MASTER THESIS
Framing a crisis in the media
The interplay of organizations, the media and the public.
Merel van Someren 10349707
University of Amsterdam
Master Thesis: Corporate Communication Science Supervisor: Ms. F. Schultz
Abstract
This study focuses on the interplay between the media, the organization and the public during a crisis, by analysing the influence of the organizations communication via press releases on the media coverage, the crisis framing in the media on the public opinion and actions about the organization. The results indicate that the press release could be an important information source for the media when they need information that only the company in crisis can provide. This was studied in a qualitative content analysis. The second study, an online experiment, focuses on the effect of the framing of the crisis in the news media and on the evaluation of the crisis of the public by studying their thoughts on the reputation of the organization, the crisis communication and reactions of the consumers, no significant results were found.
Table of Content
1. Introduction 4
2. Theoretical Framework 6
2.1 Organizational crisis communication 6
2.2 Crisis construction in news media 8
2.3 Public power perceptions; how this relates to corporate communication and news
media. 11
2.4. Reputation 12
2.5 Secondary crisis communication and reaction 13
3. Method 14 3.1 Case Study 15 3.2 Study 1 15 3.2.1 Data collection 15 3.2.2. Data Analyses 16 3.3 Results Study 1 17 3.4 Study 2 22 3.4.1 Manipulation test 22
3.4.2. Participants and design 22
3.4.3 Procedure 23
3.4.4. Independent variables 24
3.4.5 Dependent measures 24
3.5 Analyse 25
3.6 Results Study 2 25
4. Conclusion and Discussion 26
5. References 29
6. Appendix 1 – Study 1 Code book 33
1. Introduction
We are living in an era of crises, as news headlines remind us daily. In the current technological environment everybody is connected to the world through his or her mobile phone. Staying connected and sharing experiences have become daily routine. Due this sharing behaviour of consumers, public organizations need to be alert for unwelcome surprises such as crises (Lerbinger, 2012). As crises become more numerous, disastrous and visible, organizations need to accept them and act with extreme consideration to avoid as much damage as possible.
Research in the field of crisis communication focuses mainly on the crisis response strategies that are used to protect the reputation of the organization (Benoit, 1997). The Situational Crisis Communication Theory (SCCT) of (Coombs, 1998; Coombs & Holladay, 2008) argues that choosing the right crisis response strategy decreases the amount of responsibility of the organization, which will limit the reputation damage. Previous research also focuses on the relationship between the crisis communications from the organization directly to the consumers with the emerging social media. As a result the focus on the communication through newspaper loses focus. Previous research has shown that traditional media like newspapers is perceived as more reliably and creditable by individuals compared to news received through social media. When consumers read the news in the newspapers they are more likely to talk about the crisis with other individuals than when they read about the crisis on social media websites like Twitter or Facebook (Schultz, Utz, & Göritz, 2011; Utz, Schultz, & Glocka, 2013).
Organizations have limited power over the media coverage of the organizational crisis in the newspapers. The media influences the public through the framing of news items. It is often stated that this so called ‘agenda-setting’ determines
which topics get attention in the media and how the news items are constructed what could have a negative effect on the organization during a crisis (Carroll & McCombs, 2003). The public evaluation of these news items can influence the way a consumer interacts and perceives the organization with a possible effect on reputation, secondary crisis communication and secondary crisis reactions (Coombs & Holladay, 2008; Coombs & Holladay, 2009). An organization can only try to minimalize their limited power by communicating to the newspapers by publishing press releases.
This paper contributes to science by filling a research gap, by studying the influence of an organization in the interplay of the media, the organization and the public during a crisis. This could be done by analysing the influence of the communication via press releases of the organization on the media coverage and the crisis framing in the media on the public opinion and actions of the consumers. In order to study this possible influence of the following research questions is presented: How does the communication of an organization via press releases influence the content of the news articles (1) and how does the news framing effect the reputation of the organization and secondary crisis communication and reactions of the consumer (2)?
This paper provides more insights on the influence of a company on the effects of media framing of an organizational crisis and the effect this has on the consumers (see Figure 1). More specifically, by knowing how the media is likely to frame a crisis in newspapers, and knowing what kind of effect this has on the perceptions and actions of the consumers, an organization can use these findings in constructing communication, like press releases, during a crisis. This will be researched by a (1) qualitative content analyses, which will study how much influence the communication of a press release will have on the framing of the crisis in the news media, and (2) by an quantitative
experiment to study the influence of the different news frames on the reputation, secondary crisis communication and secondary crisis reactions of the consumer.
Figure 1. Research design
2. Theoretical Framework
2.1 Organizational crisis communication
A crisis is defined as ‘a sudden and unexpected event that threatens to disrupt an organization’s operations and poses both a financial and a reputational threat’ (Coombs, 2007). Because crises creates high levels of uncertainty and are perceived as a significant threat to the organizations high priority goals, an immediate need for information will develop (Seeger, Sellnow, & Ulmer, 2003). Communication during and after the crisis can determine the long-term effect (Coombs, 2014). Without this information, the public will rely on rumours for information, which increases uncertainty by the public (Veil & Ojeda, 2010). In order to prevent these negative developments, organizations need to preserve their relationship with their stakeholder by communicating with them (Stephens & Malone, 2009).
Current theories on crisis communication response theories are based on the attribution theory by Weiner (1985), which serves the basis for explaining the relationship between crisis response strategies and crisis situations (Coombs, 1995). The theory states that people try to determine why people do what they do; they want
to determine the cause of an event or behaviour. People make judgments on a situation based on (1) locus of control (can the cause of the crisis be assigned to the organization or lies the responsibility outside the organization), (2) stability (do the causes change overtime) and (3) controllability (could the cause be controlled by the organization). Therefore, in a crisis situation people tend to attribute responsibly to an organization and connect a positive or a negative emotion response to that attribution (Coombs, 2007). Another influencing theory in crisis communication is the impression management theory that states that any individual or organization must establish and maintain impressions that are congruent with the perceptions they want to convey to their publics. The expectations of the public must get confirmed by the organization. In crisis communication this theory is used to strategic influence the control the attribution of responsibility to the organization (Allen & Caillouet, 1994) and to keep the publics perception of the organization as much in line with the organizations reality.
Nowadays the most common used theory is the situational crisis communication theory by Coombs (2006). The SCCT stated that an organization should select a communication strategy based on the situation and to the amount of which stakeholders hold the organization responsible to protect the organization’s reputation (Coombs & Holladay, 2002). There are three responsibility clusters; victim, accidental and preventable crisis. Intentional crises create the highest reputation damage and the highest level of secondary crisis communication as negative word-of-mouth. Depending on the responsibility for a crisis an organization will select a response communication strategy; denial, diminish and rebuild (Coombs, 2006). The crisis response strategies are based on the idea that organizations should attempt to reduce reputational threat by accepting and communicating the most suitable crisis
responsibility.
The public can receive information about the crisis through (1) interactions with organization, (2) through mediated reports, (3) and second-hand information from other people, which we call crisis communication. But regularly stakeholders receive information about an organization through (4) the news media (Coombs, 2007). The information the public receives via the media is perceived more creditable than information directly communicated by the organization itself (Pollock & Rindova, 2003).
2.2 Crisis construction in news media
The media plays a big role in the interaction between the organization in crisis and the consumers. The power of the media is unprecedented so an organization in crisis needs to interact with the media to transfer their information about the crisis to the public. Veil and Ojeda (2010) found that organizations that do so, have more influence on media coverage than organizations that would not provide information about the crisis. Crisis communication in organizations is handled by public relations, which focus on creating effective crisis response strategies (Benoit, 1997; Coombs, 1998; Coombs & Holladay, 2002) to reduce uncertainty among the public, avoid responsibility and limit the damage to their reputation (Reynolds & Seeger, 2005; Seeger, 2006). After receiving the crisis information from an organization via press releases, the media constructs news items. The publics’ dependence and trust in the media creates an immense media power, which enlarges even more by the ability to influence the salience of topics on the public agenda (Reynolds, 2002). This power of the media to influence the public is called agenda-setting by many researches (McCombs & Shaw, 1972; Carroll & McCombs, 2003). Agenda setting as well as agenda building are analysed on three levels: The first level of agenda setting relates to objects: actors and
the issues in news items. When issues and actors are covered frequently and prominently in news items the public will evaluate these topics as important. The media do not reflect reality but they filter and shape it by selecting the issues. Because of the fact the media determines where the public thinks about and what the public perceives as important topics, this is called first level agenda setting (Carroll & McCombs, 2003). It is expected that actors and issues from the press releases be used in the news media items. The following hypothesis is researched:
H1a. The objects used in the press releases of an organization will match the objects in the news items published after the release of the press release of the company.
While first level agenda-setting focuses on attention for curtain issues and actors, second level agenda-setting focuses on the content of the news items and by doing so the researchers emphasize some objects of the issues while other issues are mentioned less frequently and some are mentioned only is passing (Carroll & McCombs, 2003). The public evaluates these ‘attributions’ and the angle of the news items is therefore very important. When a news item emphasizes the more negative objects it could harm the organization more than when the focus is on the more positive objects. It is expected the attributes from the press releases are used in the news media items. The following hypothesis is researched:
H1b. The attributes used in the press releases of an organization will match the attributes in the news items published after the release of the press release of the company.
The most recent development on the setting theory is the third-level agenda-setting: complex constructions of issues, actors and attributes. According to Guo, Tien Vu, and McCombs (2012) the media not only has an influence on what topics they
present in the news but also how they link these topics. The influence of the media on third level agenda setting is present if the same topics are repeatedly linked to each other. This connection will also be connected in the minds on the public. This third level agenda-setting is proposed to explore the so-called ‘pictures’ in people minds (Guo et al., 2012). This new level of agenda setting assumes that the cognitive representation of objects and attributes are presented in a network- like structure where any particular node will be connected to numerous other nodes (Kaplan, 1973).
Other researchers refer to framing when discussing this concept of the complex associations between several concepts. When a newspaper informs its readers about a crisis situation they will highlight and emphasize some aspects and issues of the crisis, frame their news articles (Entman, 1993) and involve certain actors, more than others, in their reporting. Framing of news items involves not only emphasizing some issues of the crisis more than others and giving the situation of some actors more attention than others. Every news item can also be classified into different news frames. The effects of news-framing offer a tool to explain why small changes in focus of an issue produce change of opinion (Chong & Druckman, 2007). Researchers Price, Tewksbury and Powers (1997) state that by activation certain constructs at the expense of others, media frames can directly influence what enters the minds of the public and can affect their perceptions of these framed issues in the news. Different researchers have identified dominant news frames that are common in the news media. Neuman (1992) identified four different news frames; human impact, morality, conflict and economic consequences. Semetko and Valkenburg (2000) extended these four frames with the responsibility frame and renamed the human impact frame to human interest. The human-interest frame is a common frame in the news (Neuman, 1992) and provides an emotional angle and a human face to an event, issue or problem. The news media uses
the human-interest frame to make the news more personal, emotional and dramatic in order to gain and retain the interest of the public. The economic consequences frame is used an issue, event or problem in terms of the consequences it will have on a country, group or individual and it will activate responses and thought with the public on costs and financial implications (Valkenburg, Semetko, & De Vreese, 1999). The conflict frame draws attention of the public by focusing on the conflict between individuals, groups or institutions. The responsibility frame is used when an individual, group or organization is hold responsible for the cause in the news item. Finally, the morality frame is used to put issues of events in the context of religious tenets or moral prescriptions. Because journalists are expected to be objective, this is normally included through indirect moral frames like having someone else raise the question or express concerns (Semetko & Valkenburg, 2000). The research of An and Gower (2009) shows that media items also could contain more than one news frame, which are called competing frames. It is expected that news frames from the press releases are used in the news media items. The following hypothesis is researched:
H1c. The frames used in the press releases of an organization will match the news frames in the news items published after the release of the press release of the company.
2.3 Public power perceptions; how this relates to corporate communication and
news media.
Valkenburg et al. (1999) found in previous research that news frames can have an influence the public’s perceptions of a crisis. The news frames have an impact on the evaluations of the crisis, on the shaping of opinion and also subtly affect the audience decision-making (Price et al., 1997). Recently researches focusing more and more on analysing the framing in media coverage during a crisis situation with these five
different news frames identified by Semetko and Valkenburg (2000). An and Gower (2009) found, in their research of the media coverage about the top 10 crisis prone businesses published by the Institute for Crisis Management in 2006, that the responsibility frame was most used, followed by the economic consequences frame, the interest frame, the conflict frame and the morality frame. The human-interest frame and the conflict frame have the largest impact on the reactions of the public (An & Gower, 2009) although Price et al. (1997) did not include all the news frames. The hypothesis stated that exposure to different news frames has an influence on the way the public evaluated the organization in a crisis situation. Based on these results it is expected that the human-interest frame will have the most negative effect on the reputation, the crisis communication and the secondary crisis reactions.
The effects of the portraying of the organizational crisis in the media can have great effects on the public perception of the organization but is not studied in many previous researches. Most researches focus on the effect on the response theories of an organization on the public (Coombs & Holladay, 2002; Coombs, 2006; Coombs, 2007) but do not look at the role the media plays in this transfer of communication. The small amount of researches that did study this impact focussed mainly on political media coverage. This study will focus on three consequences of a crisis; the organizations reputation, the secondary crisis communication and the secondary crisis actions.
2.4. Reputation
One particular consequence of a corporate crisis is the damage to the organizational reputation; “a perceptual representation of a company’s past actions and future prospects that describe the firm’s appeal to all of it’s key stakeholders” (Fombrun, 1996). The reputation of an organization is often perceived as a valuable and intangible asset that has great influence on how stakeholders interact with the
organization (Roberts & Dowling, 2002). An organization with high reputation will attract customers, generate investment interest, attract top-employee talent, improve financial performance, increase return on assets, gets positively reviewed by analysts, and creates a competitive advantage (Fombrun & Gardberg, 2000). Stakeholders develop a reputation of an organization by receiving information about the organization (Fombrun & Van Riel, 2004). This information is received through interaction with the organization, via reports about the organization in news media and advertisements and through second-hand information of other people through worth of mouth or by shared information on social websites and blogs (Coombs, 2007). The foremost goal of crisis communication is therefore to restore the reputation of the organization and to regain the trust of the stakeholders. The hypothesis stated that exposure to different news frames has an influence on the way the public evaluated the organization in a crisis situation. Based on the results of An and Gower (2009) the following hypothesis is formulated.
H2a: The human-interest news frame will lead to more negative reputation of an organization during an organizational crisis, then other news frames.
2.5 Secondary crisis communication and reaction
Research shows that the acceptance level of organizations’ different responses depend on how the message reaches the consumers. Consumers are more likely to accept the media content if the news items are communicated by a third party like the media or peers (Liu et al., 2011). By the introduction of the Internet the media landscape changed. Consumers can not only forward massages from journalists to their network but can also create their own media content like blogs and communication their perception on a crisis on opinion forms (Liu, Austin, & Jin, 2011) The consumers are not only interpreters by also creators of content. The consumers’ willingness to share
and forward messages is therefore an important topic to study. The secondary crisis communication model (Schultz et al., 2011) is developed to analyze the effects of social and traditional media strategies on the perceptions of reputation by stakeholders, and the effect of crisis responses on the stakeholders’ secondary crisis communication and reaction. Secondary crisis communication is word-of-mouth (Coombs & Holladay, 2008; Coombs & Holladay, 2009), the willingness to forward a message and leaving comments or reaction (Schultz et al., 2011). The concept of secondary crisis communication broadens secondary crisis communication by adding the intention to advice others not to buy/use the brand, negative worth-of-mouth and willingness to boycott the organization (Coombs & Holladay, 2008; Schultz et al., 2011). It would be expected that consumer would easily forward messages received on social media, the results of the study implicate otherwise and found that secondary crisis communication was used more frequently on the sharing of newspaper content. We could conclude that people communicate and share more about newspaper articles than about tweets or blogs. As the human-interest frame has the largest impact on the reactions of the public (An & Gower, 2009; Price et al., 1997) the following hypotheses are researched.
H2b: The human-interest news frame will lead to more negative secondary crisis communication during an organizational crisis, than other news frames.
H2c: The human-interest news frame will lead to the most negative secondary crisis reactions during an organizational crisis, than other news frames.
3. Method
To answer the research questions and to test the hypotheses proposed in the previous section, this study is divided into two studies (1) a qualitative content analysis and (2) a quantitative online experiment.
3.1 Case Study
To study the effect of the influence of the media during an organizational crisis, the crisis between Air France and the pilot unions was selected due the recently occurrence of the event, the many actors and issued that were involved and the extended media coverage during this crisis.
Air France pilots quit flying on September 15 to protest the airline’s plan to have Transavia, a lower-cost KLM unit, assume most short-haul flying in Europe as a way to curb labour costs and improve profit. After a weak of strike, Air France agreed to expand its Transavia operations only within France as a concession to the unions, but insists that it must have the right to vary employment contracts for those working at the low-cost subsidiary. The pilots want the same contract to be offered to all pilots across all Air France's operations as Air France pilots are paid more than Transavia pilots, and they are concerned the airline will replace some Air France flights with Transavia services. To end the strike, Air France backed off its plans for Transavia to take over flights across Europe and said it would focus on using the carrier for flights in France.
3.2 Study 1
Study 1 will be conducted through a qualitative content analysis of crisis-related organizational press releases and newspaper articles about the crisis of the Air France - KLM.
3.2.1 Data collection
The hypotheses were studied using a qualitative content analysis. This research method requires data collection conducted with two main sources of data: (1) press releases from Air France - KLM regarding the pilot strike crisis and (2) news articles published during the strike (1September 2014 - 30 September 2014). The press releases, with
only specific strike information, were obtained from the Air France corporate websites (n=8). The news items were obtained in the same time period from large Dutch national newspapers (n=7) and large online Dutch newspapers and news websites (n=10). The news items were conducted with the program; Lexus Nexus by searching for ‘AIR FRANCE’ or ‘KLM’ and ‘STAKING’ (strike in English). The remaining news items were used for the research (see Table 1.).
Dutch Newspapers Number of news items
Dutch news websites Number of news items
Financieel Dagblad 24 www.fd.nl 40
De Telegraaf 22 www.telegraaf.nl 38
Het Parool 14 www.parool.nl 7
Volkskrant 12 www.volkskrant.nl 9
Algemeen Dagblad 10 www.ad.nl 11
NRC Handelsblad 9 www.nrc.nl 5
Trouw 8 www.trouw.nl 9
www.nu.nl 24
www.rtlnieuws.nl 42
www.nos.nl 30
Table 1. News papers and online news websites.
3.2.2. Data Analyses
The codes where created during the randomly sampling coding. A sample of all the press releases and the news items were codes and ‘codes’ were created. After this process each news item and press release was individually coded to designate the relevant information about the actors, issues, attributes and news frames. After this sampling coding the ‘selecting coding’ zoomed in on the type of the actors, issues, attributes and news frames. These ‘selective codings’ consist examples of issues like; financial, information, solutions and repetitions like; negative evaluations for Air France, negative evolutions for the pilots (see Appendix 6.). After the ‘selective
coding’ the codes in the press releases and the codes in the news items were compared to see if they match to study if the press release would have an influence on the news items.
3.3 Results Study 1
In this section of the research the results of the qualitative content analysis are presented. To answer the first hypothesis (1a) the use of actors and issues were compared between the press releases and the news items. The press releases of Air France-KLM mostly informed the consumers about flight information during the crisis and offered their apologies for the inconvenience. After the crisis extended the press releases informed about solutions to stop the conflict and their wishes of the outcome to the crisis. In their sharing of information the press releases mostly include Air France, KLM, the Air France pilots, consumers and their staff in their press release and include CEO Gagey in the last few for quotations to clarify the Air France point of view of the crisis. The news items show that the media do not inform about how sorry Air France is for the situation or their effort to limit the damage and to resolve the crisis. The news items inform its readers during the entire crisis about the cause of the crisis, about the evolvement of the crisis and about the financial consequences. After the announcement of the extension (press release 4) they included the solutions, the outcome wishes and the consumer information offered by Air France. The main difference between the information sharing between the press releases of Air France and the news items of the Dutch media is that the press release share only information for the costumers during the crisis and their effort to resolve the crisis. The news items cover the entire story from the cause, the information about the latest events to the consequences, the financial consequences and in later news items the possible solutions. This variety in information sharing makes that all the involved actors are
mentioned in the news items. The most remarkable result is that the news items only use the information that only Air France could provide. Because Air France was very limited in sharing information about the cause and the financial consequences, they were not able to influence these news items on these repeatedly discussed issues. Hypothesis 1a can therefore be partly supported as press releases only have influence on the issues that share information about the point of view of Air France like their solution offerings and the adjustments that they do to keep the customer informed during the crisis.
To answer hypothesis 1b the attributes of the press releases were compared to the use of the attributes of the news items. As Air France itself publishes the press releases it is understandable that they don’t communicate any negativity torches themselves. Only in press release 5, after the pilot unions don’t respond to the effort of Air France to come to a solution, they start to publish negative comment on the actions of the pilots and their unions with comments like “On their part, the pilot unions have not put forward any proposal demonstrating their willingness to find a solution” in press release 5 and “The Company deeply regrets that despite lengthy negotiations since the beginning of the conflict (including 15 hours yesterday), enabling much progress to be made, the balanced and reasonable protocol to end the conflict proposed by Management has not been signed by the unions” in press release 8. Although the pilots got negative attention during the entire crisis, it grew enormously with 80% after Air France started mentioning the pilots in a negative way. This could be attributable to the remarks in the press releases but as the news items also showed support for the pilots and their unions (“I really understand the pilots, there has been hardly any consultation with the pilots unions, no wonder they are angry”) 80% less than the negative responds, it is not a fact but a fair possibility. Although the press releases are
lacking of positive or negative attributes for Air France, the news items are critical of the airline; Air France and even Air France-KLM. The most criticism is aimed at Air France – KLM chairman: Alexandre de Juniac who his leadership scales are questioned, mostly during the end of the crisis during the negotiations between the pilot unions and Air France. Comments like “He is weakened, and the question is whether he can stay in this position” and “It is shameful that de Juniac bring out, prematurely during negotiations, such a proposal; he more reason that he should resign” were published. After following these results it can be concluded that the press
releases of a company in crisis could have influence by underpinning the negative effects of the pilot strike like “On their part, the pilot unions have not put forward any proposal demonstrating their willing to find a solution” as the negative attributes
towards the pilots and their unions increased with 95%.
It is expected that the framing of the press release had an influence on the framing of the news items (hypothesis 1c). No results of that were found. All news items could be codes with the conflict frame as all news items were regarding the pilot strike conflict, that frame is for that reason deleted from this research. The morality frame was not found during coding so the news items were codes with the economical consequences, human-interest and responsibility frame. All three were almost equally represented in the news items. The press releases were codes mostly with the human-interest frame (press release 1-4) and the responsibility frame (5-8). This clear distinction was not found in the news articles where frames were used randomly throughout the crisis period.
As the influence of the content of an organizations press release on the media coverage is more limited than expected the links between the codes were researched. The result shows a pattern in the use of actors, issues, attributes and news frames. The
human-interest frame is linked to the costumer information issue and to the apologize issues and next to Air France and the pilots are the consumers the most present in the news items. The economical consequences framed news items do primarily cover the financial and the consequences issues. The actors who are most represented in the news items are Air France, the pilots and chairman Alexandre de Juniac. The consumers, the pilots and the unions are most represented next to Air France in the responsibility frame. This was the only news frame, which contained news items with attributes. In news items with the responsibility frame Air France or the pilots were accused of blame on unreasonable decision-making.
These results of study 1 and the fact that news frames can have an huge influence on the public’s perceptions, the evaluations of the crisis and on the shaping of opinion and decision-making (Price et al., 1997; Valkenburg et al., 1999) the influence of the news frames will be research in study 2. With the information of this first study three news items were created to use to research the influence of the use of these different news with frames with accompanying issues and actors. As stated before the morality frame was not found during coding and the conflict frame could apply on every news item, so these two frames were not used during study 2 (See Table 2).
News Frame Content
Human Interest Air France cancels 50% of the flight due the pilot strike of the French pilots of Air France. Frédéric Cagey; CEO of Air France/KLM estimates that only 50% of the planed flights will departure. The Air France pilots will stop to work from 15 September to 22 September in protest against restructuring plans. The strike costs major discomfort for the customers of the airline while unable to travel and forced to rebook their flight.
Economical Consequences
Air France cancels 50% of the flight due the pilot strike of the French pilots of Air France. Frédéric Cagey; CEO of Air France/KLM estimates that only 50% of the planed flights will departure. The Air France pilots will stop to work from 15 September to 22 September in protest against restructuring plans. Every day the strike costs Air France a 20 million loss. Which will result presumably in a 200 million loss for the airline company.
Responsibility Air France cancels 50% of the flight due the pilot strike of the French pilots of Air France. Frédéric Cagey; CEO of Air France/KLM estimates that only 50% of the planed flights will departure. The Air France pilots will stop to work from 15 September to 22 September in protest against restructuring plans. The pilot strike is not understood by the public and causes a major pressure on the airline.
Table 2. Manipulation news items for experiment in study 2
There was another interesting result. After coding it was noted that the news items on online news website produced news items with high similarity. For instance: Telegraaf informed their online readers with this content: “Call to Air France pilots to
compromise. The French government wants to end the strike at airline Air France, as a large part of the pilots dropped their work for over a week now. State secretary, Alian Vidalies asks the pilots to compromise during the France Info radio show last Sunday”. This exact same content with the same title was posted on the Algemeen Dagblad website, the Parool website, the Trouw website and the Volkskrant. Websites Nu.nl and RTL Nieuws do communicate the same content but integrated into their own style and don’t have the exact same content order as the other news websites. The online
news websites also attribute their news items to the pilots or to Air France/ Air France – KLM. They are a lot more natural and less critical than the news items published in
Another remarkable result is that KLM was mentioned in every news item together with Air France. The Dutch airline that did not have any involvement with the strike was automatically linked to the strike due their partnership with Air France. For this reason Air France-KLM will be linked together in study 2 as well in the manipulation material.
3.4 Study 2
Study 2 will study the influence of the different news frames on the secondary crisis communication, the secondary crisis reactions and the reputation of the organization during a crisis. This second study will be conducted through an online experiment.
3.4.1 Manipulation test
Before the online questionnaires where distributed among the respondents the four different news frames where examined by executing a manipulation test. The manipulation test consists of respondents (n=23) who were asked to read the news item and mark the news frame that they thought the article was written in. All respondents were coding all news frames in the conflict frame, probably because the articles were reporting about the Air France – KLM crisis. To avoid this the manipulation test was redone and the only three news frames (see Table 2.) were included: human-interest, economical consequences and responsibility. In this second manipulation, all respondents (n=22) matched all articles to the correct news frame. Based on these results the three selected news items with each a different news frame was selected for the experiment.
3.4.2. Participants and design
Participants were recruited via a personal e-mail and via a personal message on Facebook. They were also able to share the invite to the experiment with friends. In
total 122 respondents participated and 114 respondents finished the entire survey of the experiment. Of these 114 participants 38,6% (44) were male and 61.4% (70) were female. Most participants (52) had an age between 26-35 years old (45,6%), followed by the 20 participants with an age between 18 and 25 years old (17,5%). Most of these participants have a Bachelor degree (47,4%) or a Master degree (31,6%) followed by 11 respondents with a MBO degree (9,6). Most of these participants read the newspaper everyday (30,4%) and over 67,6% read the news everyday on a news website (see Table 3)
News Papers Online news websites
Every day 35 (30,4%) 78 (67,8%)
A couple of times a week 20 (17,4%) 22 (19,1%)
A couple of times a month 18 (15,4%) 9 (7,8%)
Ones a month 10 (8,5%) 4 (3,5%)
Never 20 (17,1%) 2 (1,7%)
Table 3. News consumption of the participants.
3.4.3 Procedure
Respondents received an invitation email with a link to the online experiment or a personal message on Facebook with the request to fill out a survey. After a short instruction, participants answer some questions about the news consumption and on their knowledge and experience with Air France - KLM. These questions were followed by one of the three different news frames, which were randomly assigned to the participants. After the manipulation material the respondents were asked questions about the evaluation of Air-France - KLM and their pilots. The experiment closed with three questions about age, gender and education. On the last page, participants were thanked for their participation (see Appendix 7.).
3.4.4. Independent variables
To manipulate the news frames, participants viewed one of the three news items reporting about the Air France/KLM pilot strike, covering three different news frames. The news items all report about the crisis with the same sentence: “Air France cancels 50% of the flight due the pilot strike of the French pilots of Air France. Frédéric Cagey; CEO of Air France - KLM estimates that only 50% of the planed flights will departure. The Air France pilots will stop to work from 15 September to 22 September in protest against restructuring plans”. The three different news items finish with a different sentence according their frame based on the results of study 1 (see table 2 on page 21).
3.4.5 Dependent measures
The dependent variables; reputation, secondary crisis communication and secondary crisis reactions were all adopted from the research of Schultz et al. (2011). Five items such as “Air France/KLM delivers high quality services” measured organizational reputation. The items in the questionnaire that measure the reputation of the organization were measured with a factor analysis with varimax rotation that shows that the 5 items together form one factor (EV = 2.73, R2 = 54,62) and a reliably and consistent scale (α =0,79). Secondary crisis communication was measured by three items; Respondents were asked how likely they were “to share the message with other people”, “ to tell their friends about the incident”, and “to leave a reaction if the news item was read online”. The 3 items in the questionnaire that measure the crisis communication were measured with a factor analysis with varimax rotation that shows that the 3 items together form one factor (EV = 1,89, R2 = 63,05) and a reliably and consistent scale (α =0,63). Answers were given on a five-point scale ranging from “very unlikely” to “very likely”. To study the crisis reactions three items were taken (“I
would tell negative things about Air France/KLM and the flights of Air France/KLM “ and “I would sign an online petition to boycott Air France/KLM”). The 3 items in the questionnaire that measure the secondary crisis reactions were measured with a factor analysis with varimax rotation that shows that the 3 items together form one factor (EV = 1,89, R2 = 63,05) and a reliably and consistent scale (α =0,70).
3.5 Analyse
In order to analyse the collected data the software SPSS 21.0 was use. The hypotheses in study 2 were tested by the One-way variance analyses (ANOVA) to study the difference between the effect of the three news frames (economical consequences, human interest and responsibility) on the secondary crisis communication, the secondary crisis reactions and the reputation of the brand. The ANOVA show the difference between the mean of the three different conditions. If the results are significant, the Levene’s test will be included to show if the results are reliably or not.
3.6 Results Study 2
In the result section the results of study 2 will be presented. The hypotheses will be studied with a variance analyses.
Hypothesis 2a stated that a human-interest news frame had a more negative effect on the reputation of a company than the economic consequences and responsibility frames. To test this hypothesis a one-way ANOVA was used, with the news framing as the independent variable and the reputation as a dependent variable. There is also no significant main effect of framing on the reputation of an organization after reading a news item on the organizational crisis (F (2, 111) = 1.637, p = .199, η²= .029). On the basis of this result is hypothesis 2a rejected. There is no significant effect of news framing on the reputation of an organization in a crisis situation.
The second hypothesis (2b) stated that a human-interest news frame had a more negative effect on the secondary crisis communication of the consumer than the economic consequences and responsibility frames. To test the second hypothesis a one-way ANOVA was used, with the news framing as the independent variable and the secondary crisis communication as a dependent variable. There is no significant main effect of secondary crisis communication after reading a news item on the organizational crisis (F (2, 111) = .577, p = .563, η²= .010). On the basis of this result is hypothesis 2b rejected. There is no significant effect of news framing on the secondary crisis communication of the consumers.
The last hypothesis (2c) stated that a human-interest news frame had a more negative effect on the crisis reactions of the consumer than the economic consequences and responsibility frames. To test this third hypothesis a one-way ANOVA was used, with the news framing as the independent variable and the crisis reactions as a dependent variable. There is no significant main effect of framing on the secondary crisis reaction after reading a news item on the organizational crisis (F (2, 111) = 1.322, p = .271, η²= .023). On the basis of this result is hypothesis 2c rejected. There is no significant effect of news framing on the secondary crisis reactions of the consumers.
Next to these three hypotheses many control variables were tested to see if the consumption of the news of the participants would be of any influence, or if the gender, education of age had a influence, but no significant results were found.
4. Conclusion and Discussion
In order to fulfil the research gap, the interplay of the media, the organization and the public during a crisis was studied, by analysing the influence of the communication via
press releases of the organization on the media coverage and the crisis framing in the media on the public opinion and actions about the organization. The results indicate that the press releases could be an important information source for the media when they need information that only the company in crisis can provide. This is consistent with the findings of Veil and Ojeda (2010) who stated that organizations that communicate have more influence on media coverage than organizations that would not provide information about the crisis. Coombs (2007) stated that stakeholders perceive information about an organization as more creditable than information directly communicated by the organization itself (Pollock & Rindova, 2003) or via social media (Schultz et al., 2011; Utz et al., 2013). The fact that the news is perceived as more reliable and plays a major role on the evaluations and the shaping of opinion of the public (Valkenburg et al., 1999; Price et al., 1997) could be accountable to the so-called ‘agenda-setting theory’. This power of the media to emphasize certain issues and creates certain news frames where some issues get more attention than others. An and Gower (2009) found in previous studies that the human-interest frame has the most negative effect on the evaluation of the public during a crisis. Unfortunately no significant result of the impact of these media framing in newspapers and online news websites was found in this study. These results indicate that the framing of a news item has no influence on the evaluation of the organization during a crisis.
Strength of this study is that it studies a new area of crisis communication science. As one of the first researches that studies the influence of the organization on the media during a crisis it opens doors for further research. Another strength of this research is that this is an experiment with a lot of diversity in age, education, online-offline readers and diversity in newspapers. The fact that the experiment was conducted online
contributes to the validity; as the condition was very close to the normal setting when people read news articles. However, there are also limitations. The study used the pilot strike crisis of Air France that took place right before the study to research the influence of communication and framing of news items. The fact that this crisis had recently taken place could have influenced the respondent already before the experiment. They could have based their answers during the study on their gained knowledge during the crisis and not just on the framed news item in the experiment. In future research it could be recommended to use a non-existing crisis, when a content analysis is not included in the study. Another limitation of the use of the Air France pilot strike crisis is that Air France is linked to KLM in the Netherlands. Although KLM was not involved in the crisis and hardly interfered, they were mentioned in every news item and the Dutch respondents linked the airline to the Air France crisis. This also could have influenced the respondent in the experiment. Future research should focus more on the influence the organization has on the coverage of the issues regarding a crisis. The more information is gained on this topic the more organizations can head for curtain issues to influence the media and therefore influence the public. This study only focused on the use of press releases but the content of the news items showed much information retrieved from other sources of the company. Further research could include television news items or news talk shows to see if the quotations and issues discussed have more influence than the content of a press release. As Schultz et al. (2011) already stated ‘the medium is more important than the message’, therefore including more mediums in a future research could lead to interesting new results.
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6. Appendix 1 – Study 1 Code book
Codes
Actors Actors
Air France- KLM Unions
KLM Air France staff
Air France Transavia Consumers Juniac
Pilots Gagey
Issues Coding Example
Information Air France expects to operate 40% of its flights on Tuesday 16 September 2014, given an estimated 60% of pilots planning to strike. 7,000 Air France employees will be doing all they can to assist customers.
Consumer information
Air France is requesting that passengers visit www.airfrance.fr to check if their flight is being operated before travelling to the airport.
Causes The French pilots fear that their jobs will disappear to low wage countries.
Solutions The ambition set out in the Perform 2020 growth and competitiveness plan remains intact. The pilot unions have stigmatized the Transavia project by fuelling unfounded fears of "delocalization" and "social dumping", which have never been at stake. Consequences The pilots' strike has been disrupting flight operations for seven days now, with
catastrophic consequences for the Company's customers, staff and financial situation. Excuses Air France regrets this situation and will do all it can to assist its customers and
minimize the impact of this strike action on their travel plans. Financial The strike costs the Airline over 20 million per day
Attributes
Negative Air France Not the pilots but the Air France management is acting irresponsible. Negative Air France
- KLM
Chairman Alexandre de Juniac is known for being a great negotiator, but in this case he lost the support of his pilots and the government.
Negative Pilots Air France regrets that the pilots' unions have not seized these opportunities. Positive Air France As announced, this Air France project will quickly create 1,000 jobs in France
(including 250 pilot jobs).
Positive Pilots “ In understand the pilots, there was hardly any consultation with the unions. I understand that they are angry”
News Frame
Conflict Air France advises its customers whose flight is cancelled not to go to the airport. Human-Interest Over 60,000 passengers are affected by the strike.
Responsibility On their part, the pilot unions have not put forward any proposal demonstrating their willingness to find a solution.
Economic consequences
7. Appendix 2 – Study 2 Experiment
The experiment was held in Dutch so the Dutch respondent could easily understand the questions and news frames. The questions from the experiment are presented below. The experiment started with a short explanation of the study and assured the
respondents that participation was completely anonymous. The respondents also needed to agree with their voluntary participation on the experiment.
Which of the following newspapers do you read? More answers possible. 1. Financieel Dagblad
2. De Telegraaf 3. Het Parool 4. de Volkskrant 5. het Algemeen dagblad
6. NRC Dagblad
7. Trouw
8. Other..
9. I don’t read newspapers How many times do you read a newspaper on average?
1. Every day
2. A couple times a week
3. Once a week
4. A couple of times a month
5. Once a month
6. Never
Which of the following online news websites do you read? More answers possible.
1. www.fd.nl 2. www.telegraaf.nl 3. www,parool.nl 4. www.volkskrant.nl 5. www.ad.nl 6. www.nrc.nl 7. www.trouw.nl 8. www.nu.nl 9. www.rtlnieuws.nl 10. www.nos,nl 11. Other..
How many times do you read online news items on average?
7. Every day
8. A couple times a week
9. Once a week
10. A couple of times a month 11. Once a month
12. Never
A couple of question on airline Air France – KLM will follow. Do you know the airline Air France –KLM?
13. yes
14. no
Did you ever fly with Air France -KLM
15. yes
16. no … skip the next question.
How many times did you travelled with Airline Air France - KLM
17. 1 time
18. 2-4 times 19. 5-10 times 20. 10-20 times
21. never
You will now see a newspaper article about the crisis at Air France / KLM and I would like to ask you to read the news item carefully ....
[One of the three framed news items is displayed]
There will follow a number of questions regarding the article you just read.
The next three questions are answered on a 5-point likert scale of Not Agree - Agree In which extend do you agree with the following statements?
After reading the article I will…
1. Send this article to others and share it on social media 2. Discuss the news article with my friends or family 3. Post a response on the article on a website In which extend do you agree with the following statements?
After reading the article I will…
1. think twice before I will use the service of Air France - KLM again 2. sign an online petition against Air France - KLM
In which extend do you agree with the following statements?
22. Air France – KLM is a high quality airline 23. Air France – KLM is a responsible airline 24. Air France – KLM is reliable
25. Air France – KLM has a high reputation 26. I trust Air France – KLM
You just read a newspaper article about the strike pilots of Air France. How was this article framed, what was the angle of the article?
27. Human Interest
28. Economical Consequences 29. Responsibility
Which party do you consider responsible for this crisis? Multiple answers possible
1. The pilots
2. Air France 3. Air France/KLM
4. KLM
5. The pilot unions
Do you think Air France acted properly during this crisis?
1. Yes
2. No
Do you think the pilots acted properly during this crisis?
3. Yes
4. No
What is your gender?
1. Male
2. Female
What is your age?
1. 18-25 year 2. 26-35 year 3. 36-45 year 4. 46-55 year 5. 56-65 year 6. 65 or older..
What is your highest educational level? 1. Basis education 2. MAVO 3. MBO 4. HAVO 5. HBO 6. VWO 7. WO 8. Anders
