A STUDY OF CRISIS RESPONSE STRATEGIES AND MEDIA SELECTION: A CASE STUDY OF CAMPUS ACTIVITY INJURY INCIDENTS

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1 A STUDY OF CRISIS RESPONSE STRATEGIES AND MEDIA SELECTION: A CASE STUDY OF CAMPUS ACTIVITY INJURY INCIDENTS HUI-CHUNG YAO 1, KHAI-THUAN TRAN 2 1, 2 Department of Human Resource and Public Relations, Da-Yeh University, Taiwan (R.O.C) 2 trankhaithuan2007@gmail.com ABSTRACT This study uses an experiment of campus activity injury incident as a case to evaluate the effects of crisis response strategies (apology, sympathy and information only) and media (Facebook and online newspaper) on responsibility, reputation, participants emotions, and negative word-of-mouth (NWOM). Data was collected from 206 students and their parents in a Vietnamese university. The findings indicate that the sympathy strategy is a better strategy that can result in lower fear than the information strategy and apology strategy. Participants anger and fear is higher in the online newspaper condition which means that participants felt more anger regarding news from traditional media (online newspaper) than the Facebook condition in this experiment. Sympathy via Facebook condition is a better combination which can make stakeholders less anger and fear than the other combinations. Additionally, sympathy via online newspaper is a better combination which can make less NWOM than the combination of apology via Facebook. In the information condition, Facebook leads to less stakeholder anger than an online newspaper. Similarly, in the sympathy condition the online newspaper led to more fear than Facebook. The findings are in line with Schultz et al. (2011) who argued that the medium was more important than the message. This is the first study that focused on the effect of the combination of crisis responses strategies and media in a Vietnamese university and the outcome of this study calls for more research on various crisis response strategies via social media in Vietnam. Keywords: Facebook, Anger, Fear, Crisis Responses Strategies, Crisis Communication INTRODCUTION In Vietnam unintentional injury is the leading cause of death of children and teenagers. More recent data shows that 7,894 children and adolescents aged 0 19 years died in This equates to 4,818 per 100,000 children of this age group, or 5 percent of all children injured enough to seek medical attention or miss at least one day in school or at the workplace (Oxley, Pham, Jamaludin, & Stevenson, 2011). Universities, similar to other types of organizations, have reputations and stakeholders (Brooks, Oringel, & Ramaley, 2013). According to Fombrun (2000), reputation scores, such as rankings, offer a visible method to quantify reputation. Rankings for school, colleges, and universities are based on various aspects of the institutions such as who gets into the institution, the value of the education, and university life as experienced by students. University stakeholders such as present students, future students, their parents, and employees may use these informational rankings to establish their interest in particular universities or colleges. When an injury occurs, parents of students normally use the media, such as radio, newspapers and social media, even the law to protect their rights or tell negative information about the university to others. At this time the reputation of the university will be threatened, a response is necessary because some responsibility for the crisis occurring is being attributed to the 1

2 university (e.g., Benoit, 1995, 2000; Len-Rios & Benoit, 2004). If stakeholders are satisfied with the response from the university during the crisis, the university will mitigate any reputation damage. And if not, the crisis will become more hazardous to the university. Research suggests that organizations should choose crisis response strategies consistent with the crisis type (Benoit, 1997; Coombs & Holladay, 2007, 2008, 2009; McDonald, Sparks, & Glendon, 2010; Schultz, Utz, & Göritz, 2011). In addition, in crisis communication social media played an important role in how organizations communicate crisis situations to audiences and how stakeholders were informed about a crisis (Prentice & Huffman, 2008). Through social media stakeholders can easily empower themselves by reacting to the actions of an organization or group; therefore social media makes stakeholders more powerful in crisis communication. Coombs and Holladay (2009) argued that the impact of different media types on the effects of different crisis response strategies is still understudied. Additionally, Schultz et al. (2011) argued that the effects of different media and especially social media on recipients in crisis situations are still understudied (p. 20). To fill this gap, many studies examine the effects of different crisis communication strategies via different media on crisis communication (Coombs & Holladay, 2009; Schultz et al., 2011; Utz, Schultz, & Glocka, 2013). In 2012, there were 30,858,742 internet users of the 91,519,000 people of Vietnam in which 95% of the internet users visited an online news site and 86% a social networking site especially Facebook. However, a Vietnamese crisis manager paid less interest in studying the effect of crisis response strategies for different conditions and had little literature about crisis response strategies via media (Nguyen, 2011). The purpose of this study is to address the gap in the literature by comparing the effects of different crisis response strategies (apology, sympathy, and information) via different media (Facebook and an online newspaper) in a crisis of activity injury incidents on campus. This will have both practical and theoretical implications when crisis response strategies via media are analyzed in relation to the perceptions of responsibility and reputation, participants emotions, and negative word-of-mouth (NWOM) LITERATURE REVIEW Crisis communication Crisis communication is used by crisis managers and public relations representatives to protect an organization s reputation in a crisis, and organizational responses are often delivered through public relations personnel (Fombrun, 2000). Coombs (2007) argued that Situational Crisis Communication Theory (SCCT) can be used to test the effects of crisis communication from the organization and it can restrict reputational harm to the organization. After victims are safe, this theory can be used to predict the threat to reputation and select the appropriate crisis response strategy. When a crisis occurs people will make attributions of the cause of the crisis and the extent to which the organization should be blamed for the crisis. Coombs (2007) argued that it is called crisis responsibility and if the organization is deemed responsible, their reputation suffers and negative outcomes are generated. In turn, stakeholders may sever connections to the organization and/or create negative word-of-mouth. Crisis responsibility Crisis responsibility is a function of stakeholder attributions of personal control of the crisis by the organization in other words how much stakeholders believe organizational actions caused the crisis (Coombs, 1995). A crisis situation can make people engage in attribution processing of organizational responsibility. Responsibility requires accountability and the organization must answer for its actions (Weiner, 2006). Coombs (2007) argued that each crisis type generates specific and predictable levels of crisis responsibility attributions of organizational responsibility for the crisis and Coombs and Holladay (1996) suggest that crisis responsibility is negatively related to organizational reputation. Reputation Corporate reputations are formed by what the organization does and how it treats its stakeholders over-time, and an organization s long-term success is dependent on a favorable reputation (Fombrun, 2000). Fombrun and Van Riel (1997) derived the definition of reputation as: a collective representation of a firm s past actions and results that describes the firm s ability to deliver valued 2

3 outcomes to multiple stakeholders (p.10). Reputation is recognized as a valuable but intangible asset for an organization (Coombs, 2007; Fombrun, 2000) and it affects the perceptions stakeholders hold of the organization on an affective and behavioral level (Argenti & Barnes, 2009; Coombs & Holladay, 2004; Balmer & Greyser, 2006), which leads to positive attitudes towards the organization, which in turn leads to positive word-of-mouth (WOM), purchase or investment intention, and intention to work for the organization (Argenti & Barnes, 2009). Reputation is damaged when an attack is executed towards the organization. An attack is defined as a conflict between an organization and one (or more) of its stakeholders for which the organization is held responsible (Benoit, 1997). Emotion Emotion is a variable that has just started to be explored in crisis communication (Choi & Lin, 2009; Coombs, 2007; Coombs & Holladay, 2008). Much of the literature about emotion claims that emotion can act as information, guiding judgment and decisionmaking (Loewenstein, Weber, Hsee, & Welch, 2001). If the organization had a crisis and the response of the organization cannot satisfy the stakeholder, it will produce negative emotions, thus affecting the assessments of the stakeholders on the organization. McDonald and Härtel (2000) argued that anger is one of the most frequently experienced emotions and is the affective response most commonly associated with crisis. Concerning fear, Kim and Kim (2010) argued that fear has long been perceived as one of the effective factors that influence people s attitude and behavior. McDonald et al. (2010) tested the effects of anger, joy, surprise, sympathy, and fear on crisis communication. The study provided evidence that different emotion categories drive different behavioral intentions, such as fearful and angry stakeholders indulge in NWOM, angry stakeholders are driven to complain, and those reporting joy are more loyal (p.269). Negative word-of-mouth In recent studies, many researchers have paid more attention to negative word-of-mouth intentions (Coombs & Holladay, 2007, 2008, 2009; McDonald et al., 2010). Coombs and Holladay (2007, 2008) suggest other important outcomes stem from a crisis including anger and negative word-of-mouth. Anger could cause stakeholders to say bad things about the organization to others they know it called negative word-of-mouth. Jorgensen (1996) argued that negative word-of-mouth communication is a predictor of purchase intention; negative word-ofmouth communication could be a threat to an organization in a crisis. Coombs and Holladay (2007) show that negative word-of-mouth spreads unfavorable information from person to person and may affect present and future purchase intention. After word-of-mouth spreads, the damage from a crisis consequently cannot be controlled. Based on the effect of negative word-of-mouth, this study uses it as the last dependent variable. Crisis responses strategies When a crisis happens the audience is eager to assign responsibility to the causes of the crisis (Coombs & Holladay, 1996). Crisis response strategies are used to repair the reputation, to reduce negative affect and to prevent negative behavioral intention (Coombs, 2007, p.170). Thus, organizations should craft crisis response strategies to control reputational damage and diffuse stakeholder negative feelings. An organization s crisis response strategy is represented by what the organization says and does when a crisis has occurred (Coombs, 2007). Crisis response strategies have three objectives relative to protecting reputation: shape attribution of the crisis, change perception of the organization in crisis and reduce the negative effect generated by the crisis (Coombs, 1995). According to SCCT, these objectives support the larger goal of reputation protection and are represented by crisis responsibility, organization reputation, and emotion (Coombs, 2007). Apology happens when an organization recognizes, accepts responsibility, and asks forgiveness for the crisis (Benoit & Drew, 1997), and promises to avoid repeating the same wrongful act (Kellerman, 2006). According to Coombs and Holladay (2008, 2009), sympathy can be viewed as the organization s attentiveness to crisisaffected stakeholders and sympathy response is considered more personal and warmer. When a crisis happens, the most important step is to transmit information to stakeholders (Mitroff, 2004). The response strategy of information occurs when crisis managers only report what happened. 3

4 Coombs and Holladay (2008) use a student population and the Marcus Oil crisis. They compared four strategies, namely apology, sympathy, information, and compensation to evaluate their overall effectiveness in crisis communication. The results showed that apology, sympathy, and compensation strategies had the same score on postcrisis reputation evaluations, anger, and negative word-of-mouth intention. In addition, Coombs and Holladay (2008) found that information resulted in lower levels of account acceptance than those elicited by sympathy and apology. In a study of social media use in crisis communication, Schultz et al. (2011) used online panel members and a Mercedes Benz crisis to investigate the different effects of three strategies, namely apology, sympathy, and information on crisis communication. Their study found that information strategy turned out to be the most successful in secondary crisis reactions. But in a study by Coombs and Holladay (2008), they argued that apology and sympathy strategies are more successful than information. There are pertinent disagreements that exist about the effectiveness of these strategies. Thus, the different effects of apology, sympathy, and information in crisis communication should continue to be studied in different kinds of organizations. To address the gap, this study proposes five hypotheses (1a 1e): Hypothesis 1a: Information strategy leads to more responsibility than apology and sympathy strategies. Hypothesis 1b: Information strategy leads to less reputation than apology and sympathy strategies. Hypothesis 1c: Information strategy leads to more participants anger than apology and sympathy strategies. Hypothesis 1d: Information strategy leads to more participants fear than apology and sympathy strategies. Hypothesis 1e: Information strategy leads to more NWOM than apology and sympathy strategies. Medium Coombs (2007) argued that most of the information stakeholders collect about organizations is derived from the news media (p.164). In the past, organizations merely used media for informational or persuasive purposes; nowadays (social) media are used to communicate with stakeholders in a dialogic model of interaction to cooperate (Argenti & Barnes, 2009). Social media are playing an increasingly important role in how organizations communicate crisis situations to audiences and how stakeholders are informed about a crisis (Prentice & Huffman, 2008). For instance, Schultz et al. (2011) compared a traditional newspaper to Twitter and a blog to evaluate their overall effectiveness in the Marcus Oil crisis communication. They found that that the blog and Twitter were given a high score on post-crisis reputation. Also, people talk more about newspaper articles than the blog and Twitter and secondary crisis communication was highest in the newspaper condition. Utz et al. (2013) compared an online newspaper to Twitter and Facebook to test their overall effectiveness in the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster crisis communication. The study shows that the result of crisis communication via Facebook is higher reputation and less secondary crisis reactions than via an online newspaper. News from (online) newspapers is perceived as more credible and consequently shared more often on social media (p.45). On the other hand, people mainly talk about news from traditional media because they interpret traditional media as more credible than social media. Thus, traditional media is still an important role in crisis communication strategies. Based on the study results of Schultz et al. (2011) and Utz et al. (2013), this study only focuses on the effect of Facebook and an online newspaper to find out which is the better medium; therefore hypotheses (2a 2e) are: Hypothesis 2a: Crisis communication via Facebook leads to less responsibility than crisis communication via an online newspaper. Hypothesis 2b: Crisis communication via Facebook leads to higher reputation than crisis communication via an online newspaper. Hypothesis 2c: Crisis communication via Facebook leads to less participants anger than crisis communication via an online newspaper. Hypothesis 2d: Crisis communication via Facebook leads to less participants fear than crisis communication via an online newspaper. 4

5 Hypothesis 2e: Crisis communication via Facebook leads to less NWOM than crisis communication via an online newspaper. The combination of crisis response strategies and medium Nowadays, there are many scholars that explore the interaction between crisis strategies and medium (Coombs & Holladay, 2009; Schultz et al., 2011; Liu, Austin, & Jin, 2011). A study by Schultz et al. (2011) found that the medium has a larger influence on stakeholders than the content of the message and Liu et al. (2011) argued that the chosen crisis information channel influences the audiences acceptance of the crisis message. In addition, Coombs and Holladay (2009) did not find any significant interaction effect between media type and response condition on four variables: organizational reputation, anger, account acceptance, and NWOM. On the other hand, Schultz et al. (2011) METHODOLOGY Participants This study focused on the effect of crisis response strategies and media selection in a case study of incidents of activity injuries on campus. Thus, the participants were 255 students and their parents from a university in Ho Chi Minh City (Vietnam) and they are in different ages as well as living location to research be diversified. The questionnaire was distributed in four weeks from January 30, 2015 and ended at February 28, Design Hong Lac University a fictitious university was created to control for potentially biased responses based on personal past experiences and to reduce negative effects on an existing university s reputation caused by the study. Survey instructions explained that the university, crisis, and messages were fictitious. The sample data were collected using paper-based questionnaires. In addition, all data was stored according to a numbered anonymous list to ensure the protection of the participants. A group of six members was set up to distribute questionnaires. Each member is focus on one of six versions. The sample data were collected using paper-based questionnaires. In addition, all data was stored according to a numbered anonymous list to ensure the protection of the participants. At first, the participants were told that they would be reading a found a marginally significant interaction between medium and reaction that the effect of reaction was strongest in the twitter only condition and smallest in the twitter + blog condition, the short messages in the twitter only condition have a strong impact on behavioral intentions (p.25). Thus, to explore interaction effects between media and crisis response strategies is truly needed. This study focuses on the combination between crisis response strategies and media to find the best combination that has the best effectiveness on participants perception of responsibility, reputation, anger, fear, and NWOM in a case study of unintentional injury incidents on campus. For this purpose we propose which, if any, combination of crisis response strategies and media is markedly best on perceptions of responsibility and reputation, participants emotions, and NWOM in a case study of activity injury incidents on campus? news story describing an injury crisis and its organizational response which was displayed on the screen of a tablet PC. Convenient participants were randomly exposed to one of six conditions (apology condition via Facebook, sympathy condition via Facebook, information condition via Facebook, apology condition via an online newspaper, sympathy condition via an online newspaper or information condition via an online newspaper). The apology read as: We at the university accept responsibility for the incident. We deeply apologize to the victims and their families. We hope those who were affected by the incident can forgive us. The sympathy text was We at the university were deeply saddened by this incident. The safety of our students and especially the students who were hurt in this incident is the utmost importance to us. Our thoughts and prayers go out to those affected by this incident. The information text was An incident happened in the Volunteer Program. Five of our students suffered minor injuries and only one student was permanently disabled. The program will close until we have repaired all mistakes and ensured the safety of the students. 5

6 Measures Participants were asked for manipulation checks with multiple choice questions and another 19 questions using a 5-point Likert-type scale with the anchors of strongly disagree and strongly agree regarding responsibility, reputation, participants emotions, and NWOM. The university s crisis responsibility was measured using five items based on a scale developed by Coombs (1998) that was adapted from Griffin, Babin, and Darden (1992). Five questions measured reputation based on the Organizational Reputation Scale developed by Coombs and Holladay (1996), which was adapted from McCroskey (1966). Three questions measured anger based on Coombs and Holladay (2005, 2007). Fear was measured using three items from Yao s (2014) modified fear message paradigm of Choi and Lin (2009) and Coombs and Holladay s (2005, 2007) items on anger. Negative word-of-mouth intention was measured using three items from Coombs and Holladay (2008). Three demographic questions addressed the respondent s age, gender, and living location. As a control, the name of the university, activity experience, and incident were assessed with three questions. ANALYSIS RESULTS Response data Three hundred students and their parents in a university were selected to participate, and 255 responses were returned (response rate: 85%); 206 participants completed the experiment. This represented an effective response rate of 81%. The demographic information of participants was 108 males (52.4%) and 98 females (47.6%) completed the experiment. The distribution by age is as follows: 54 participants were less than 30 (26.2%); 50 were (24.3%); 51 were (24.8%); 37 were (18.8%), 14 were more than 60 (6.8%). Of the participants 67 (32.5%) were from Northern Vietnam, 42 (20.4%) participants were from Central Vietnam, and 97 (47.1%) participants were from Southern Vietnam. Reliability test The internal consistency of scores within each scale was measured using Cronbach s alpha. The scores of each scale indicated an acceptable reliability coefficient. According to the rule of George and Mallery (2003), if the alpha score is more than.7, the scale is acceptable. In this study, the reliability coefficients (Cronbach s alpha) were.776,.874,.854,.804, and.770 for the responsibility, reputation, anger, fear, and the NWOM scale respectively. All of the coefficients represent acceptable reliability scores. The effect of crisis response strategies A one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) was conducted to check the differences in means of three crisis response strategies (apology, sympathy, and information only) on university responsibility, reputation, participants emotions, and NWOM. The results showed that there were statistically significant differences in means among three response strategies on reputation (F(2, 203) = 3.33, p =.038 <.05), and fear (F(2, 203) = 9.25, p =.000 <.001). Crisis response strategies were not significant differences on responsibility (F(2, 203) =.32, p =.73 >.05), anger (F(2, 203) = 1.60, p=.204>.05), and NWOM (F(2, 203) =.28, p =.76 >.05). Thus, hypotheses 1a, 1c, and 1e were rejected. A post hoc analysis using the Scheffe test was conducted to reveal the different means among three strategies. For reputation, the results found that the significant difference between three strategies condition was slight and unclear. Hence, hypothesis 1b was rejected. Regarding participants fear, the Scheffe test revealed that the information only and sympathy condition showed statistically significant difference (p=.017<.05), the apology and sympathy condition showed significant reach level of differences (p=.000<.001) and did not find any significant differences between the apology and information only condition (p>.05). The sympathy strategy leads to less participants fear (M= 3.33) than information only strategy (M= 3.65) and apology strategy (M= 3.79). Therefore, hypothesis 1d was partially supported. The effect of medium To examine what effect of Facebook and the online newspaper had on university responsibility, 6

7 reputation, participants emotions, and NWOM, the independent samples T-test was conducted. The main effect of medium on university reputation (t=-5.33, p=.000<.001), anger (t=-5.09, p=.000<.001), fear (t=- 3.45, p=.001<.01), and NWOM (t=3.67, p=.000<.001) were significant reach level difference. No significant differences were found for responsibility (t=.60, p=.55>.05), which means that was no difference of effect between the Facebook condition and online newspaper condition on responsibility. Thus, hypotheses 2a was rejected. For reputation, the result showed that online newspaper (M=3.63) leads to higher reputation than Facebook (M=3.15). This outcome was in contrast with the expectation that crisis communication via Facebook leads to higher reputation than via an online newspaper. Therefore, hypothesis 2b was rejected. In the Facebook condition, the participants felt less anger (M=3.05) than the online newspaper condition (M=3.57) and it led to less the participants fear (M=3.43) than the online newspaper condition (M=3.75). Therefore, hypothesis 2c and 2d were supported. The participants in the Facebook condition showed more negative word-of-mouth (M=4.04) than the participants who read the online newspaper (M=3.72). The result means that Facebook leads to more negative word-of-mouth than the online newspaper. This outcome is in contrast to hypothesis 2e, which was rejected. The effect of the combination of crisis response strategies and medium To answer the last aim of the study, a one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) was conducted to examine the best combination of crisis response strategies and media on university responsibility, reputation, participants emotions, and NWOM in the case of incidents of activity injuries on campus. The combination of crisis response strategies and medium in this study include apology via Facebook, sympathy via Facebook, information via Facebook, apology via an online newspaper, sympathy via an online newspaper, and information via an online newspaper. The results of the ANOVA show that the combination of crisis response strategies and medium were significant for reputation (F(5, 200)=7.97, p=.000<.001), anger (F(5, 200)=6.48, p=.000<.001), fear (F(5, 200)=7.23, p=.000<.001), and NWOM (F(5, 200)=3.64, p=.004<.01). But there was no significant difference for university responsibility (F(5, 200)=.67, p=.644>.05). These results show that the effect of the combination of crisis response strategies and medium on responsibility was not significant which must be rejected. A post hoc analysis with the Scheffe test was conducted to reveal the different means among six combinations of strategies and medium. For reputation, the results show that information via online newspaper was significant different for sympathy via Facebook (p=.000<.001) and information via the Facebook condition (p=.023<.05); sympathy via online newspaper was significant different for sympathy via Facebook (p=.009<.05); apology via online newspaper was significant different for sympathy via Facebook (p=.002<.05). We did not find any significant differences for the other conditions (p>.05). Information via the online newspaper condition (M=3.76) leads to higher reputation than information via the Facebook condition (M=3.20) and sympathy via the Facebook condition (M=2.90). Apology via the online newspaper condition (M=3.59) leads to higher reputation than sympathy via the Facebook condition (M=2.90). Sympathy via the online newspaper condition (M=3.52) leads to higher reputation than sympathy via the Facebook condition (M=2.91). Regarding participants anger, the Scheffe test showed that information via an online newspaper was significant different for apology via Facebook (p=.038<.05), sympathy via Facebook (p=.000<.001), information via Facebook (p=.013<.05). The other conditions were not significant (p>.05). Information via an online newspaper was lead to more participants anger (M=3.77) than apology via Facebook (M=3.16); information via Facebook (M=3.09); and sympathy via Facebook (M=2.90). Concerning participants fear, the Scheffe test showed that sympathy via Facebook was significant different for apology via Facebook (p=.003<.05); apology via the online newspaper (p=.000<.001); information via an online newspaper (p=.001<.05); and sympathy via an online newspaper (p=.030<.05). Sympathy via Facebook was lead to less participants fear (M=3.06) than sympathy via an online 7

8 newspaper (M=3.59); apology via Facebook (M=3.71); information via an online newspaper (M=3.77); and apology via the online newspaper (M=3.88). For NWOM, the Scheffe test showed that only sympathy via an online newspaper was significant different for apology via Facebook (p=.037<.05) and apology via Facebook was lead to more NWOM (M=4.15) than sympathy via online newspaper (M=3.63). DISCUSSION Key findings This study examined participants reactions after receiving crisis response messages (apology, sympathy, and information) via media (Facebook and an online newspaper) from a university in crisis. The results indicated that the online newspaper condition led to higher university reputation but it led to more participants anger and fear than Facebook condition. A possible explanation for this is that our experiment was conducted using a crisis in Hong Lac University, which is a fictitious organization. Corporate reputation is formed by participants perceptions of what the organization does and how it treats its stakeholders over time (Fombrun, 2000). In this study, this was the first time that the university used a strategy to respond to a crisis and therefore this is the first time that the participants received the message from this fictitious university. It could be that university reputation is not shaped instantaneously and the public cannot make an accurate evaluation of the organization's reputation. Thus, this study s results of the effect on reputation are not valid and are not generalizable. According to the results, crisis response strategies were only significant reach level difference for participants fear. Data indicated that the sympathy strategy resulted in lower evaluations of fear than the information and apology strategy. In testing the effect of media, the results showed that participants anger and fear is higher in the online newspaper condition which means that participants felt more angry regarding news from traditional media (online newspaper) than the Facebook condition because they interpret traditional media as more credible than social media (Schultz et al., 2011; Utz et al., 2013). Thus, using Facebook is better than an online newspaper leading to less participants anger and fear. On the other hand, negative word-ofmouth is higher in the Facebook condition, which is in contrast with Schultz et al. (2011) who argued that secondary crisis communication was highest in the newspaper condition. To explain this study result, Coombs and Holladay (2007) argued that communication via social media can be shared or forwarded with others by one mouse click because of the character of social media. Thus, an online newspaper is a better choice to reduce negative wordof-mouth than social media. Accordingly, the university should choose a medium type depending on the goal of crisis communication. The final results show that the effect of the combination of strategies and medium found for university reputation, participants anger, fear and NWOM was the same reason mentioned above on why the result of reputation in this study cannot be used. Thus, this study focused on participants anger, fear and NWOM. The results showed that the sympathy via Facebook condition is a better combination which can make participants less anger and fear than the other combinations. Participants feel more anger about the university when using the information strategy via an online newspaper a5nd they fell more fear when university uses the apology via online newspaper. A possible explanation is that the sympathy strategy is considered more personal and warmer (Coombs & Holladay, 2008, 2009) while the information strategy only reported what happened and participant might think that an unintentional injury was not serious enough for an apology. Addition, participant might think that news from traditional media is more credible and seems serious than Facebook. For NWOM, sympathy via online newspaper is a better combination which can make less NWOM than the combination of apology via Facebook. In the information condition, Facebook leads to less participants anger (M=2.90) than an online newspaper (M=3.75). Similarly, in the sympathy condition the online newspaper led to more fear (M=3.5980) than Facebook (M=3.01). The findings are in line with Schultz et al. (2011) who argued that the medium was more important than the message. 8

9 Future research directions and limitations The strengths of this study are that it was a true experiment and that it was conducted face-to-face and not in a restricted laboratory setting. This contributes to the external validity of this experiment. People usually do not read online newspapers or Facebook in a laboratory; consequently, this setting can be regarded as more natural and the findings as more valid. The use of a fictitious university and crisis may also be seen as a limitation of this study. The participants were not familiar with the university, thus their judgments may not truly represent their responses in a real scenario. Also, the university has no prior relational reputation; the participants may have perceived quite some distance between the presented situation and their attitude towards the organization, which could point to the reason why the value of corporate reputation contradicts other dependent variables in this study. Future research should think about using a real organization and crisis to improve the results of the study. Another limitation is that the present study focused on only three crisis response strategies and two media. Future studies should attempt to broaden the spectrum of the crisis response conditions (e.g., denial, compensation) and compare them with different media (e.g., videos, YouTube, blogs). On the other hand, the participants only watched one of the six randomly assigned versions of the screenshot, which was not real media, and cannot determine the participants who was a real Facebook user or an online newspaper follower. Also, the crisis was an accidental cluster that was unintentional (Coombs, 2007). Thus, the study cannot determine a significant difference for strategies and medium on university responsibility, which likely in the same condition. Regarding future study, although crisis communication via social media is better for a university to reduce participants anger and fear, crisis communication via traditional media still plays an important role because of its credibility. Additionally, although the medium is more important than the message, the message is still used to repair reputation, reduce negative affect and to prevent negative behavioral intention (Coombs, 2007). The results mean that it is important to include messages in the underlying research process. This is the first study that focused on the effect of the combination of crisis response strategies and medium in a Vietnamese university. This study has shown that the choice of crisis response strategy and medium type is closely related. Although Facebook may lead to the negative word-of-mouth damage but it is better when combine with sympathy strategy which can lead to less participants anger and fear. In the same strategy (message) condition, the using different media will have different results; this finding is in line with Schultz et al., (2011) who argued that the medium is more important than the message. The sympathy strategy is a better strategy that can result in lower fear than the information strategy and apology in an accidental crisis resulting in injury. Finally, the use of the right combinations of crisis response strategy and medium type can protect an organization during a crisis, which calls for more research on various crisis response strategies via social media as well. REFERENCES 1. Argenti, P. A., & Barnes, C. M. (2009). Digital strategies for powerful corporate communications. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill. 2. Balmer, J. M., & Greyser, S. A. (2006). Corporate marketing: Integrating corporate identity, corporate branding, corporate communications, corporate image and corporate reputation. European Journal of Marketing, 40(7/8), Benoit, W. L. (1995). Accounts, excuses, and apologies: A theory of image restoration strategies. Albany: State University of New York Press. 4. Benoit, W. L. (1997). Image repair discourse and crisis communication. Public Relations Review, 23(2), Benoit, W. L. (2000). Another visit to the theory of image restoration strategies. Communication Quarterly, 48(1),

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