Corporate Communications: An International Journal

Facebook and the public framing of a corporate crisis

Michael Andreas Etter Anne Vestergaard
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Facebook and the public Public

framing of a
framing of a corporate crisis corporate
crisis
Michael Andreas Etter and Anne Vestergaard
Department for Intercultural Communication and Management, 163
Copenhagen Business School, Frederiksberg, Denmark
Received 15 October 2013
Revised 19 May 2014
Abstract 19 August 2014
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Purpose – It is crucial for corporate communication to know how different public sources frame a 9 January 2015
crisis and how these sources influence each other. The purpose of this study is to investigate the role of Accepted 11 January 2015
Facebook by examining – if the public represented on Facebook contributes distinct frames to the
discursive negotiation of a crisis at all, and whether the public represented on Facebook is able to
influence the crisis framing of news media.
Design/methodology/approach – The authors compared how four different public sources framed
the Nestlé Kit Kat crisis: news media, corporate communication, NGOs, and Facebook users.
The authors therefore, coded 5,185 sentences from the four sources and conducted a frame-analysis
through the detection of co-occurrence between actors and attributions. A cross-correlation with a
seven-day lag in each direction was applied to detect the frame-setting effects between the public
represented on Facebook and news media.
Findings – While the public represented on Facebook is found to apply distinct crisis frames in
comparison to conventional sources, its frame-setting power is limited. In contrast to findings from
political communication, it is rather the news media that influences the crisis framing in social media.
The role of the public represented on Facebook, hence, appears marginal in comparison to news media
that remain a major force in the discursive negotiation of a corporate crisis.
Originality/value – As a first study, crisis framing in social media is compared with that of news
media, NGOs, and corporate communication. Second, so far there have been no studies in the corporate
communication field investigating the frame-setting effects between social media and news media.
Contrary to social media’s promising frame-setting power ascribed by some scholars, the authors do
not find such effects with Facebook, the most popular social media tool to date.
Keywords NGOs, Social media, Corporate communication, Frame setting, Framing, News media
Paper type Research paper

Introduction
In March 2010 Greenpeace launched a viral campaign targeting Nestlé as being
responsible for the deaths of orangutans through the use of palm oil, the sourcing of
which causes deforestation of rainforest. By highlighting unethical business practices
of a major food producer, the campaign succeeded in eliciting wide public reaction in
social media and news media. The case is an exemplary illustration of how social media
has emerged as popular communication channels, through which members of the
online public express their views of corporate crises (e.g. Schultz et al., 2011; Utz et al.,
2013; Veil et al., 2011). Social media have enabled the online public to contribute to the
discursive negotiation of a crisis next to other public sources, such as news media,
corporate communication, or NGOs. The social network site Facebook alone asserts
400 million users, (numbers taken from the time of the investigation), making it the most
used and popular social media tool (Statista, 2014). Furthermore, in times of crisis, corporate Corporate Communications: An
International Journal
Vol. 20 No. 2, 2015
This paper was originally presented at The 2nd International CSR Communication Conference pp. 163-177
2013, Aarhus, Denmark. The authors want to thank Elmie Nekmat and Julie Uldam for their © Emerald Group Publishing Limited
1356-3289
comment on a previous version of this paper. DOI 10.1108/CCIJ-10-2013-0082
 CCIJ Facebook sites often develop into major discussion forums where the public represented on
20,2 Facebook expresses various opinions about crises (e.g. Ki and Nekmat, 2014).
How the general public perceives and judges a corporation involved in a crisis is
shaped by the different crisis frames provided by public sources (Zhou and Moy,
2007; Coombs and Holladay, 2004; Schultz et al., 2012). Scholars highlight news
media in particular, to be influential for public opinion formation (e.g. McCombs,
164 2005). Frame-setting theory (Zhou and Moy, 2007) discusses the ability of
mainstream media to shape which frames are salient in the public, based on the
relative attention news media give to certain attributes associated with certain
objects (McCombs and Shaw, 1993; Scheufele and Tewksbury, 2007). The news
media framing on the other hand is influenced by various sources, such as other
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media outlets (Roberts and McCombs, 1994) or corporate communication (Kiousis

et al., 2007). It has been argued that social media might also have the potential to set
the frames of news media (e.g. Antony and Thomas, 2010; Meyers, 2012). Indeed,
recent research in political communication has shown that social media are able to
influence the frames of news media (Meraz, 2011a, b). Consequently, in the case of a
corporate crisis, the online public in social media may have the opportunity to set the
frames of news media. Such a power-shift would have important consequences for
crisis communication and issues management, which have always been challenged
by new information and communication technologies (Heath, 1998; Coombs, 2002).
The increased frame-setting power of social media would create a strong need to
allocate “responsive resources” (Seeger, 2006, p. 237) that account for the role of
social media as a possibly major force in the public opinion formation.
However, until today it is unexplored if the online public in social media even
provides alternative crisis frames in comparison to established sources, and if these
frames have an effect on news media framing. Therefore, this paper investigates if and
how the public represented on Facebook contributes distinct crisis frames when
compared to other public sources. Furthermore, it identifies the frame-setting effects
between social media and news media by asking, if news media follow the framing of
the public represented on Facebook or vice versa. We used the established concept of
frames as the association of attributes, such as the responsibility for cause or solution
of a crisis, with the various actors involved in a crisis (Schultz et al., 2012; Ruigrok and
van Atteveldt, 2007). With a cross-correlation analysis over a period of three months,
we studied the frame-setting effects between news media and social media.

Theoretical framework
Social media and the discursive negotiation of a crisis
How a crisis should be understood – what the problem is, what caused it, and what
should be done – is a matter of more or less explicit discursive negotiation between
different public sources (e.g. Dahan and Gittens, 2010; Patriotta et al., 2011). Recently,
“Web 2.0” technologies have endowed members of the general public with the ability
to contribute to the public discourse (e.g. Meyers, 2012; Antony and Thomas, 2010).
This development has become increasingly crucial for corporate crises, wherein
various stakeholders use social media as a platform to express their views and opinions
(e.g. Schultz et al., 2011). While prior research has provided valuable insights for the
discursive negotiation of a corporate crisis by various sources (e.g. Dahan and Gittens,
2010), the online public in social media has rarely been taken into consideration
as a possible contributor. However, the knowledge if and how online publics in social
media interpret a crisis in distinct ways is important in order to detect “signals” of
 reputation threats (Heugens et al., 2004, p. 1366), predict the levels of reputation threats, Public
and craft crisis response strategies (Coombs, 2011). framing of a
corporate
From framing to frame-setting
Framing is the process through which different sources build and provide their crisis frames
crisis
as “schemata of interpretation” (Goffman, 1974, p. 21) to the public discourse. Entman (1993)
defines framing as the selection and emphasis of certain aspects of an issue “in such a way 165
as to promote a particular problem definition, causal interpretation, moral evaluation, and/or
treatment recommendation” (p. 52). Building on Entman (1993), crisis frames have often
been conceptualized as the frequency and association of an actor, for example a corporation,
with an attribution, such as the responsibility for the cause, the solution, the consequences
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or the problem of a crisis (Ruigrok and van Atteveldt, 2007; Schultz et al., 2012).
When framing an event various sources influence each other. The influence different
sources have on each other’s framing is explained and studied with frame-setting theory
(Zhou and Moy, 2007). Frame-setting theory has its origin in the agenda-setting theory
that discusses the transfer of salience of objects (e.g. issues, candidates, companies, etc.)
between news media and the public (McCombs and Shaw, 1972, 1993) and between
different media entities, also known as intermedia agenda-setting (McCombs, 2005).
The theory is based on the assumption that the relative attention news media give to
certain objects will affect the perceived importance of objects by the public or the object
salience in other media. The transfer of object salience has been labeled as issue
agenda-setting, while the transfer of frames is explained with frame-setting (Zhou and
Moy, 2007). Frame-setting discusses the transfer of attributes associated with objects.
The literature on the transfer of frames has focussed on the effects of news on the public
(e.g. Kim et al., 2002), corporate communication on news media (e.g. Kiousis et al., 2007;
Carroll, 2010), and agenda-setting effects between different media (e.g. Sweetser et al., 2008).

New relationship between news media and social media

With the rise of social media, it has been argued that users of social media may have
the opportunity to influence news media (e.g. Antony and Thomas, 2010; Meyers, 2012).
For instance, scholars in political communication have examined the dynamics and
consequences of the evolving relationship between news media and social media. Early
studies on issue agenda-setting have either detected a bi-directional relationship between
news media and social media (Sayre et al., 2010; Wallsten, 2007) or found that political blogs
are not influenced by news media, but by other blogs (Meraz, 2009). Research on the transfer
of frames found that news media did not influence the framing in blogs; on the contrary,
blogs were able to set the frames of news media (Meraz, 2011a, b).
In summary, while research in political communication has provided evidence that
social media were able to influence the frames of news media, we lack the knowledge of
what role social media play in the corporate communication field. We therefore,
investigated as a first step, how the public represented on Facebook frames a crisis in
comparison to other public sources. With this step we clarify, whether social media
provide alternative frames for the discursive negotiation of a crisis. Recent research has
compared crisis frames of a few elite blogs with corporate communication (Valentini
and Romenti, 2011). An integrative comparison with other relevant sources, such as
news media and NGOs, however, is still to be achieved:
RQ1. How does the public represented on Facebook frame a crisis and do the frames
differ from those of news media, NGOs, and corporate communications?
 CCIJ As a second step, we investigate the new relationship between social media and news
20,2 media. Because news media are a main influencer of public opinion (McCombs, 2005),
it is crucial to learn if social media have an impact on the news media framing
of a crisis. If social media are able to influence the framing of news media, their role for
public opinion formation would significantly increase. Recent research on political
communication indicates increasing framing power of social media (e.g. Meraz, 2011a, b).
166 However, it might also be that news media set the frames of social media. In that case the
frame-setting power of traditional media has not diminished, but has instead even gained
another channel of influence:
RQ2. Do the crisis frames in Facebook precede the frames of news media or vice versa?
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Method
Case and data collection
In order to answer the two research questions, we investigated the 2010 Nestlé Kit Kat
crisis that involved various sources that publicly framed the crisis. On March 17, 2010 the
NGO Greenpeace launched a viral campaign targeting Nestlé as being responsible for
the deaths of orangutans. As a reaction to the campaign, several hundred members of the
general public posted comments on Nestlé’s Facebook page that developed as a main
public forum for opinion expression. Additionally, a separate Facebook page was created
the crisis was discussed. Moreover, news media, such as the Guardian and the New York
Times, covered the crisis. We based our analysis on the texts disseminated by four
sources: 50 corporate statements by Nestlé; 148 news articles; 27 press releases and blog
entries from various NGOs including Greenpeace; 762 Facebook comments from the
official Facebook page of Nestlé and 96 Facebook comments from a Facebook site of
orangutan fans. We chose the official Nestlé page, and additionally, an independent
group page because these sites have been proven to be major discussion forums, where
different opinions are expressed in a crisis (e.g. Jones et al., 2009; Ki and Nekmat, 2014).
At the time of the investigation, Facebook comprised of 400 million users, the most
popular social media site; compared to 40 million Twitter users (Associated Press, 2012;
Statista, 2014). Furthermore, Facebook is a popular information source for various
stakeholder groups, such as journalists (Lariscy et al., 2009).
The analyzed documents were published during the three months following the
onset of the campaign, between March 12 and June 12, 2010. All press releases of Nestlé
and Greenpeace were directly sourced from the web sites of both organizations. News
articles were selected from LexisNexis by applying the search terms “Nestlé ‘and’ Palm
oil, ‘or’ Greenpeace ‘and’ deforestation.” Because the campaign, the press releases of
Nestlé, and the following discussion on the Nestlé Facebook were predominantly in
English, we chose a selection of well-read English language newspapers from the UK
and the USA. We also added well-read English newspapers from Australia and Asia
because it is the region where the issue of deforestation occurred (see Table I).
The Facebook comments were extracted from the public Facebook site of Nestlé and
the orangutan Facebook page. Because we looked at the framing through associations
that are expressed in single sentences, the unit of analysis was single sentences with
a total of 5,185 sentences, equaling 94,121 words, from all sources.

Data analysis
As a first step, we identified and compared the crisis frames for each source (RQ1).
Based on our theoretical framework we operationalized crisis frames as the frequency and
 Sentences Sentences
Public
framing of a
USA news media UK news media
Wall Street Journal 0 The Guardian 293 corporate
NY Times 122 Financial Times UK 111 crisis
USA Today 75 The Sun 19
CNN online 116 The London Times 0
Reuters online 956 The Sunday Times 323 167
Total 1,269 The Telegraph 120
The Independent 56
NGOs Metro UK 85
Greenpeace 830 Total 1,007
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Total 830
Asian/Australian news media
Corporate communication Jakarta Globe 534
Press releases Nestlé 530 The Edge Malaysia 333
Total 530 Singapore Business Times 73
Sydney Morning Herald 211
Facebook pages The Edge Singapore 274
Nestlé Facebook page 822 Total 1,425
Orangutan Facebook page 132 Table I.
Total 954 Sources and amount
Total sentences from all sources 5,185 of sentences

the association of attributes (the responsibility for “cause,” “solution,” “consequences,” and
“problem”) with the actors involved in the crisis. The actors (“Nestlé,” “subcontractors,”
“competitors,” “NGOs,” “the public,” and “political actors”) were identified through
qualitative reading of the texts. Manual coding of actors and attributes (Nvivo) was chosen
in order to avoid misrepresentations of texts invariably tied to word count-based
approaches (implicit actor reference, jargon, etc.). To ensure reliability of manual coding
we coded a random sample of 520 sentences with two coders that resulted in an
intercoder-reliability coefficient of 0.92, which can be considered as sufficient (Holsti, 1969).
To analyze the associations between actors and attributes, we measured the conditional
probabilities of co-occurrences between attributes and actors in sentences (Ruigrok and van
Atteveldt, 2007; Schultz et al., 2012). This approach allowed identifying how strong different
actors are associated with the cause, consequences, solution, and the problem itself.
In order to systematically assess the frame-setting effects between social media and
news media (RQ2), the data were analyzed using a cross-correlational analysis (McCleary
and Hay, 1980) with SPSS. This method has long been recognized and utilized as a robust
method in agenda-setting research for analyzing the interrelationship regarding issue
and attribute salience between news media and the public or between different media
(e.g. Gonzenbach and McGavin, 1997). In applying the method to conditional probabilities
of co-occurrences, we measured if and how strong frames, such as the association of an
actor (e.g. “Nestlé”) with a specific attribute (e.g. “cause”) in one media (e.g. news media)
follows the other media (e.g. social media). The cross-correlation test allows the data to be
analyzed with several different time lags (see Gonzenbach and McGavin, 1997; Wallsten,
2007). Under the assumption that individuals will discuss a crisis within just a few days
of reading news in the media or vice versa, we chose a seven-day lag period in each
direction for the cross-lagged correlations, which allowed detecting the frame-setting
effects between social media and news media on a day-to-day basis.
 CCIJ Results
20,2 Framing by Nestlé
In responding to accusations concerning their palm oil use, Nestlé focusses to a
great extent on the role of industry and its actors (for frequencies see Table II).
The remaining actors mentioned are NGOs, reflecting the urged response to the
campaign initiated by Greenpeace. Nestlé greatly prioritized statements about remedy
168 that is, what was already being done and what actions were planned to solve the problem
of deforestation associated with the chocolate-production processes. The computed frame
associations show that Nestlé attributed responsibility for remedy primarily to itself,
framing the company as the main solution provider, and to a smaller degree to
subcontractors. Nestlé refrained entirely from addressing the question of cause – who or
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what had been responsible for bringing about the problem of deforestation – just as
barely any mention was made of the consequences of deforestation. In summary, Nestlé’s
framing of the Kit Kat crisis was company-centric and forward-looking. It refrained from
any kind of blame-game, and by neither addressing circumstances of the past or the
future, it simultaneously avoided making statements that could place blame on Nestlé
itself or undermine the company’s credibility.
Clearly, the framing by the multinational food corporation reflects its efforts to
maintain a good reputation (Rao, 1994) through which Nestlé can ensure its economic
survival in the long run. It positions itself as the solution provider, ignoring completely
its responsibility for the cause of the crisis.

Framing by NGOs
Similarly to the framing in the corporate communication of Nestlé, NGO sources focus
on Nestlé without paying much attention to other industry actors such as competitors.
In addition, NGOs concentrate on remedial responsibility, are considerably less
concerned with analyzing causes of deforestation, or discussing who might have causal
responsibility. Associated frame analyses detects, however, that in discussing solutions,
NGOs associate responsibility more with the general public themselves than with Nestlé.
Political actors, conversely, are barely mentioned by NGOs. The NGO framing, then, can be
understood as belonging to a shaming discourse that focusses on the past perpetrations
of Nestlé, and emphasizes the responsibility of consumers to act to ensure solutions

Sources
Nestlé News NGO Public
Attributes
Cause 0.0 14.0 13.2 6.3
Consequences 1.9 19.3 0.0 18.0
Problem 13.2 24.4 13.2 32.7
Remedy 84.9 42.3 73.6 43.7
Actors
Nestlé 65.0 41.5 53.2 72.0
Subcontractors 10.8 14.5 13.5 2.5
Competitors 1.3 9.2 2.3 1.4
Table II. NGO 20.5 19.8 16.4 11.7
Frequency of actors Political 0.0 7.4 0.6 1.0
and attributes in % Public 2.4 7.6 14.0 11.4
 in collaboration with NGOs rather than putting direct pressure on industry to Public
provide solutions. framing of a
The framing by NGOs reflect an overall goal to foster social change (Den Hond and
De Bakker, 2007) with the aim to mobilize actions against the food corporation, by
corporate
putting Nestlé into the spot light and more or less ignoring other actors, such as crisis
suppliers, competitors, or politicians, that in fact might also be responsible for the cause
and solution for the problem. 169

Framing by the public represented on Facebook

The framing by the public represented on Facebook, much like that of NGOs, is
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overwhelmingly concerned with Nestlé, while paying very little attention to other
industry actors. Again, political actors are hardly mentioned in debates; whereas,
NGOs and the public have equal albeit modest representation. Similar to what we saw
in NGO framing, Facebook users pay little attention to causes and consequences of
deforestation, while focussing almost exclusively on remedial responsibility – on what
must be done to provide a solution. The associated framing analyses showed that the
online public attributes remedial responsibility almost exclusively to Nestlé, whereas
contrary to what we saw in the NGO framing, the online public sees itself less as part of
providing solutions. This reflects that in demanding that Nestlé accept responsibility
for deforestation, members of the online public do not generally frame themselves as
solution providers who might, for instance, boycott Nestlé.
The framing of the online public can be characterized as a protest discourse
that demands action from Nestlé, without enquiring into responsibility dynamics.
For example, they do not consider the responsibility of subcontractors and competitors
on the one hand and policy makers on the other. In addition, the social media protest,
unlike that of NGOs, omits consideration of what critical role members of the public
might play themselves.

Framing by news media

In contrast to the almost exclusively company-focussed, solution-oriented framings
of the above actors, a more balanced representation of actors and attributes was
found in the news media framing. In news texts, industry responsibility is discussed
more widely, with higher levels of representation of subcontractors and competitors.
Furthermore, the role of political actors, NGOs, and consumers is addressed.
The most pertinent distinguishing characteristic of news media is the considerable
attention given to responsibility for causing deforestation and for its consequences.
Nonetheless, Nestlé is by far the most prominent actor mentioned in the news media
and remedial responsibility is by far the dominant concern. The associated framing
analysis showed that causal responsibility is primarily attributed to Nestlé and
less to Nestlé’s competitors. Similarly, consequences are associated with Nestlé
and subcontractors and less with competitors. In other words, while other chocolate
manufacturers are held responsible for providing solutions, they are not to the
same extent held accountable for past and future consequences of their actions.
Beyond industry actors, only the general public was attributed with much
responsibility for remedy. NGOs and political actors were not framed as solution
providers in the news discourse. News coverage, thus, paid greater attention
to the role of public protest and consumer boycott than to advocacy and
policy-based solutions.
 CCIJ In sum, then, the news framing can be characterized as an individualized
20,2 accountability discourse which, while including and considering all actors and issues,
nonetheless emphasized the responsibility of Nestlé over other chocolate manufacturers
and prioritized the individual over political responsibility. Hence, even though in
comparison to the other sources the news media provided the most balanced framing of
the crisis, news media exert a bias toward Nestlé’s responsibility (as compared to other
170 industry actors) and toward the individual responsibility (as compared to political
responsibility).
Across the four sources we can observe a strong common trend, namely the vastly
dominant focus on Nestlé as actor and remedy as attribute. This means that across
different sources, with each their very different stake in the problem, the issue
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remained over a period of three months, a story about the individual company as well
as the demand for action on the immediate problem. As a consequence the debates over
deforestation overall become very much focussed on short-term, individual
responsibility rather than longer term, political responsibility.
However, when examining associations between actors and attributes, different
patterns of association emerge between sources and – in answer to our RQ1 – we find
that the crisis framing of the public represented on Facebook is distinct from that
of other actors. Surprisingly, perhaps, the framing of online public resembles most
the framing used in the communication of Nestlé. Both these sources associate
remedy almost exclusively with Nestlé itself and neither is concerned with causal
responsibility. The framing of the public represented on Facebook stands out from
that of NGOs in that NGOs do pay attention to causal responsibility and associate
remedy not with Nestlé but with the public. Similarly, news framing gives substantial
attention to causes and associates remedy equally with all industry actors. In other
words, the voice of the online public, more than any other voice in the debate, targets
Nestlé directly with a demand for solving the immediate problem of deforestation
caused by the particular practices involved in obtaining palm oil for their products.
The crucial question then is whether this strong framing exists in relative isolation on
Facebook or whether it is able to influence the framing of news media, thus gaining
wider audiences as well as, presumably, legitimacy.

Frame-setting effects between social media and news media

In order to assess the ability of social media to influence news media, RQ2 investigates
whether the social media’s crisis frames precede those of news media or vice versa.
The results of the cross-correlational analysis below show the frame-setting effects
between news media and social media. Table III shows conditional probabilities of
those news media frames that significantly precede those of social media; and
conditional probabilities of social media frames that significantly precede those of news
media[1]. For several crisis frames, there was no significant relationship. For these
frames, social media and news media did not influence each other. Significant
correlations did, however, exist for a substantial number of frames. As for positive,
unidirectional influence, this is only found from news media toward social media.
Attributing Nestlé’s casual responsibility for the crisis in social media followed the framing
in news media. Furthermore, the association of the subcontractors with causal and
remedial responsibility was a news media frame that preceded social media, indicating that
the framing of the subcontractor in social media was nurtured by the more elaborated
coverage in the news media. Lastly, the framing of NGOs, particularly the association of
NGOs with causes, was a news media frame that was followed by social media.
 News media precedes social media Social media precedes news media
Public
Lag Significant Lag Significant framing of a
Associations (days) cross-correlation Associations (days) cross-correlation corporate
Framing of Nestlé Framing of Nestlé crisis
Nestlé|cause 2 0.222 Nestlé|consequences 2 0.346
Nestlé|consequences 2 0.304 Nestlé|remedy 2 0.222
Nestlé|problem 3 0.257 Nestlé|problem 4 0.368 171
Remedy|Nestlé 2 0.253 Framing of politics
Nestlé|remedy 2 0.274 Politics|remedy 3 0.570
Framing of subcontractors Framing of public
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Subcontractors|cause 1 0.355 Public|consequences 6 0.432

Remedy|subcontractor 2 0.220
Framing of NGO
Cause|NGO 2 0.544
NGO|cause 2 0.412
Framing of politics
Politics|consequences 2 0.326
Politics|remedy 1 0.388
Politics|remedy 3 0.301
Framing of public
Consequences|public 1 0.912 Table III.
Problem|public 2 0.652 Significant cross-
Public|problem 2 0.454 correlations

A portion of significant correlations showed a bi-directional relationship between news

media and social media (i.e. significant and positive correlations at both positive and
negative lag periods). This seems to suggest that as news media started to employ a
particular form of crisis framing, the use of this framing subsequently increased in social
media, which in turn gave rise to more usage of this framing in news media. To be more
precise, for the attributes associated with Nestlé, politics, and the public, there was evidence
of a bi-directional relationship between news media and social media. This means that for
the framing of these actors over time, there is a mutual influence of framing responsibility.
Taken together, these results indicate that rather than social media directly influencing
the news media with its protest framing and strong demand for action from Nestlé, news
media introduced more complex responsibility frames into the discourse of the Facebook
discussion forums. Hence, the power of social media in terms of contributing to the
discursive negotiation of a crisis can be understood as an amplification of news
media frames. Certain crisis frames from the news media resonated and were
emphasized within social media, causing an increased focus on these particular
ways of understanding the crisis in news media and, perhaps, the general public.

Conclusion and discussion

Theoretical contributions
Our study provides two main theoretical contributions. First and most importantly,
with the use of frame-setting theory the present study sheds light on the new
relationship between news media and social media. The evidence of news media mainly
setting the crisis frames of the online public in Facebook shows that news media
 CCIJ remain a strong influencer of public discourse. By adapting certain crisis frames from
20,2 news media, the online public in Facebook delivers these frames to the general public in
a contemporary version of the two-step flow theory (Katz and Lazarsfeld, 1955).
Our analysis shows that social media frames follow the news media’s framing,
especially with respect to the framing of periphery actors, such as politics or
subcontractors. This indicates that the elaborate and relatively nuanced news coverage
172 of the crisis counteracts the simplified framing of Facebook. This finding stands in
contradiction to frame setting-studies in the political field, which have shown that
social media were able to set the frames of news media (Meraz, 2011a, b). The diverging
results might be explained with the choice of social media tools. Whereas studies in
political communication have looked at a few elite blogs authored by established
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commentators of political events, Facebook posts from members of the online public,
even though high in numbers, appear to be less influential.
Second, using the concept of frames and framing shows how the public represented
on Facebook frames a crisis differently than other established public sources. Hence,
even though Facebook users might not significantly influence the framing of news
media, they contributes to the discursive negotiation of a corporate crisis with a distinct
crisis framing. This study confirms prior findings that news media and social media
may exert different crisis frames (e.g. Valentini and Romenti, 2011), but extends this
finding to NGO and corporate communication sources. Other than news media framing
that is subject to several journalist biases in a complex process of news production
(Schudson, 2003); corporate communication framing that strives for maintaining a good
reputation (Rao, 1994); and NGOs that highlight causes, effects, and the role of the
public to mobilize and foster social change (Den Hond and De Bakker, 2007), the online
public demanded action from the corporation. Surprisingly, the online public, in
contrast to the NGO, exerts a view on the role of the public and consumers that is not
self-critical and refrains from any sort of blame-game.

Management implications
Building on these theoretical contributions our study has several practical implications
for issue management and crisis communication. The debate about the role of social
media for corporate communication has often left practitioners and scholars wondering,
how influential social media actually are for public opinion formation (e.g. Schultz et al.,
2011) and consequently how to prioritize “response resources” in a crisis (Seeger, 2006,
p. 237). Our findings indicate that, even though social media have been praised for
influencing news media in a significant way, it continues to be the news media that
influence the crisis framing of the online public in Facebook. Compared to Facebook, the
news media remain a major force in the discursive negotiation of a crisis and hence need
the major attention from crisis communication managers. For crisis planning or in times
of a crisis where response resources need to be allocated, crisis communication managers
are advised to focus the main resources on news media rather than Facebook, unless it is
a specific Facebook crisis (e.g. Ki and Nekmat, 2014). Based on our findings, it can even
be assumed that crisis responses to news media might indirectly affect the framing of
online publics in Facebook through the detected frame-setting effects.
Even though the frame-setting power of Facebook is marginal, the distinct framing
found on Facebook confirms previous scholars’ claim that minor audiences should not
be disregarded (e.g. Kelleher, 2009). Previously silent stakeholders are able to express
their opinions publicly and frame an organization in an unfortunate way. These
“signals” of reputational threats (Heugens et al., 2004, p. 1366) can be identified by
 monitoring and tracking the distinct framing of issues in social media. The detection of Public
distinct crisis frames might support the “identification of affected audiences” (Penrose, framing of a
2000, p. 157), which is a main part of crisis planning. Social media monitoring can either
be done passively, that is to wait until an issue is mentioned on a corporate social media
corporate
site, or actively, that is to monitor the ongoing and public conversations in social media, crisis
for example with new automated monitoring tools. These tools scan thousands or
millions of social media discussions for issues related to an organization and help to 173
evaluate if an issue “gains momentum” (Coombs, 2002, p. 219). Subsequently social media
with their inherent dialogic features can be applied for managing an emerging issue
using “two-way communication to foster understanding and minimize conflict” (Heath,
1998, p. 274), create partnerships with members of the online public, and help preventing
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a major crisis by addressing the distinct framing of an emerging crisis in social media.
In the case of a crisis, crisis managers can gain insights into alternative public frames
of a crisis by considering the social media framing, in order to predict levels of reputation
threats (Coombs, 2011). Our study underlines the necessity to assess the crisis framing in
social media because of its distinct crisis frames. In responding to the framing of a crisis
in social media, responses can be tailored to reach the online public through social media
channels directly (e.g. Veil et al., 2011). Nevertheless, crisis managers have to ensure that
crisis responses of social media do not contradict the responses of other channels because
stakeholders use different channels to inform themselves about crises. Perceived
contradictions might harm the crisis response efforts.

Limitations and future research

The presented study has several limitations, which might act as guidance for future
research. While we have analyzed available texts in Facebook, more textual data from
the online public is likely to be found on private, inaccessible Facebook pages or other
social media tools, such as Twitter. However, currently and at the time of investigation
Facebook was the most popular social media tool. Furthermore, corporate Facebook
pages have been used as important discussion forums, where various opinions are
exchanged during crises (e.g. Jones et al., 2009; Ki and Nekmat, 2014). Nevertheless,
because social media tools differ, the presented findings cannot simply be generalized
for other social media sites. Further studies might investigate the crisis framing and
frame-setting effects with the analysis of other social media platforms, such as Twitter,
blogs, or YouTube. It might be of interest, if and how elite-blogs or elite-Twitter-accounts
influence the public discourse in the field of corporate communication.
Another limitation is that statements on social media sites might be biased.
For example, certain personality types are more likely to express their opinions on
social media than others (Correa et al., 2010), which might impact the way a crisis is
framed on social media. As a consequence, the transfer of frames might be influenced
by these biases. Recent research indicates that negative news is more likely to generate
social media activity (Hansen et al., 2011), an effect, which might explain the transfer of
association with causes from news media to social media in this study. Similarly, the
transfer of frames from social media to news media is likely to be influenced by various
selection processes of journalists (Schudson, 2003). Finally, given the limited space
we have focussed on the frame-setting effects between news media and social media.
We therefore encourage further research on the frame-setting effects between social
media and other sources, such as corporate communication or NGOs. Such research
might give valuable indications for a complete picture of the discursive negotiation
of a contemporary corporate crisis.
 CCIJ Note
20,2 1. Results for synchronous effects as well as non-significant correlations are omitted here, but
can be obtained from the corresponding author.

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No. 2, pp. 55-60. crisis
About the authors
Dr Michael Andreas Etter is an Assistant Professor in the Centre for CSR at the Copenhagen
177
Business School. He investigates questions of CSR communication in a new media environment.
Dr Michael Andreas Etter is the corresponding author and can be contacted at: me.ibc@cbs.dk
Dr Anne Vestergaard is an Assistant Professor in the Centre for CSR at the Copenhagen
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Business School. Her interest lies in the field of communication and corporate social responsibility.

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