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Managing and sharing H1N1 crisis information using social media bookmarking services
Public Relations Review 39 (2013) 178–184
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Public Relations Review
Managing and sharing H1N1 crisis information using social media bookmarking services Karen Freberg a , Michael J. Palenchar b,∗ , Shari R. Veil c a
University of Louisville, 305B Strickler Hall, Department of Communication, University of Louisville, Louisville, KY 40292, United States School of Advertising and Public Relations, University of Tennessee, 476 Communications Building, Knoxville, TN 37996, United States c Department of Communication, College of Communications and Information, University of Kentucky, 238 Grehan Building, Lexington, KY 40506-0042, United States b
a r t i c l e
i n f o
Article history: Received 23 June 2011 Received in revised form 11 February 2013 Accepted 11 February 2013 Keywords: Social media Crisis communication Public relations H1N1
a b s t r a c t Social media outlets are becoming main stream venues for risk and crisis communication, and how information is shared is critical. Analysis of social bookmarks regarding H1N1 demonstrate the CDC was the most popular reference for information, individuals were strongly present, blogs were the most popular type of documents, and Twitter is the most popular source being referenced. The crisis communication literature has just started to address those stakeholders that are creating their own influence and messages online. © 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction Before reviewing the context of the study, we concisely review the three research streams that guided our research questions: (1) social media, (2) crisis, and (3) crisis communication. Public relations researchers examine communication messages and how specific media outlets are influencing their target audiences and other stakeholders. Individuals and groups are not only exposed to these messages and related strategies, but they form their own opinion about how the information is presented, and the credibility and trustworthiness of the information, which has an influence on how information is shared among stakeholders. One influential medium in reaching out to the public, forming impressions immediately, and that allows others to share the information is social media. In spite of the innovative features of social media and other new media technologies and with the power to influence how the public receives information (especially in a crisis situation), social media provides tremendous opportunities as well challenges and barriers to overcome. The purpose of this paper is to explore how social media is used in public relations, and to analyze how information is being shared on social media during a crisis – in this case during the 2009 novel influenza A (H1N1) crisis; specifically, what are the most popular references of information that are bookmarked, what types of documents are the most popular references of information that are bookmarked, which key tagged words are the most popular references of information that are bookmarked, and what sources are bookmarked the most during a crisis? One of the major advantages of social media during a crisis is on the ability not just to post information and hits related to that information but to learn how that information is shared. While there is a growing body of research in the area on social media and public relations, very few studies have looked specifically at how public relations professionals are using
∗ Corresponding author. Tel.: +1 502 852 4668; fax: +1 502 852 8166. E-mail addresses: [email protected] (K. Freberg), [email protected] (M.J. Palenchar), [email protected] (S.R. Veil). 0363-8111/$ – see front matter © 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.pubrev.2013.02.007
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social media during crisis situations in regards to risk bearer’s information sharing via social media platforms. This study works to address this research gap. 2. Literature review 2.1. Definition of social media The Pew Internet Research Center defined social media as a broad term “that is used to refer to a new era of Web-enable applications that are built around user-generated or user-manipulated content, such as wikis, blogs, and social networking sites” (Pew Internet & American Life Project, 2010). From a public relations perspective, Lariscy, Avery, Sweetser, and Howes (2009) stated that social media has been defined as being “online practices that utilize technology and enable people to share content, opinions, experiences, insights, and media themselves” (p. 1). One of the primary functions of social networking sites in particular is to establish relationships and creating their own content (Waters, Burnett, Lamm, & Lucas, 2009). 2.2. Crisis communications and social media From natural disasters to human errors to intentional harm carried out against an organization, all crises have the potential to cause emotional, physical, financial and environmental damage to the stakeholders involved. Heath (2004) suggested that “a crisis event constitutes a rhetorical exigency that requires one or more responsible parties to enact control in the face of uncertainty in an effort to win key public’s confidence and meet their ethical standards” and “it challenges the ability of the organization to enact the narrative of continuity through constructive change to control the organization’s destiny” (p. 167). As such, crisis communication, according to Reynolds and Seeger (2005), “seeks to explain the specific event, identify likely consequences and outcomes, and provide specific harm-reducing information to affected communities in an honest, candid, prompt, accurate, and complete manner” (p. 46). The ever-changing global environment with its possibility of life-altering events like crises has elevated the awareness of the importance of crisis communication among public relations professionals. In recent cases, social media has played a large role in how organizations are addressing negative and unexpected situations to their various publics as well as how individuals are getting their information regarding a crisis (Prentice & Huffman, 2008). For example, the social-networking site, Twitter, was used to quickly share initial information and updates during the 2007 and 2008 California wildfires, 2009 crash of US Airways Flight 1549, and 2011 Tunisian uprising (Lenhart, 2009; Smith, 2010; Sutton, Palen, & Shklovski, 2008). Research shows that on-site and on-line crisis response activities are becoming increasingly simultaneous and intertwined (Palen, Vieweg, Sutton, Liu, & Hughes, 2007). For the purpose of this paper, social media helps construct the community part of the actual crisis communication response and how that information is shared is a gap in crisis communication research. “Consumers of information are simultaneously contributors of information, thereby providing the basis for user-generated media. The news of a crisis can be shared and reshared, reaching millions of people without the intervening presence of journalists” (Veil, Buehner, & Palenchar, 2011, pp. 110–111). Word of mouth news, often shared through social media, is tremendously influential and even perceived as more trustworthy than mainstream media in some instances (Colley & Collier, 2009). Another challenge of social media for public relations professionals is that they are not necessarily able to control what communication messages are being sent about their organization during a crisis or in normal operating environments. The public seems to be more fragmented in terms of which medium they are using to get their information, which can be considered to be a huge barrier for public relations professionals to deal with in a crisis (González-Herrero & Smith, 2008). The traditional and “old” strategies that are being presented in public relations classes are not necessarily working to the organization’s advantages in social media (Deragon, 2008). Veil et al. (2011) conducted a thorough review of the crisis and social media literature and suggested some new strategies, including several that relate to the purpose of this paper: join the conversation, including rumor management, and determine best channels to reach segmented publics; check all information for accuracy and respond honestly to questions; and follow and share messages with credible sources. In particular for this paper, their suggestion to check all information for accuracy is especially important since inaccurate information shared and re-tweeted not only makes the organization look unprofessional but could harm the reputation of the user as well as cause health, safety and environmental harm during a crisis. 3. H1N1 In early 2009 a novel influenza virus was detected in Mexico and first reported on March 28. H1N1, informally dubbed swine flu, was first detected in the United States in April 2009. This virus was a unique combination of influenza virus genes never previously identified in either animals or people (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 2010b). In spite of efforts to contain it, the virus quickly swept the world and within only a few short months had reached a pandemic level of infection, with the World Health Organization (WHO) declaring the first global flu pandemic on June 11 (“Swine flu events”). CDC activated its Emergency Operations Center on April 22, 2009, to coordinate the response to this emerging public health threat. Response activities were organized into a team structure according to the National Incident Management System. On April 29, 2009, WHO raised the influenza pandemic alert to Phase 5, signaling that a pandemic was imminent,
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and requested that all countries immediately activate their pandemic preparedness plans and be on high alert for unusual outbreaks of influenza-like illness and severe pneumonia (CDC, 2010b). As fall arrived and flu season began to approach its peak, greater strides were taken toward mitigation of the virus and development and dissemination of an H1N1 vaccine. In late October 2009, U.S. President Obama declared the swine flu pandemic to be a national emergency. CDC estimates that from April 2009 to April 10, 2010, between 43 million and 89 million cases of 2009 H1N1 occurred; between about 195,000 and 403,000 H1N1-related hospitalizations occurred; and between about 8870 and 18,300 2009 H1N1-related deaths occurred (CDC, 2010a). 3.1. H1N1 and social media The ongoing H1N1outbreak provides an opportunity for ongoing analysis of the use of social media during risk or crisis events. While a thorough review of the use of social media is beyond the scope of this paper, a few examples of the use of social media during this event will provide a foundation to understanding. As the leading health communicator in the United States in relationship to infectious diseases and other health issues, the CDC and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) worked together to provide consumers and partners with social media tools that provided information about the 2009 H1N1 outbreak. Specifically regarding the use of social media during this risk and crisis event, the CDC in partnership with HHS used numerous social media tools to build a communication infrastructure based on open information exchange. Specifically, some of the tools they used include: (1) buttons and badges that people can use to let their Web site visitors know how to stop the spread of novel H1N1 flu and where to get more information about novel H1N1 flu; (2) the CDC National Contact Center representatives were available 24/7 to answer questions; (3) eCards to keep that can be sent to keep friends, family and coworkers informed; (4) image sharing where users can view and share novel H1N1 flu images from the Flickr site or the CDC Public Health Image Library; (5) twitter/microblog updates; (6) mobile information updates where people can access important information about novel H1N1 flu via the mobile CDC Web site; (7) text messaging pilot where people who sign up can have important CDC information about H1N1 flu and other topics delivered directly to your mobile phone; (8) online videos; (9) podcasts; (10) RSS feeds; (11) social network sites; and (12) widgets, which is a CDC.gov application that displays the featured content directly on your web page. According to Sandman (2009), the CDC “is doing a superb job of explaining the current situation and how uncertain it is” (p. 322), while Palenchar noted in a media interview that “H1N1 was one of the first times in recent memory where federal agencies were willing to talk about things as (the situation) was evolving, when it was uncertain. They were willing to acknowledge they didn’t know everything. That’s helpful to the community to make decisions and have an informed citizenry” (Bregel, 2010, p. B1). At the same time there were criticisms. “The CDC’s biggest failure is in not doing enough to help people visualize what a bad pandemic might be like so they can understand and start preparing for the worst” (Sandman, 2009, p. 322). While there are numerous ongoing studies of H1N1 related to social media that essentially provide web analytics to measure the impact of online media on communication outcomes, this paper focuses on a unique aspect of social media related to how and what types of information are the most likely to be shared via social media. People bookmark articles, web sites, video links, and other documents to share with their followers or to keep as a personal reference for them to use or for those that they know. Ultimately the power of social media is on the ability not just to post information and hits related to that information, but how that information is shared. Thus the following research questions are posed to address this issue to better understand and identify the associations that were being made about food safety in relation to the H1N1 crisis within social media outlets: RQ1: What are the most popular references of information regarding H1N1 that are bookmarked? RQ2: What types of documents are the most popular references of information regarding H1N1 that are bookmarked? RQ3: Which key tagged words are the most popular references of information regarding H1N1 that are bookmarked? RQ4: What sources are bookmarked the most in relation to H1N1? 4. Method Three different social media platforms were used in collecting the social media data: Twitter, Blogs, and Delicious. Twitter is a social networking and microblogging service defined by its short 140-characters format that allows informal collaboration and quick information sharing, which has become increasingly popular among public relations professionals. A blog is a discussion site comprised of posts, usually in chronological order, of which the author can be an individual or multi-author blog. Delicious is a social bookmarking service that allows users to tag, save, manage and share web pages from a centralized source. Social bookmarking services such as Delicious greatly improves how people discover, remember and share on the Internet. The descriptive statistics that were collected through Delicious include the title of the document being bookmarked, the URL of the document, type of document, where the document was located, how many times it was bookmarked, and the tags that were assigned to the bookmark by the user. Researchers used key term tags that were associated with the H1N1 crisis
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Table 1 Organizational/media source of information for social bookmarks on Delicious. Source
Type
Frequency (N)
CDC YouTube UK Guardian New York Times Grist Universities New Scientist Mashable Food Consumer
Government organization Social media Newspaper Newspaper Blog Academic institution Magazine Social media Web site
37 12 7 6 5 4 4 3 3
16.5% 5.4% 3.1% 2.7% 2.2% 1.8% 1.8% 1.3% 1.4%
81
36%
TOTAL
Percentage
Table 2 Type of documents being bookmarked on Delicious. Type of document Blog Web site News Videos Article Documents Government site Social media Academic journal Other TOTAL
Frequency (N) 98 32 21 16 12 8 6 6 1 24 224
Percent 43.7% 14.3% 9.4% 7.1% 5.3% 3.6% 2.7% 2.7% 0.004% 10.7% 100%
situation to search for these social bookmarks. The researchers used search terms “pork and food,” “h1n1 and food,” and “h1n1 influenza cdc.” The researchers were interested in identifying the associations that were being made about food safety in relation to the H1N1 crisis. The researchers created an account on Delicious to track and monitor the social bookmarks that were being used as reference to the H1N1 crisis. The social bookmarks that were collected for the three key search terms were collected from October 28, 2009, to December 28, 2009. A total of 224 social bookmarks were collected through Delicious for the purpose of this section of the research study. 5. Analysis First, the descriptive statistics will be provided for the findings collected from Delicious. 5.1. Source of information The source of the information on Delicious – whether it was from a web site or from a government agency – was important to determine. Of the 224 social bookmarks collected, there were nine organizational/media sources that were the most cited for their information (see Table 1). Overall, the CDC was the most popular reference for the information that was presented and bookmarked on Delicious (N = 37, or 16.5%) followed by YouTube (N = 12, or 5.4%). Traditional media, like newspapers, were also being referenced and bookmarked by those on Delicious regarding the H1N1 crisis. The UK Guardian (N = 7, or 3.1%) and The New York Times (N = 6, or 2.7%) were the two newspapers that had the most articles bookmarked. Individuals were also present among the various sources of bookmarks related to the H1N1 crisis. Six individuals were referenced and bookmarked on Delicious by users in relation to the H1N1 crisis. The most shared source by an individual was Jane Burgermesiter, who has a web site dedicated to investigating the swine flu pandemic (N = 123). Two individuals, Johann Hari and David Kirby (both from the Huffington Post) had two documents bookmarked, and four of the top eight individual sources of information for social bookmarks on Delicious were from the Huffington Post. 5.2. Type of documents being bookmarked Each bookmark that appeared on Delicious was in a different format – some were links to web sites while others had posted links to blogs and other social media platforms. The most popular type of documents consisted of blogs, web sites, news articles, and social media (see Table 2). Blogs were the most bookmarked on Delicious (N = 98, or 43.7%) followed by web sites (N = 32, or 14.3%). The web sites ranged from news sites like the New York Times to the CDC. News articles were bookmarked 21 times (9.4%) as well as articles that were published on the H1N1 topic (N = 12, or 5.3%). Social media
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Table 3 Key tags assigned to social bookmarks on Delicious (N = 1119). Key tag H1N1 Swineflu Flu Health Influenza a Social media CDC Food Pork Pandemic Video Twitter Facebook TOTAL
Frequency (N) 95 87 78 76 40 33 32 24 23 16 8 4 2 518
Percent 18.3% 16.8% 15.0% 14.7% 7.7% 6.8% 6.2% 4.6% 4.4% 3.1% 1.5% 0.78% 0.40% 100%
platforms (ex. Twitter, YouTube, etc.) were also being bookmarked (N = 6, 2.7%), as well as videos being a common format (N = 16, 7.1%). Among the most shared articles related to the H1N1 crisis, the Rolling Stone magazine had the most frequently shared article (N = 151) followed by a featured article that appeared on Wired.com (N = 105). The UK Guardian had two articles that were shared among the users on Delicious – one was related to a story about a four-year-old and their connection to solving the mystery about swine flu (N = 21) while the other was a look into pig farms and their connection to the swine flu pandemic (N = 9). Another popular source that was bookmarked on Delicious was blogs. Among the top eight blogs bookmarked, Mashable.com had three posts saved and shared among the users. The most shared document from Mashable was their post on how people can track swine flu online (N = 222) followed by their post with information on the CDC’s social media toolkit and site (N = 41) and how to track the swine flu on Twitter (N = 18). Videos were also being bookmarked on Delicious. Advertising Age had a video that discussed the role of social media and how the CDC was using it in addressing the H1N1 crisis (N = 7). The CDC also had a reference to their TV feature on their web site that allowed users to share their personal stories in connection to getting the swine flu vaccination (N = 3). Out of the eight videos collected, five were available on YouTube. 5.3. Tagged key terms related to H1N1 crisis For each social bookmark that appeared on Delicious, there were at least one to five different tags that were assigned to the article, web site, video, or other document. These tags would allow someone to be able to find out a specific bookmark that was related to the key search term for which they were looking. Among the 224 bookmarks collected, there were 1119 key word tags that were assigned. Out of the total of key tags that were assigned, some appeared more frequently than others (see Table 3). The key terms that were the most referenced included “h1n1,” “swine flu,” “flu,” “pork,” “influenza a,” “food,” “health,” “social media,” “CDC,” and “pandemic.” The total number of these key terms in Table 3 was 518 (43.2%) of the total tags collected (N = 1119) on Delicious. Out of the 518 tags, the key tag that was most referenced and assigned to the social bookmarks collected was “h1n1” (N = 95, or 18.3%) followed closely by “swine flu” (N = 87, or 16.8%). Flu (N = 78, or 15%) and health (N = 76, or 14.7%) were also consistent in the tag assignments for the social bookmarks. The CDC was the most tagged organization among the social bookmark sites (N = 32, or 6.2%). Among these tags, social media also was present. Both Facebook (N = 2) and Twitter (N = 4) were tagged to various social bookmarks along with the reference of video (N = 8). 5.4. Source bookmarked the most in relation to H1N1 crisis One of the features of Delicious is that the researchers could determine how many times a particular bookmarked article had been shared with others on the site. In relation to the H1N1 crisis, the researchers wanted to determine what the most shared social bookmarks were (see Table 4). These are the most frequent articles, documents, and web sites that were saved on the Delicious web site and were shared with others on other social media platforms. The most popular source that was being referenced in connection with the H1N1 crisis was the Twitter with 27,369. WebMD followed with 8302 shares and then the CDC was the third most shared bookmark on Delicious with 2720. Google Flu Trends (1856 shares), PubMedHome (1700 shares), WHO (1697 shares), and Healthmap (1644 shares) were others that had numerous shares related to the H1N1 crisis. Based on the three sets of key search terms for the data collection (“pork and food,” “h1n1 and food,” and “h1n1 influenza cdc”), there appeared to be a difference in the bookmarks that were most shared among these key terms. For the top 10 bookmarks that were the most shared for the “pork and food,” Twitter was the most shared (N = 27,369) followed by PubMedHome (N = 1700). The Rolling Stones magazine had a featured article on their web site that discussed the swine flu
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Table 4 Source bookmarked the most in relation to H1N1 crisis on Delicious. Source
Type
URL
Twitter WebMD Centers for Disease Control Google Food Trends PubMed Home WHO Health Map FluTrackr PandemicFlu.gov US Dept of Health Flu.gov Mashable
Micoblog Web site Government agency Social media Web site Government agency Social media Social media Web site Government agency Web site Social media
http://twitter.com/ http://www.webmd.com/ www.cdc.gov www.google.com/flutrends http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed www.who.itn/ed http://healthmap.org/en http://flutracker.rhizalabs.com/ www.pandemicflu.gov http://www.hhs.gov/ http://www.flu.gov/ http://mashable.com/2009/04/25/track-swine-flu/
Number of shares (N) 27,369 8302 2720 1856 1700 1697 1644 1254 632 458 289 222
crisis in relations to the pork farms and how it has impacted the industry. For the key terms “h1n1 and food,” WebMDHome was the most shared (N = 8302) followed by the main CDC web site (N = 2720), Google Flu Trends (N = 1856) and the World Health Organization (WHO) main web site (N = 1697). For “h1n1 influenza cdc,” the most frequent source of the most shared bookmarks was from the CDC. Out of the top 10 most shared social bookmarks, the CDC had nine bookmarks. The most shared bookmark from the CDC was their FluTracker feature by Rhiza Labs that allowed people to look at the status of the H1N1 outbreak (N = 1254) followed by their Flu.gov web site (N = 289). The only bookmark that was not from the CDC came from the social media blog and web site Mashable, which had posted an article that discussed how people can track the swine flu online (N = 222). 6. Discussion With the increased use of technology, more individuals are getting their information from the Internet, and in particular from social media. In the 2009 H1N1 crisis, this was apparent in the data collection from these three social media platforms – Blogs, Twitter, and Delicious. One of the main findings in the analysis of the social bookmarks collected on Delicious is that a major source of the information being bookmarked was from the CDC, an organization with a strong reputation and level of credibility in the crisis situation and a traditional source of information active in a non-traditional media environment. The CDC was also the most tagged key organization and social media site. Other traditional sources of information included newspapers and newspaper blogs, demonstrating a clear interaction among traditional and new media. This research study also makes the point that people are getting information from not just traditional news or even one source of information, but a wide range of different sources. From videos that appeared on YouTube to updates on Twitter to specific individual blogs – people are sharing information with others virtually from multiple outlets, which is the main point of social media. Social media is a combination of various online platforms that allow individuals to communicate with each other (word-of-mouth) or by creating a dialog with others online through commenting on blogs or pictures, as well as establishing networking relationships with the online community (Mangold & Faulds, 2009). In addition, the purpose of using social media is to establish a virtual community, where individuals can share information with each other and create a virtual dialog among organizations and individuals. Plus, social media is also a tool for organizations to monitor and listen to what their key stakeholders are saying. In public relations and crisis communications, it is best to be aware of what are the issues that key stakeholders feel that are important to them, and to be proactive in addressing these before a crisis could possibly occur. Vieweg, Palen, Liu, Hughes and Sutton (2008) discussed the possible risks that organizations can have if they communicated false information to stakeholders in a time of crisis. González-Herrero and Smith (2008) mentioned as well that not having up-to-date information for stakeholders in a moment of crisis could impact an organization negatively. However, with the increase use of social media, it is not necessarily the main organizations that are the most influential in a crisis situation as demonstrated in previous crisis communication cases. Some of the organization’s stakeholders are becoming influential in their own right thanks to social media. These individuals have their own online presence and have the influence to motivate others to act or behave in a certain way – and can be conceptualized as being social media influencers. In determining what a social media influencer is, this can range from industry to industry, but there are some common characteristics that are attributed to these individuals. Social media influencers are individuals or entities who are not associated with an organization or company in question, but have a strong, credible, and vocal presence online through multiple social media platforms such as blogs, social networking sites, and web sites to name a few. The crisis communication literature and practice has yet to address those stakeholders that are creating their own influence and messages online, or also known as being social media influencers. This was apparent in the data collection and analysis on Delicious. The sources with the most shared social bookmarks were not necessarily connected with the CDC or other government agencies, but they had a strong presence online (Twitter, WebMD, PubMed, and Mashable to name a few). Also, when looking primarily at social media influencers, they also have the power of being very persuasive in their message, so there is a possibility that these followers of these social media influencers may just be focused on the message they are communicating (Rawlins,
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2006). In other words, it is important to look at not only the source of the information, but the message itself, and see which one influences a person to act or behave in a certain way. 7. Conclusion One of the key issues that is facing public relations is the fantastic growth rate of social media, but research into the strengths of this media platform – information sharing among stakeholders during a crisis – has not received significant research attention. Future research studies should focus on the dynamic powers of social media related to user-generated data during a crisis to better understand how information is being shared among risk bearers and other key stakeholders during a crisis. One of the challenges that is facing public relations and other professions is that there are so many new channels and platforms emerging that it is hard to get a handle on which ones are relevant to the profession, and which ones are being used by the public (McKay, 2009), and maybe most importantly, which ones are being shared. There are many risks for public relations professionals if they do not address or get involved in social media. If public relations professionals do not address the issues or concerns that are being raised on various social media sites they run the risk to future reputation and communication challenges for their industry and corporation (Mangold & Faulds, 2009). However, if public relations professionals recognize that they have some control of what is presented on these social media sites, they may have more influence to manage and construct the perceptions and impressions others have on their clients or even themselves (Walther, Van Der Heide, Kim, Westerman, & Tong, 2008). Public relations professionals during a crisis have to manage more media platforms than ever before, more voices, more types of data (text, video, audio) while understanding how that information is being shared among risk bearers during a crisis. Even with these challenges and risks, public relations professionals have a golden opportunity to rise to the occasion with social media and this emerging medium. The role of the public relations professional has to have both traditional and non-traditional skill sets that make them a more integrated communication and business professional. 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Public Relations Review
Managing and sharing H1N1 crisis information using social media bookmarking services Karen Freberg a , Michael J. Palenchar b,∗ , Shari R. Veil c a
University of Louisville, 305B Strickler Hall, Department of Communication, University of Louisville, Louisville, KY 40292, United States School of Advertising and Public Relations, University of Tennessee, 476 Communications Building, Knoxville, TN 37996, United States c Department of Communication, College of Communications and Information, University of Kentucky, 238 Grehan Building, Lexington, KY 40506-0042, United States b
a r t i c l e
i n f o
Article history: Received 23 June 2011 Received in revised form 11 February 2013 Accepted 11 February 2013 Keywords: Social media Crisis communication Public relations H1N1
a b s t r a c t Social media outlets are becoming main stream venues for risk and crisis communication, and how information is shared is critical. Analysis of social bookmarks regarding H1N1 demonstrate the CDC was the most popular reference for information, individuals were strongly present, blogs were the most popular type of documents, and Twitter is the most popular source being referenced. The crisis communication literature has just started to address those stakeholders that are creating their own influence and messages online. © 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction Before reviewing the context of the study, we concisely review the three research streams that guided our research questions: (1) social media, (2) crisis, and (3) crisis communication. Public relations researchers examine communication messages and how specific media outlets are influencing their target audiences and other stakeholders. Individuals and groups are not only exposed to these messages and related strategies, but they form their own opinion about how the information is presented, and the credibility and trustworthiness of the information, which has an influence on how information is shared among stakeholders. One influential medium in reaching out to the public, forming impressions immediately, and that allows others to share the information is social media. In spite of the innovative features of social media and other new media technologies and with the power to influence how the public receives information (especially in a crisis situation), social media provides tremendous opportunities as well challenges and barriers to overcome. The purpose of this paper is to explore how social media is used in public relations, and to analyze how information is being shared on social media during a crisis – in this case during the 2009 novel influenza A (H1N1) crisis; specifically, what are the most popular references of information that are bookmarked, what types of documents are the most popular references of information that are bookmarked, which key tagged words are the most popular references of information that are bookmarked, and what sources are bookmarked the most during a crisis? One of the major advantages of social media during a crisis is on the ability not just to post information and hits related to that information but to learn how that information is shared. While there is a growing body of research in the area on social media and public relations, very few studies have looked specifically at how public relations professionals are using
∗ Corresponding author. Tel.: +1 502 852 4668; fax: +1 502 852 8166. E-mail addresses: [email protected] (K. Freberg), [email protected] (M.J. Palenchar), [email protected] (S.R. Veil). 0363-8111/$ – see front matter © 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.pubrev.2013.02.007
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social media during crisis situations in regards to risk bearer’s information sharing via social media platforms. This study works to address this research gap. 2. Literature review 2.1. Definition of social media The Pew Internet Research Center defined social media as a broad term “that is used to refer to a new era of Web-enable applications that are built around user-generated or user-manipulated content, such as wikis, blogs, and social networking sites” (Pew Internet & American Life Project, 2010). From a public relations perspective, Lariscy, Avery, Sweetser, and Howes (2009) stated that social media has been defined as being “online practices that utilize technology and enable people to share content, opinions, experiences, insights, and media themselves” (p. 1). One of the primary functions of social networking sites in particular is to establish relationships and creating their own content (Waters, Burnett, Lamm, & Lucas, 2009). 2.2. Crisis communications and social media From natural disasters to human errors to intentional harm carried out against an organization, all crises have the potential to cause emotional, physical, financial and environmental damage to the stakeholders involved. Heath (2004) suggested that “a crisis event constitutes a rhetorical exigency that requires one or more responsible parties to enact control in the face of uncertainty in an effort to win key public’s confidence and meet their ethical standards” and “it challenges the ability of the organization to enact the narrative of continuity through constructive change to control the organization’s destiny” (p. 167). As such, crisis communication, according to Reynolds and Seeger (2005), “seeks to explain the specific event, identify likely consequences and outcomes, and provide specific harm-reducing information to affected communities in an honest, candid, prompt, accurate, and complete manner” (p. 46). The ever-changing global environment with its possibility of life-altering events like crises has elevated the awareness of the importance of crisis communication among public relations professionals. In recent cases, social media has played a large role in how organizations are addressing negative and unexpected situations to their various publics as well as how individuals are getting their information regarding a crisis (Prentice & Huffman, 2008). For example, the social-networking site, Twitter, was used to quickly share initial information and updates during the 2007 and 2008 California wildfires, 2009 crash of US Airways Flight 1549, and 2011 Tunisian uprising (Lenhart, 2009; Smith, 2010; Sutton, Palen, & Shklovski, 2008). Research shows that on-site and on-line crisis response activities are becoming increasingly simultaneous and intertwined (Palen, Vieweg, Sutton, Liu, & Hughes, 2007). For the purpose of this paper, social media helps construct the community part of the actual crisis communication response and how that information is shared is a gap in crisis communication research. “Consumers of information are simultaneously contributors of information, thereby providing the basis for user-generated media. The news of a crisis can be shared and reshared, reaching millions of people without the intervening presence of journalists” (Veil, Buehner, & Palenchar, 2011, pp. 110–111). Word of mouth news, often shared through social media, is tremendously influential and even perceived as more trustworthy than mainstream media in some instances (Colley & Collier, 2009). Another challenge of social media for public relations professionals is that they are not necessarily able to control what communication messages are being sent about their organization during a crisis or in normal operating environments. The public seems to be more fragmented in terms of which medium they are using to get their information, which can be considered to be a huge barrier for public relations professionals to deal with in a crisis (González-Herrero & Smith, 2008). The traditional and “old” strategies that are being presented in public relations classes are not necessarily working to the organization’s advantages in social media (Deragon, 2008). Veil et al. (2011) conducted a thorough review of the crisis and social media literature and suggested some new strategies, including several that relate to the purpose of this paper: join the conversation, including rumor management, and determine best channels to reach segmented publics; check all information for accuracy and respond honestly to questions; and follow and share messages with credible sources. In particular for this paper, their suggestion to check all information for accuracy is especially important since inaccurate information shared and re-tweeted not only makes the organization look unprofessional but could harm the reputation of the user as well as cause health, safety and environmental harm during a crisis. 3. H1N1 In early 2009 a novel influenza virus was detected in Mexico and first reported on March 28. H1N1, informally dubbed swine flu, was first detected in the United States in April 2009. This virus was a unique combination of influenza virus genes never previously identified in either animals or people (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 2010b). In spite of efforts to contain it, the virus quickly swept the world and within only a few short months had reached a pandemic level of infection, with the World Health Organization (WHO) declaring the first global flu pandemic on June 11 (“Swine flu events”). CDC activated its Emergency Operations Center on April 22, 2009, to coordinate the response to this emerging public health threat. Response activities were organized into a team structure according to the National Incident Management System. On April 29, 2009, WHO raised the influenza pandemic alert to Phase 5, signaling that a pandemic was imminent,
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and requested that all countries immediately activate their pandemic preparedness plans and be on high alert for unusual outbreaks of influenza-like illness and severe pneumonia (CDC, 2010b). As fall arrived and flu season began to approach its peak, greater strides were taken toward mitigation of the virus and development and dissemination of an H1N1 vaccine. In late October 2009, U.S. President Obama declared the swine flu pandemic to be a national emergency. CDC estimates that from April 2009 to April 10, 2010, between 43 million and 89 million cases of 2009 H1N1 occurred; between about 195,000 and 403,000 H1N1-related hospitalizations occurred; and between about 8870 and 18,300 2009 H1N1-related deaths occurred (CDC, 2010a). 3.1. H1N1 and social media The ongoing H1N1outbreak provides an opportunity for ongoing analysis of the use of social media during risk or crisis events. While a thorough review of the use of social media is beyond the scope of this paper, a few examples of the use of social media during this event will provide a foundation to understanding. As the leading health communicator in the United States in relationship to infectious diseases and other health issues, the CDC and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) worked together to provide consumers and partners with social media tools that provided information about the 2009 H1N1 outbreak. Specifically regarding the use of social media during this risk and crisis event, the CDC in partnership with HHS used numerous social media tools to build a communication infrastructure based on open information exchange. Specifically, some of the tools they used include: (1) buttons and badges that people can use to let their Web site visitors know how to stop the spread of novel H1N1 flu and where to get more information about novel H1N1 flu; (2) the CDC National Contact Center representatives were available 24/7 to answer questions; (3) eCards to keep that can be sent to keep friends, family and coworkers informed; (4) image sharing where users can view and share novel H1N1 flu images from the Flickr site or the CDC Public Health Image Library; (5) twitter/microblog updates; (6) mobile information updates where people can access important information about novel H1N1 flu via the mobile CDC Web site; (7) text messaging pilot where people who sign up can have important CDC information about H1N1 flu and other topics delivered directly to your mobile phone; (8) online videos; (9) podcasts; (10) RSS feeds; (11) social network sites; and (12) widgets, which is a CDC.gov application that displays the featured content directly on your web page. According to Sandman (2009), the CDC “is doing a superb job of explaining the current situation and how uncertain it is” (p. 322), while Palenchar noted in a media interview that “H1N1 was one of the first times in recent memory where federal agencies were willing to talk about things as (the situation) was evolving, when it was uncertain. They were willing to acknowledge they didn’t know everything. That’s helpful to the community to make decisions and have an informed citizenry” (Bregel, 2010, p. B1). At the same time there were criticisms. “The CDC’s biggest failure is in not doing enough to help people visualize what a bad pandemic might be like so they can understand and start preparing for the worst” (Sandman, 2009, p. 322). While there are numerous ongoing studies of H1N1 related to social media that essentially provide web analytics to measure the impact of online media on communication outcomes, this paper focuses on a unique aspect of social media related to how and what types of information are the most likely to be shared via social media. People bookmark articles, web sites, video links, and other documents to share with their followers or to keep as a personal reference for them to use or for those that they know. Ultimately the power of social media is on the ability not just to post information and hits related to that information, but how that information is shared. Thus the following research questions are posed to address this issue to better understand and identify the associations that were being made about food safety in relation to the H1N1 crisis within social media outlets: RQ1: What are the most popular references of information regarding H1N1 that are bookmarked? RQ2: What types of documents are the most popular references of information regarding H1N1 that are bookmarked? RQ3: Which key tagged words are the most popular references of information regarding H1N1 that are bookmarked? RQ4: What sources are bookmarked the most in relation to H1N1? 4. Method Three different social media platforms were used in collecting the social media data: Twitter, Blogs, and Delicious. Twitter is a social networking and microblogging service defined by its short 140-characters format that allows informal collaboration and quick information sharing, which has become increasingly popular among public relations professionals. A blog is a discussion site comprised of posts, usually in chronological order, of which the author can be an individual or multi-author blog. Delicious is a social bookmarking service that allows users to tag, save, manage and share web pages from a centralized source. Social bookmarking services such as Delicious greatly improves how people discover, remember and share on the Internet. The descriptive statistics that were collected through Delicious include the title of the document being bookmarked, the URL of the document, type of document, where the document was located, how many times it was bookmarked, and the tags that were assigned to the bookmark by the user. Researchers used key term tags that were associated with the H1N1 crisis
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Table 1 Organizational/media source of information for social bookmarks on Delicious. Source
Type
Frequency (N)
CDC YouTube UK Guardian New York Times Grist Universities New Scientist Mashable Food Consumer
Government organization Social media Newspaper Newspaper Blog Academic institution Magazine Social media Web site
37 12 7 6 5 4 4 3 3
16.5% 5.4% 3.1% 2.7% 2.2% 1.8% 1.8% 1.3% 1.4%
81
36%
TOTAL
Percentage
Table 2 Type of documents being bookmarked on Delicious. Type of document Blog Web site News Videos Article Documents Government site Social media Academic journal Other TOTAL
Frequency (N) 98 32 21 16 12 8 6 6 1 24 224
Percent 43.7% 14.3% 9.4% 7.1% 5.3% 3.6% 2.7% 2.7% 0.004% 10.7% 100%
situation to search for these social bookmarks. The researchers used search terms “pork and food,” “h1n1 and food,” and “h1n1 influenza cdc.” The researchers were interested in identifying the associations that were being made about food safety in relation to the H1N1 crisis. The researchers created an account on Delicious to track and monitor the social bookmarks that were being used as reference to the H1N1 crisis. The social bookmarks that were collected for the three key search terms were collected from October 28, 2009, to December 28, 2009. A total of 224 social bookmarks were collected through Delicious for the purpose of this section of the research study. 5. Analysis First, the descriptive statistics will be provided for the findings collected from Delicious. 5.1. Source of information The source of the information on Delicious – whether it was from a web site or from a government agency – was important to determine. Of the 224 social bookmarks collected, there were nine organizational/media sources that were the most cited for their information (see Table 1). Overall, the CDC was the most popular reference for the information that was presented and bookmarked on Delicious (N = 37, or 16.5%) followed by YouTube (N = 12, or 5.4%). Traditional media, like newspapers, were also being referenced and bookmarked by those on Delicious regarding the H1N1 crisis. The UK Guardian (N = 7, or 3.1%) and The New York Times (N = 6, or 2.7%) were the two newspapers that had the most articles bookmarked. Individuals were also present among the various sources of bookmarks related to the H1N1 crisis. Six individuals were referenced and bookmarked on Delicious by users in relation to the H1N1 crisis. The most shared source by an individual was Jane Burgermesiter, who has a web site dedicated to investigating the swine flu pandemic (N = 123). Two individuals, Johann Hari and David Kirby (both from the Huffington Post) had two documents bookmarked, and four of the top eight individual sources of information for social bookmarks on Delicious were from the Huffington Post. 5.2. Type of documents being bookmarked Each bookmark that appeared on Delicious was in a different format – some were links to web sites while others had posted links to blogs and other social media platforms. The most popular type of documents consisted of blogs, web sites, news articles, and social media (see Table 2). Blogs were the most bookmarked on Delicious (N = 98, or 43.7%) followed by web sites (N = 32, or 14.3%). The web sites ranged from news sites like the New York Times to the CDC. News articles were bookmarked 21 times (9.4%) as well as articles that were published on the H1N1 topic (N = 12, or 5.3%). Social media
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Table 3 Key tags assigned to social bookmarks on Delicious (N = 1119). Key tag H1N1 Swineflu Flu Health Influenza a Social media CDC Food Pork Pandemic Video Twitter Facebook TOTAL
Frequency (N) 95 87 78 76 40 33 32 24 23 16 8 4 2 518
Percent 18.3% 16.8% 15.0% 14.7% 7.7% 6.8% 6.2% 4.6% 4.4% 3.1% 1.5% 0.78% 0.40% 100%
platforms (ex. Twitter, YouTube, etc.) were also being bookmarked (N = 6, 2.7%), as well as videos being a common format (N = 16, 7.1%). Among the most shared articles related to the H1N1 crisis, the Rolling Stone magazine had the most frequently shared article (N = 151) followed by a featured article that appeared on Wired.com (N = 105). The UK Guardian had two articles that were shared among the users on Delicious – one was related to a story about a four-year-old and their connection to solving the mystery about swine flu (N = 21) while the other was a look into pig farms and their connection to the swine flu pandemic (N = 9). Another popular source that was bookmarked on Delicious was blogs. Among the top eight blogs bookmarked, Mashable.com had three posts saved and shared among the users. The most shared document from Mashable was their post on how people can track swine flu online (N = 222) followed by their post with information on the CDC’s social media toolkit and site (N = 41) and how to track the swine flu on Twitter (N = 18). Videos were also being bookmarked on Delicious. Advertising Age had a video that discussed the role of social media and how the CDC was using it in addressing the H1N1 crisis (N = 7). The CDC also had a reference to their TV feature on their web site that allowed users to share their personal stories in connection to getting the swine flu vaccination (N = 3). Out of the eight videos collected, five were available on YouTube. 5.3. Tagged key terms related to H1N1 crisis For each social bookmark that appeared on Delicious, there were at least one to five different tags that were assigned to the article, web site, video, or other document. These tags would allow someone to be able to find out a specific bookmark that was related to the key search term for which they were looking. Among the 224 bookmarks collected, there were 1119 key word tags that were assigned. Out of the total of key tags that were assigned, some appeared more frequently than others (see Table 3). The key terms that were the most referenced included “h1n1,” “swine flu,” “flu,” “pork,” “influenza a,” “food,” “health,” “social media,” “CDC,” and “pandemic.” The total number of these key terms in Table 3 was 518 (43.2%) of the total tags collected (N = 1119) on Delicious. Out of the 518 tags, the key tag that was most referenced and assigned to the social bookmarks collected was “h1n1” (N = 95, or 18.3%) followed closely by “swine flu” (N = 87, or 16.8%). Flu (N = 78, or 15%) and health (N = 76, or 14.7%) were also consistent in the tag assignments for the social bookmarks. The CDC was the most tagged organization among the social bookmark sites (N = 32, or 6.2%). Among these tags, social media also was present. Both Facebook (N = 2) and Twitter (N = 4) were tagged to various social bookmarks along with the reference of video (N = 8). 5.4. Source bookmarked the most in relation to H1N1 crisis One of the features of Delicious is that the researchers could determine how many times a particular bookmarked article had been shared with others on the site. In relation to the H1N1 crisis, the researchers wanted to determine what the most shared social bookmarks were (see Table 4). These are the most frequent articles, documents, and web sites that were saved on the Delicious web site and were shared with others on other social media platforms. The most popular source that was being referenced in connection with the H1N1 crisis was the Twitter with 27,369. WebMD followed with 8302 shares and then the CDC was the third most shared bookmark on Delicious with 2720. Google Flu Trends (1856 shares), PubMedHome (1700 shares), WHO (1697 shares), and Healthmap (1644 shares) were others that had numerous shares related to the H1N1 crisis. Based on the three sets of key search terms for the data collection (“pork and food,” “h1n1 and food,” and “h1n1 influenza cdc”), there appeared to be a difference in the bookmarks that were most shared among these key terms. For the top 10 bookmarks that were the most shared for the “pork and food,” Twitter was the most shared (N = 27,369) followed by PubMedHome (N = 1700). The Rolling Stones magazine had a featured article on their web site that discussed the swine flu
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Table 4 Source bookmarked the most in relation to H1N1 crisis on Delicious. Source
Type
URL
Twitter WebMD Centers for Disease Control Google Food Trends PubMed Home WHO Health Map FluTrackr PandemicFlu.gov US Dept of Health Flu.gov Mashable
Micoblog Web site Government agency Social media Web site Government agency Social media Social media Web site Government agency Web site Social media
http://twitter.com/ http://www.webmd.com/ www.cdc.gov www.google.com/flutrends http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed www.who.itn/ed http://healthmap.org/en http://flutracker.rhizalabs.com/ www.pandemicflu.gov http://www.hhs.gov/ http://www.flu.gov/ http://mashable.com/2009/04/25/track-swine-flu/
Number of shares (N) 27,369 8302 2720 1856 1700 1697 1644 1254 632 458 289 222
crisis in relations to the pork farms and how it has impacted the industry. For the key terms “h1n1 and food,” WebMDHome was the most shared (N = 8302) followed by the main CDC web site (N = 2720), Google Flu Trends (N = 1856) and the World Health Organization (WHO) main web site (N = 1697). For “h1n1 influenza cdc,” the most frequent source of the most shared bookmarks was from the CDC. Out of the top 10 most shared social bookmarks, the CDC had nine bookmarks. The most shared bookmark from the CDC was their FluTracker feature by Rhiza Labs that allowed people to look at the status of the H1N1 outbreak (N = 1254) followed by their Flu.gov web site (N = 289). The only bookmark that was not from the CDC came from the social media blog and web site Mashable, which had posted an article that discussed how people can track the swine flu online (N = 222). 6. Discussion With the increased use of technology, more individuals are getting their information from the Internet, and in particular from social media. In the 2009 H1N1 crisis, this was apparent in the data collection from these three social media platforms – Blogs, Twitter, and Delicious. One of the main findings in the analysis of the social bookmarks collected on Delicious is that a major source of the information being bookmarked was from the CDC, an organization with a strong reputation and level of credibility in the crisis situation and a traditional source of information active in a non-traditional media environment. The CDC was also the most tagged key organization and social media site. Other traditional sources of information included newspapers and newspaper blogs, demonstrating a clear interaction among traditional and new media. This research study also makes the point that people are getting information from not just traditional news or even one source of information, but a wide range of different sources. From videos that appeared on YouTube to updates on Twitter to specific individual blogs – people are sharing information with others virtually from multiple outlets, which is the main point of social media. Social media is a combination of various online platforms that allow individuals to communicate with each other (word-of-mouth) or by creating a dialog with others online through commenting on blogs or pictures, as well as establishing networking relationships with the online community (Mangold & Faulds, 2009). In addition, the purpose of using social media is to establish a virtual community, where individuals can share information with each other and create a virtual dialog among organizations and individuals. Plus, social media is also a tool for organizations to monitor and listen to what their key stakeholders are saying. In public relations and crisis communications, it is best to be aware of what are the issues that key stakeholders feel that are important to them, and to be proactive in addressing these before a crisis could possibly occur. Vieweg, Palen, Liu, Hughes and Sutton (2008) discussed the possible risks that organizations can have if they communicated false information to stakeholders in a time of crisis. González-Herrero and Smith (2008) mentioned as well that not having up-to-date information for stakeholders in a moment of crisis could impact an organization negatively. However, with the increase use of social media, it is not necessarily the main organizations that are the most influential in a crisis situation as demonstrated in previous crisis communication cases. Some of the organization’s stakeholders are becoming influential in their own right thanks to social media. These individuals have their own online presence and have the influence to motivate others to act or behave in a certain way – and can be conceptualized as being social media influencers. In determining what a social media influencer is, this can range from industry to industry, but there are some common characteristics that are attributed to these individuals. Social media influencers are individuals or entities who are not associated with an organization or company in question, but have a strong, credible, and vocal presence online through multiple social media platforms such as blogs, social networking sites, and web sites to name a few. The crisis communication literature and practice has yet to address those stakeholders that are creating their own influence and messages online, or also known as being social media influencers. This was apparent in the data collection and analysis on Delicious. The sources with the most shared social bookmarks were not necessarily connected with the CDC or other government agencies, but they had a strong presence online (Twitter, WebMD, PubMed, and Mashable to name a few). Also, when looking primarily at social media influencers, they also have the power of being very persuasive in their message, so there is a possibility that these followers of these social media influencers may just be focused on the message they are communicating (Rawlins,
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2006). In other words, it is important to look at not only the source of the information, but the message itself, and see which one influences a person to act or behave in a certain way. 7. Conclusion One of the key issues that is facing public relations is the fantastic growth rate of social media, but research into the strengths of this media platform – information sharing among stakeholders during a crisis – has not received significant research attention. Future research studies should focus on the dynamic powers of social media related to user-generated data during a crisis to better understand how information is being shared among risk bearers and other key stakeholders during a crisis. One of the challenges that is facing public relations and other professions is that there are so many new channels and platforms emerging that it is hard to get a handle on which ones are relevant to the profession, and which ones are being used by the public (McKay, 2009), and maybe most importantly, which ones are being shared. There are many risks for public relations professionals if they do not address or get involved in social media. If public relations professionals do not address the issues or concerns that are being raised on various social media sites they run the risk to future reputation and communication challenges for their industry and corporation (Mangold & Faulds, 2009). However, if public relations professionals recognize that they have some control of what is presented on these social media sites, they may have more influence to manage and construct the perceptions and impressions others have on their clients or even themselves (Walther, Van Der Heide, Kim, Westerman, & Tong, 2008). Public relations professionals during a crisis have to manage more media platforms than ever before, more voices, more types of data (text, video, audio) while understanding how that information is being shared among risk bearers during a crisis. Even with these challenges and risks, public relations professionals have a golden opportunity to rise to the occasion with social media and this emerging medium. The role of the public relations professional has to have both traditional and non-traditional skill sets that make them a more integrated communication and business professional. 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