involve the cognitive structures (such as scripts or schema) people utilize when interpreting information [...]. Frames in communication help to shape frames in thought. The way a message is framed shapes how people define problems, causes of problems, attributions of responsibility and solutions to problems [...]." (Coombs, 2007b, p. 167) The characteristics mentioned are similarly part of other definitions of media frames (Matthes, 2008, pp. 164-165). ↑

7. The study comprised the analysis of 186 public relations statements (press releases, posts on Facebook and Twitter) of market-leading food companies in Germany as well as 284 articles from the German media outlets Sueddeutsche Zeitung, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Der Spiegel and Die Zeit including their online editions, from which a total of 363 evaluations of food companies emerged. An intracoder reliability test according to Holsti's method (Früh, 2004, p. 179; Merten, 1995, p. 305) was conducted on slightly more than 10 % of the articles (10.6 %) and public relations statements (10.8 %) of the study material. In the case of the articles, the reliability test yielded an aggregate value of 0.91 across all variables considered. The reliability test of the public relations statements showed an aggregate value of 1.00. (Otterpohl, 2019) ↑