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■ Research Paper

Crisis Communication and Social Media.A Systems- and Medium-TheoreticalPerspectiveJesper Tække*Centre for Internet Research, Aarhus University, Denmark

The academic field of crisis communication is more relevant than ever due to the digitalmedia revolution, setting new standards for how to manage criticism and crises. This pa-per presents a systems theoretical approach to crisis communication in the age of digitalmedia with a special regard to social media. The paper shows that the recent changes inthe media environment require that organizations be more observant, reflected and re-sponsive to the public opinion. Correspondingly, organizations need to engage in strategicimpression management with the aim to be, or to be observed to be, more consistent withtheir communicated values and strategies, thus managing to appear as trustworthy in ahyper-dynamic social surrounding world. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Keywords crisis communication; social media; systems theory; risk management; trust

INTRODUCTION

Crisis communication is a field that has grownwithin the academic field of organizational anal-ysis over the last 30 years. The field deals withhow organizations can best explain themselvesto stakeholders and the public when a crisisoccurs. This is whether the crisis is self-imposedor externally imposed, but where the organiza-tion meets criticism for its behaviour in relationto the crisis. Most of the literature in the field isunscientific and characterized by experience-based, prescriptive consultant lists that explain

how organizations should manage crises andtheir communication in relation to them. Sincethe early 1990s, this literature has received anacademic counterpart where actual theoreticalframeworks are outlined, by which more descrip-tive analyses of what gives success in which situ-ations can be conducted. The first and mostoriginal in the academic crisis communicationfield is William Benoit, who later scholars havecrafted their theories around. Benoit (1995) essen-tially draws on classical rhetorical theories on themanagement of the question of guilt, which isthen applied to the organizations’ crisis commu-nication. Benoit (1997: 179) presents a list withfive major crisis communication techniques:denial, evasion of responsibility, reducing offen-siveness of event, corrective action and

*Correspondence to: Jesper Tække, Centre for Internet Research, Aar-hus University, Denmark.E-mail: [email protected] to the special issue ‘Management and Function: From AddedValues to Augmented Realities’

Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Systems Research and Behavioral ScienceSyst. Res (2017)Published online in Wiley Online Library(wileyonlinelibrary.com) DOI: 10.1002/sres.2451

Journal Code Article ID Dispatch: 14.02.17 CE: Katrina CasugaS R E S 2 4 5 1 No. of Pages: 13 ME:

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mortification (apologize for the act). Benoit’swork is used in many specific analyses, not onlyby himself but also by many others, such asJesper Falkheimer (2007), who analysed crisiscommunication in Sweden in the aftermath ofthe 2004 tsunami disaster. Another one of theinternationally recognized in the field is TimothyCoombs, who provides a list of seven main typesof crisis communication. The list is very similar toBenoit’s, but where Benoit is sender oriented inhis approach, Coombs (1999) is more receiver ori-ented (Johansen and Frandsen 2007: 271–273).Denmark was relatively late in getting startedwith crisis communication, and in turn, one ofthe best academic contributions is by the twoDanish researchers Winni Johansen and FinnFrandsen (2007). In their model, they seek therhetorical arena, to be both sender and recipientoriented, which they understand using the con-cept of the multi-vocal.1

Although the field of crisis communication hasthus received an academic field, it still seems tobe lacking a solid sociological foundation. Thereis no further elaboration or integration of theessential concepts of risk, trust, conflict, publicopinion, mass media, social media or communi-cation. Here, Niklas Luhmann’s theory of socialsystems seems obvious, not least becauseLuhmann’s theory is based on communication.Such a sociological observation of the crisis com-munication field could work as complementingand providing the field with theoretical depthand sharpness, and not least help to distancethe field’s predominance of prescriptive lists ofwhat to do in order to avoid taking responsibility.To view the crisis between organizations andtheir surrounding social world using a systemstheoretical framework would maybe help tocross the border and observe that organizationsmust adapt to that environment and perhapslearn something, enriching both the organizationand the society. Such an angle as effective commu-nication would probably be called by Habermas(1984) an instrumental and/or strategic form ofcommunication.2 It seems to be a basic

conception underlying the field that if an organi-zation can manage to communicate effectively,i.e. according to the lists of how-to-do, it canrecover from any crisis with an intact reputation—and that is it. This paper will, in all its brevity,try to establish a complementary theory by draw-ing on a number of Luhmann’s concepts. It can-not stand alone but is a supplement that helpswith systems theoretical concepts that can coun-teract the simplifications, which is accomplishedby the idea of effective communication.

CONTRADICTION AND CONFLICT

Inspired by Luhmann, we now turn away fromthe concept of crisis and instead use the conceptof conflict because this concept always implies atleast two actors. For Luhmann (1995), conflictsare triggered by contradictions. Luhmann (1995:370) attributes the doctrine of contradictions toimmunology. The system of society protects notagainst change, but against no longer environ-mentally adequate behaviours: ‘The immune sys-tem protects not structure but autopoiesis, thesystem’s closed self-reproduction’ (ibid., 372). Aconflict occurs when a contradiction is communi-cated (ibid., 388). Conflicts arise, then, whencommunication takes up a contradiction in itselfand contradicts it, or in other words, when onecommunicative element is linked to another com-municative element by contradicting it. It is notthe differing interests, but that they are commu-nicated that is a conflict. Any communicationproduces a bifurcation between yes and no toproposals of meaning, so that conflict and con-sensus constantly are reproduced as alternatives(Luhmann, 2007: 306). However, a no does not al-ways produce a conflict, for example, one mightwalk out of a store again without buying. But ano often sharpens the tone, and provokes, andone is tempted to see the other person as anopponent. To tune into the other person commu-nicatively as an opponent gives birth to the con-flict as a system driven by a negative doublecontingency: ‘I will not do what you want ifyou do not do what I want’ (Luhmann, 1995:389). One acts aggressively, defensively or protec-tively, giving the other only limited variation

1 I have not given an exhaustive overview of academic crisis commu-nication, for example I have left out Heath (2006).2 For a comparative discussion of Habermas and Luhmann’s sociol-ogies, see Leydesdorff (2000).

RESEARCH PAPER Syst. Res

Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Syst. Res (2017)DOI: 10.1002/sres.2451

2 Jesper Tække

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possibilities as, for instance, to form coalitionsand search for resources for resistance(Luhmann, 2007: 308). When conflicts arise, theytake over for a while the autopoiesis, i.e. the con-tinuation of the communication (Luhmann, 1995:389). In this way, conflicts are social systemsformed out of occasions that are given in othersystems not in the form of subsystems, but inthe form of parasites (ibid). For a time, they drawall attention and all communication contributionsto themselves, whereby they block the host sys-tems. Conflict systems are highly integrative be-cause they draw all action into the context of anopposition within the perspective of opposition(ibid.: 390). Thereto, Luhmann (2007: 308) pointsto this with a formal definition of integration,which says that ‘integration is a restriction of in-dividual freedom’, and can clearly see that con-flicts are likely to integrate: ‘For as an opponent,as an enemy, one in a conflict has far less varia-tion possibilities, far fewer behavior possibilities:One must be careful, one must consider how tosharpen one’s own weapons, and how to do theopponent’s weapons blunt, how to protect one-self, how to prevent and how to attack’ (ibid.:309). Conflicts die out when they no longer canattract contributions, when contributors all gettired and bored of arguing and stop struggling—time goes by, one moves on to other themes(Luhmann, 1995: 392). Conflicts are thus commu-nicative processes in the social system, and theirfunction is an immunization against the probabil-ity of cessation of the system’s autopoiesis (ibid.:384). The court plays a special role, as it on theone hand increases the opportunities for conflictsand simultaneously works against a violent set-tlement of conflicts (ibid.: 375). For Luhmann,conflict plays an important role in the socialworld, as in the immune system, but at the sametime, it is clear that conflicts also have destructiveeffects on host systems. Conflicts take up the hostsystems’ resources and attention to which the re-lationship between the contending organizationsis harmed (ibid.: 390).Crisis communication is defined as a double

crisis (Johansen and Frandsen 2007: 79), firstsomebody observes something as a crisis, some-thing goes wrong, then there is a communicationcrisis where an organization is attacked and

defends itself rhetorically. Here, I define a crisisas a system external observation, an observationof the surrounding world, made by a communi-cation contributor, which alerts the communityto a phenomenon to be acted in relation to. Thephenomenon may be a tsunami, a SAS aircraftthat crashes during landing, drawings of Mu-hammad, an oil spill or a young giraffe that isslaughtered in a Danish zoo. In the first instance,the crisis is an internal communicative event, acommunicative indication of a system externalevent that is observed (communicated) as a crisis.After that, the crisis may cause a conflict if thecommunicative contribution is linked to by anew communicative element contradicting (ne-gating) a person’s or organization’s handling ofthe crisis. If the emergency preparedness in rela-tion to a tsunami is criticized, or if the steps takenby SAS in relation to an aircraft crash are criti-cized, and this communication continuously at-tracts communication contributions, a conflictemerges as an autopoietic system. The Muham-mad cartoons may in this perspective be seen asa first communication element, while the com-munication of the ‘no’ to them is the contradic-tion that gives birth to the Muhammad conflict(the cartoon crisis) as an autonomous system. Itis clearly seen how the conflict integrates anystatement concerning the crisis into the conflict,and how all contributors are forced into the re-duced options—as in the Iraqi conflict, so clearlydefined by George Bush: ‘you’re either with us,or against us’. The crisis communication conceptin this context can be defined as organizations’rhetorical efforts (contributions) with regard toemergent conflict systems. The question now ishow the social landscape in which the emergentconflict systems are produced and reproducedcan be observed.

RISK AND THE EMERGENT CONFLICTSYSTEMS

To clarify the organizational latitude, we nowconsider the concept of risk. Luhmann (2005: 21)defines the concept of risk by distinguishing itfrom danger seen as the counter concept of risk.The distinction implies that uncertainty occurs

Syst. Res RESEARCH PAPER


Crisis Communication and Social Media. A Systems- and Medium-Theoretical Perspective 3

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in relation to future losses, which gives two pos-sibilities: if the potential loss is observed as a con-sequence of a decision, we talk about risk,because the loss is attributed to a decision, onthe other hand, if the potential loss is seen to becaused by external factors, is attributed to theoutside world, we talk about danger (ibid., 22).One is always in danger: of course one can decidein relation to one’s own actions, but only in thesense that one’s actions place one in a dangeroussituation. That one chooses to walk down onestreet over the other when going home fromwork and is hit on the head by a roof tile is a dan-ger and no risk, as there is not accepted any riskto achieve any benefits—you have just chosen be-tween two equivalent possibilities. If risk is goingto be attributed to a decision, it must be possibleto distinguish clearly between alternatives withregard to possible losses, so that one subse-quently can regret a decision (ibid., 23). For in-stance, you know that there is a risk of fallingroof tiles on the shortest route home, but regard-less you decide to go this route rather than a lon-ger but safer one. The distinction between riskand danger enables a selection of both sides ofthe form, but not at the same time. Selecting riskmakes it possible to forget the danger, like the se-lection of danger makes it possible to forget theprofits a risky decision might provide (ibid., 24).In addition, it is of course also a decision not todecide (ibid., 28), which is why organizations al-ways want to be observed (judged) in light oftheir decisions. Organizations are systemsconsisting in decision communications (ibid.,188; Luhmann, 2006, 63), and any of their com-munications are risky because something maybe overlooked, which later can prove to be rele-vant (Luhmann, 2005: 189).

Crisis communication appears so that an orga-nization’s decisions (its risk calculations) are ob-served by others as a danger, which iscommunicated as a crisis and must be observedby the organization as a conflict between it andthose who criticize it. Risk Management is a sec-ond-order self-observation—the organizationmust select something and nothing else in lightof the probability of loss. It must be observing it-self in relation to unknown futures and thus re-flect on its own decision communication. Its

own internal immune system must be intact, sothat internal conflicts can emerge and run andliquidate behaviours, which are no longer ade-quate—before the societal immune system comesinto force and the organization has a conflict withits surrounding world. But whatever ways theorganization establishes to reduce uncertainty,e.g. collective decisions, project descriptions, ex-ternal experts, internal specialist departmentsetc., it may not achieve more than to defend itsdecisions with that it did everything to qualifythem. It is an illusion that risks can be broughtunder total control (ibid., 192).

In a risk perspective, conflict systems emergewithin organizations with the function of actingas an immune system when decisions (risk) areobserved as a threat to the organization. Like-wise, conflict systems emerge between organiza-tions and their external social world whenorganizations’ decisions (risk behaviour) are ob-served as a danger by social systems in their en-vironment, which can be seen as an activationof the societal immune system. Organizationswith a strong immune system will in this per-spective be more adaptable than systems thatare less confrontational. Likewise, it must be as-sumed that organizations with a weak immunesystem are at higher risk of exposure to the soci-etal immune system than systems that are morereflective and can handle and perhaps even initi-ate internal conflicts.

TRUSTAND EMERGENT CONFLICT SYSTEMS

Trust is another key concept in relation to crisiscommunication, because the organization on theone hand, through its crisis communication, triesto gain trust and on the other hand must consti-tute trust to certain decisions itself, e.g. the trig-gering of certain public opinions, that externalparties will come to rescue and/or will sympa-thize with its crisis statements. The reflective con-cept of trust is, according to Luhmann (2000b,1979: 19), confidence.3 Both concepts refer toexpectations that can lead to disappointment.

3 In Luhmann (1979), Vertrautheit is translated into familiarity and notconfidence.



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Confidence is the most common, e.g. that the cardoes not break down, or that one will not be vil-ified in the press. We cannot think of everything;organizations and we have a limited attentionspan. Decisions lose their decision actuality andbecome habits in a world we are confident with.The decision actuality is often only re-actualizedin conflicts. If we do not consider alternativeswhen we decide, it is related to confidence, whiletrust requires a risky situation (reflexivity). If oneselects an action over others due to the probabil-ity of being disappointed by others’ selections,then we have a trust situation. In the case of con-fidence, one will react to disappointment with ex-ternal attribution. In the case of trust, one mustconsider an internal attribution and perhaps re-gret the selection of trust. It is not about probabil-ity calculation, but about whether thedisappointment depends on one’s own previousselections or not (Luhmann, 1995, 2000b, 1979).There is not an independent function system of

trust, but in a functionally differentiated society,all function systems depend on trust, as a re-sponse to the risks and uncertainties this formof community causes. There are many selectionsto make and nothing is certain—the present fu-ture will not just be transformed into an equallyformed future present (Luhmann, 1979). If onewere to provide a code for trust, it would be trust⌉ distrust. An example would be a family oftenwalking in Copenhagen Zoo. The family has aconfidential relationship to the zoo, but thenreads in the newspaper that the zoo has behavedin a way that the family cannot accept, afterwhich they stop coming in the zoo. The familyhas started to be reflected in relation to the zooand have changed their confidential relationshipto a relationship of trust and thereto selected mis-trust. It may now be that the zoo succeeds inexplaining themselves in a manner whereby theorganization wins the family’s trust and it beginsto come in the zoo again. Luhmann (1979) linkedthe achievement of trust to self-representation,respectively, the history of self-representation, sothat the one who shows consistency over timewill be able to gain trust: ‘He who stands by whathe has allowed to be known about himself,whether consciously or unconsciously, is worthyof trust’ (Luhmann, 1979: 39). Trust relates to

continuing one’s self-representation and feelingbound by one’s own history of self-representa-tion. In a dynamic environment, this does notmean that one can just remain as one usually isin the literal sense, but rather that one succeedsin adapting oneself to the dynamic environmentin a uniform and stable manner, e.g. following aset of values. One must therefore adapt withinacceptable limits and show continuity in behav-iour under difficult and changing conditions(Luhmann, 1979). Crisis systems emerge and pa-ralyse organizations when parts of the surround-ing world lose their confidentiality with anorganization and mistrust is selected.

Taking into account the concepts of conflict,risk and trust, organizations always have to con-sider crisis communication when deciding. Agiven decision must be defendable, taking intoaccount the risks of future crises, in such a waythat it is probable that the organization keepsthe trust of its stakeholders. When emergent cri-sis systems are observed from the perspective oftrust, organizations’ histories of self-presentationand values become visible and evaluated in rela-tion to present opinions about these values, andthe organizations’ congruence with these valuesin its historical self-presentation. Of course, orga-nizations cannot know the future present, butcontinually they can re-actualize the actuality ofdecisions and take into account what is focusedon in the present in their social environment. Inaddition, they can organize in accordance withthe principles of value management to display acongruent history of self-presentation that makesit possible to defend present actions in the future.

ORGANIZATIONS AND FUNCTION SYSTEMS

Risk-taking and trust provide advantages at thesocietal level. The advantages are especially withregard to temporary benefits. In the modus ofrisk, possibilities are tested that would not betested without risk-taking, and which nobodycan know beforehand will succeed or not. Whenrisks are taken and result in success, new socialstructures are produced, and new possibilitiesare created, for instance, investments in a newkind of medicine that keeps bodies alive and




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psyches happy and lets the risk-taking organiza-tion earn money and gain a positive reputation.4

Contemporary society is built on trust, e.g. trustin the value of money, in scientific results and inlegitimate political power (Luhmann, 1979: 49).Also, it takes trust to have money in the bank,children in the kindergarten, your body in thetraffic etc. Both trust and risk require reflectivity,i.e. awareness and communication about alterna-tives with different consequences for the presentand future. Organizations feature (temporary)preferences for a specific function system—com-panies to the economic system because it is thebottom line that counts, schools to the educationsystem as it is teaching/learning and exams thatcount, and parties to the political system as it isvotes that provide power.5 However, in the func-tionally differentiated society, an organizationmust be able to communicate in all society’s dif-ferent symbolically generalized communicationmedia (SGCM). A company therefore must beable to communicate in the SGCM of sciencewhen it tries to convey the probable effects of anew product, in the SGCM of education, whenit tries to recruit suitable candidates, and for ex-ample in the SGCM of the judicial system whereit tries to stay on the right side of the law.6 Onthis basis, organizations build internal complex-ity in the form of various departments and rolesto be able to communicate in the different func-tional systems’ SGCM. Each of the function sys-tems is in closed in the fact dimension and canonly distinguish communications in one SGCMsuch as money or truth, but never more—theyare all one-eyed, but in return they are open inthe social dimension, so everybody can contributeto them and be included. This also means that ev-ery person and organization that wants to be in-cluded in the contemporary society must beable to handle the function systems and theircodes. It is just the opposite with regard to orga-nizations. They are open in the fact dimension and

must be able to communicate in all SGCM, but inturn they are closed in the social dimension, sothat only members can contribute to theircommunication.

Organizational communication, and in partic-ular crisis communication, in this society mustprepare for observations from the angle of anyfunction system. In addition, morals and ethicsmust be taken into account—even though theyhave not generated an autonomous function sys-tem, because of substantial disagreement aboutwhat is acceptable and what is not. But perspec-tives of moral and ethics are always lurking andreleased as observation optics from differentorganizations, movements and parts of thefragmented public.

MASS MEDIA AND EMERGENT CONFLICTSYSTEMS

Mass media, which Luhmann Q1(2000) regards as afunction system, is an important part of the sociallandscape that the emergent crisis systems andthe organizations’ crisis communication are ob-served in. Luhmann’s book on mass media iscalled ‘The reality of the mass media’, which hasa double meaning that the mass media both cre-ates a reality (that we perceive as our common re-ality) and itself has a reality (their ownorganizational issues). The mass media do nottranscend reality but create a reality that is pre-sented to the audience. Luhmann (2000: 2) definesmass media as ‘all those institutions of societywhich make use of copying technologies to dis-seminate communication’. It is the mechanicalmanufacturing of a product as the bearer of com-munication, which has led to the differentiation ofthe particular function system. The mass mediasystem decouples itself from other communica-tion by ruling out interaction between senderand receiver by the interposition of technology.To print a letter to the editor of the newspaper isthe newspaper ’s own selection. The mass mediasystem has its own symbolically generalized com-munication medium which is information and itsown code: information ⌉ not information. The in-dividual mass media organizations each managethe code according to their own programs and

4 See Roth (2014a, 2016) for a discussion of CSR as well as the distinc-tion between value communication and communication on values.5 Following Roth (2014b, 2016) organizations are multifunctional, andfollowing Andersen (2003) they are polyphonic. Both authors argueagainst the standpoint that organizations are linked to only one func-tion system.6 See Luhmann (2006: 117) about life story, (1989: 76) about health and(ibid: 64) about justice.



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decisions. The mass media system consists of or-ganizations such as publishers, newspapers andtelevision stations that internally determine whatis information and should be disseminated. Thereare huge differences between, for instance, news-papers in regard to what is considered to have in-formation value. Organizations that need tobecome visible in society must connect to themass media. However, the media organizationsare self-determined and select their own condi-tions for what to publish and how to angle it.The mass media are among the most enthusiasticcontributors to conflict systems and are often di-rectly them who initiate them. In other words, inmost mass media, it has information value if itcan be insinuated or demonstrated that an organi-zation is a danger or appears as arousing distrust.If organizations’ crisis communications are to getdisseminated, through mass media organizationstransmission, they have to meet the criteria of in-formation value.With the introduction of electronic media, soci-

ety became more transparent (Meyrowitz, 1985),which for organizations not only meant bettercommunication opportunities, but also that theirbackstage was reduced and that their decisionswere easier to observe. This makes organiza-tional communication more risky and placesgreater demands on their self-presentation inrelation to sustainability, ethics, psychosocialwork environment, leadership, service, etc., andthus generally seen in relation to the organiza-tion’s decisions. Decisions will always be evalu-ated retrospectively, and it will rarely be takeninto account what information actually led tothe risky decisions, but only what possibly couldhave been known, as well as what we have in themeantime found out (Luhmann, 2005). Whatorganizations communicate (e.g. brands, valuesand goals) will be evaluated in regard to whatthey actually do, which will be perceived asdecided.

EMERGENT CRISIS SYSTEMS AND PUBLICOPINION

The public must be observed as a fragmentedand not as one large discursive community; it

spreads out across the globe, in many differentsocial systems and media platforms (Habermas,1984, 2006). This means that the reception of or-ganizations in the public will not be homogenousand that the stakeholders will not form as a sin-gle homogeneous group. The concept of publicopinion, according to Luhmann, is described asa certain look that sets a boundary between publicand private (Baecker, 1996; Qvortrup, 1998).What is observed as public can be discussedopenly, it has public interest. First, a border isdrawn—for instance, it is up to Keminovas’how they run their own business. Second, theborder is crossed—when it appears that they areselling herbicides in South America, which areprohibited in the EU. The public can thus be de-scribed as an observation boundary between pri-vate and public that draws a border, which isimmediately crossed—something is published.It is a focus, which is moved around. Public opin-ion is about subjects of general interest and whatis of public interest often triggers the emergenceof conflict systems. Public opinion makes the-matic shifts, for instance, from economy to moral:Keminovas is a profitable business, but it is im-moral to sell banned poisons, spread by workerswithout safety equipment. Public opinion cannotbe calculated in advance, you cannot know whatit is going to take up next or whatever it lands on,or when it fluctuates: ‘First the evil Jyllands-Posten, which mocks Muslims’, but then,‘enough is enough with the Muslims ’. On thisbackground, Dirk Baecker (1996) defines publicopinion as the decision of what cannot bedecided. Public opinion is a special view thatoscillates between observing something andobserving itself: shortly after something is takenup in the public opinion, the public begins toobserve itself: isn’t this too corny, or is this theright angle. This is echoed in the mass media:the electronic media take up something whichnewspapers do not just comment on as a subject,they also discuss how it was communicated, howit was angled etc. in the electronic media(Qvortrup, 1998). The conflict runs out of thehands of the organization, and it quickly be-comes other people’s opinions that are under dis-cussion and have implications for the formationof public opinion. As public opinion can trigger




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the emergence of conflict systems, public opinionalso after a while can stop to contribute to a givenconflict system resulting in the ending of itsautopoiesis. This happens, for instance, in con-nection with a shift of theme, or a shift from ex-ternal observation to self-observation, or simplybecause of the emergence of a new and nowmoreinteresting and current crises begins to capturethe attention of the public opinion. Organizationscan learn from all conflicts, big and long-lived orsmall and short-lived, by using the external ob-servation from the public opinion as a second-or-der self-observation, letting the organizationobserve itself and its environment in the light ofthe general public (Vallentin, 2005: 38).

EFFECT AND STAKEHOLDER IDENTITY

To understand communication crises, it is impor-tant to free oneself from primitive basic assump-tions about what communication is. Mostly,communication provides an effect but not an ef-fect that can be directed, because it is up to theaddressees to select understanding (= reception),and this fact applies to all parties. The situation islike when you quarrel at home, everyone wouldrather quit, but no one lets others direct him orher to stop. In the same way, an internal emer-gent conflict system in a family continues untilno one contributes to it anymore, and so it is withconflicts on the larger scale. In addition, theentire societal dynamics come into action whenan organization becomes a negative object ofpublic opinion. Everybody has an opinion, andthe mass media willingly convey even the mostincredible views and interpretations, which inturn themselves become the object of public opin-ion, to which other mass media organizations’coverage and perspectives become a competingfocus to the organization’s crisis communica-tions. Journalists are researching, stakeholderscommenting, experts interpret consequences asmore or less self-fulfilling prophecies and thefragmented public forms its opinions. Stake-holders at all levels become reflective about theirown opinion and review their self-image, consid-ering what the public opinion (the decision of theundecidedly) will land on. The questions they

ask themselves are whether they still want to beamong those who have shares in, work in orbuy in the conflict-affected organization. Doesthe affinity with the organization still fit withthe desired self-image, and is it possible to main-tain one’s self-presentation in a congruent andpositive way, if one stays in the affiliation? Therisk of continuing to show trust to the organiza-tion can easily seem too big, and too many peo-ple who before the conflict had a confidentrelation to the organization (an un-reflected rela-tion) because of its positive reputation and solidservices might suddenly become reflected andmight not choose to trust the organization. Thepublic opinion is, however, only a meaning; if itis to have an effect and actually harm the organi-zation, it must be addressed within a functionsystem. This means that policy makers need tolegislate against the organization, the court mustjudge it, the customers must stop buying itsproducts and shareholders sell out, before the or-ganization actually gets injured. If the organiza-tion has a customer base of political consumers,lifestyle customers or is dealing with somethingthat involves a risk for the customers, such as fly-ing them in machines high above the ground, it isclear that the probability of economic, legal orpolitical consequences are big. Thus, the effectof bad publicity is very differentiated, dependingon what the crisis is about and also depending onthe market area. An organization’s finances andthe trust in it is only relatively connected,depending on whether its brand is a discountproduct, a quality product or a lifestyle product,and in relation to if the buyer segment is at allsensitive to public opinion, or whether it is self-defining and perhaps even lives in blissful oppo-sition to the public opinion. Even incongruencebetween communication and action is no guaran-tee that customers let a product down—somesegments only think about price while otherstend more to be political consumers.

EMERGENT CRISIS SYSTEMS AND SOCIALMEDIA

Generally, digital media and especially socialmedia have an interactive structure for



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communication, which differentiate them fromthe mass media. In social media, everybody withan account, for instance, on Twitter or Facebookcan take part in the communication. This meansthat the rhetorical arena is now much more inclu-sive than it was before. There are numerousexamples where customers have tried to makeclaims to organizations and did not get help butthen via the social media have started campaignstriggering conflict systems saying no to the treat-ment they got from the company. Most famousis musician Dave Carroll who said that his $3500guitar was broken while in United Airlines’custody. According to him, he did complain threetimes with no other response than indifference—then he made a song and put it on YouTube, gotmillions of views and then the company gavehim an apology and compensation but did notsucceed in saving their image.7 I even made anexperiment myself, when a member of my family,a young woman living alone with her child,received a bill for 3000 Danish kroner more thanshe should have had from her telephonecompany. She tried to call them, and they saidthat she would get her money back in twomonthsin connection with the next bill—but she did nothave the money and had to go to the bank to bor-row the money in order to live. Then, I wrote onthe company’s Facebook profile that the companyborrowed from its costumers and told the story.After 20 min, the company responded that shewould get her money back right away (Tække,2013).Even though the rhetorical arena is now much

bigger and much more inclusive, it does notmean that we know the mechanisms or laws ofwhatQ2 Jenkins et al. (2013) calls spreadability,which in using a biologism has been called goviral. For both companies and people, socialmedia means social ambivalences, because wedo not know their communicative infrastructure,i.e. the algorithms deciding the dissemination ofmessages (Tække, 2013, 2014). Content thatsucceeds in spreading over the Internet mustsomehow catch interest, be something that other

people feel that they themselves get somethingout of, like social capital or social identity, mak-ing them ‘Like’, ‘Share’ or ‘Retweet’ the content.Comparing this medium revolution to formermedia revolutions, the problem basically is thatadequate norms for the new media environmentare not developed in the first period after the in-troduction of a new medium (Meyrowitz, 1985;Tække, 2013, 2014). So, the societal norms forhow to communicate are still not fully developedin relation to our new media environment. Atthis moment in time, it appears just as unpredict-able as public opinion itself! Contrary to the newscriterion of the mass media, we cannot be sureabout the criterion of ordinary people’s interac-tions on social media. But we now—more thanever—know that it is risky to communicate atall in an environment where we cannot predicthow far our messages reach, who will get themor when they will get them, if they will get themat all. Even though organizations run a risk of notresponding positively to a complaint on a socialmedium, the complainer cannot know if othersare going to backup, ignore or will see the com-plaint at all. On the other hand, organizationscannot know if a complaint begins to echo on so-cial media and grow to a communication crisis.

CRISIS COMMUNICATION AND SOCIALMEDIA

Coombs (2012) tries with the concept paracrisis toframe the problem, helping organizations to nav-igate in the new media environment. Paracrisis isdefined as ‘a publicly visible crisis threat thatcharges an organization with irresponsible or un-ethical behavior’ (ibid. 409). It is only a crisisthread, but a thread that could escalate into a cri-sis; it is a kind of a warning. If organizationsmake environmental scanning of various socialmedia, it will help them in identifying paracrisis.If the organizations can identify complaints thathave the potential of becoming a communicationcrisis, they can act before it grows. With socialmedia, the number of people with a voice is in-creased, and, according to Coombs, organiza-tions must monitor the number of messageslinking to the paracrisis. When responding to a

7 See Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Breaks_Guitars(United Airlines” stock price fell 10%, costing stockholders about$180 million in value). See the YouTube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YGc4zOqozo




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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Breaks_Guitars

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YGc4zOqozo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YGc4zOqozo

paracrisis, trying to prevent it from growing to areal crisis, they must consider a strategy, whichaccording to Coombs (2012: 412) can be one ofthree: refute, reform or refuse. If they refute, theymust hope for other stakeholders are going tosupport their position. If they reform, they musttake into account the cost of the change and con-sistency with organizational strategy. If theyrefuse, their management does acknowledge thechallenge and hope the paracrisis disappearsdue to lack of attention.

CONCLUDING DISCUSSION: CONFLICTSYSTEMS AND SOCIAL MEDIA

From a systems theoretical view, what Coombscalls paracrisis can be observed as small no’s tothe behaviour of an organization. If the organiza-tion is open for them as irritations, as second-or-der observations of their behaviour, they maycontinually learn and thereby perform moreadequately to their surrounding social world.According to Luhmann, we do not communicateto achieve consensus but to increase our sensibil-ity to changes in our surrounding world. If anorganization allows internal conflicts, it theoreti-cally seen has an internal immune system thatmight cache small conflicts before they growand become problems in relation to the externalworld, i.e. trigger the societal immune system(a conflict system on the societal level). In thecontemporary society, social media provide apossibility for organizations to sense changes inour surrounding world. Following the JRC Tech-nical Report from the European Commission,8

there are many organizational benefits fromusing resources on the external communicationin social media, but they all imply managerialproblems.9 Social media makes probable acompletely different relationship with customers,users and stakeholders in general. Now, organi-zations in a completely different way than beforehave the possibility of staying synchronized withreactions on their products, behaviour and

expressed values. Social media provide a possi-bility of increasing organizational knowledge ofwhat customers, users and stakeholders thinkabout them and their products and for keepingup with developments in the market and forreducing marketing myopia.10 Either through di-rect communication with followers on social me-dia, or by monitoring online communities whereproducts and trends are discussed, organizationsmight actualize these possibilities. Another areais crowdsourcing where organizations canconsult customers directly in the innovationphase in the design of new products. Also at re-launching and updating products and services,customers and users can be consulted. Such useof social media means that both customers’resources and their needs are enrolled in the de-sign of products and services. Through continu-ous interactions with customers, organizationsmight have the possibility of improving customerloyalty. When organizations continually interactwith customers, they can better ensure that cus-tomers feel heard and provide them withimproved services. Companies can also developdiscount systems for those taking part, as wellas continuously running competitions where cus-tomers can win products whereby those againare kept to their relation to the organization.Common to all these opportunities is that theymight enhance users’ loyalty as customers andin some cases make them a kind of ambassadorsfor the organization. Such ambassadors can pro-vide organizations good publicity and attractmore new uses that can become customers and,last but not least, maybe come to the rescue incase of conflicts and bad publicity (ibid). Mana-gerially seen many organizations have bothstructural and cultural difficulties using socialmedia. Structurally, the transparency and newpossibilities for knowledge sharing and commu-nication call for lesser hierarchic organizations:both users and employees need to contact not acommunication worker, but the specific organi-zation member with for instance the neededknowledge directly (Macnamara and Zerfass

8 http://ftp.jrc.es/EURdoc/JRC78641.pdf retrieved monday 9 may2016.9 According to the mentioned report, there are also many advantagesfrom using social media in internal communication in organizations.

10 Marketing myopia is when a company views marketing strictlyfrom the standpoint of selling a specific product rather than from thestandpoint of fulfilling customer needs.



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2012). Also, both management and members lackeducation in using social media professionally,and there are also problems with too little timefor the costumer contact (Schultz et al., 2015).Culturally, management have difficulties inchanging toward an open and collaborativecultureQ3 (Razmerita et al., 2014) and gain em-ployees trust so they dare to use social media(Heide and Simonsson 2011). Organizations notadapted to the new media environment lose insensibility and in internal complexity in relationto match the complexity of the surroundingenvironment and are in problems in the case ofa conflict. On this background, organizationsmay benefit from reorganizing and performinga management in accordance with the new moresensible media environment. Small indications ofas well internal as external dissatisfaction mightbe observed and acted on making the organiza-tion more synchronized with itself and its sur-roundings. This is also important when dealingwith communicated values and strategies tomake organizations calculable to their surround-ing world and have a self-presentation and self-presentation history consistent and congruentwith their values and strategies.11 Modificationsare continuously being built into the organiza-tional reproduction process to strengthen its im-mune system. In the new media environment,such sensitivity seems even more important thanin former medium societies with lesser transpar-ency and slower feedback loops. If the internalimmune system does not eliminate behaviourincongruent with the current situation of the or-ganization, its stated values and the history ofself-presentation the mostly sensitive social-me-dia-based social environment probably will findit out. A critic in a social medium is a contribu-tion to the organization’s second-order self-ob-servation, helping it to see itself in the view ofpublic opinion—in what could become the opin-ion of important parts of its stakeholders. If theorganization asks about the meaning and triesto link to the meaning, explaining itself and itsmotives, maybe altering parts of its behaviour, aconstructive interaction is initiated—and trust is

either maintained within the relation, or at leasttried to be (re)established. Most conflicts growbecause organizations either link in an indifferentor rude manner, or because organizations do notpay attention at all. In the new media environ-ment, organizations might benefit from beingaware of what is going on in social media and re-spond and orientate adequately, e.g. it is a prob-lem that organizations do not put sufficientresources into external communications in socialmedia Q4(Schultz et al., 2015). If a mistake, or a dis-crepancy with regard to the organizationalvalues and history of self-presentation, happensin the external communication in social media,the organization might benefit from answeringwith reform. For example, if a campaign is in dis-harmony with the communicated values of theorganization (see Coombs, 2012 examples). Ifthe meaning of the critical contribution is in dis-harmony with the values and history of self-pre-sentation of the organization, the organizationcould either initiate second-order learning (dou-ble loop learning, Argyris and Schön 1996) andalter its values and strategies, or try to explainits consistence with its basic values. This is amanagerial problem to deal with. An examplewas when Arla gave an apology to the MiddleEast countries during the Mohammed cartooncrisis, which was in accordance with its statedvalues. In the mean time, many stakeholders inDenmark felt harmed by the apology and lostconfidence in Arla and selected mistrust in theirnew mode of reflectivity. In this case, Arlathrough their company weblog let their highestspokesmen explain their consistency with theirvalues in interaction with stakeholders and wonthe public opinion back despite their strategy ofrefuse (see Tække, 2008). The killing of Mariusthe giraffe at Copenhagen Zoo is another exam-ple, because it was in line with the communi-cated values, which was explained by topmanagement through the mass media—and peo-ple still go to the Zoo in Copenhagen. The conclu-sion is, that it is all about risk and trust, i.e. aboutbeing consistent with the communicated valuesand history of self-presentation on the one handand, on the other hand, to stay in contact withthe stakeholders through social media and per-form self-observations through public opinion—

11 Still, this is not meant like a static identity, but like a dynamic iden-tity that will develop in accordance with its dynamic environment.




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reflect, decide and be responsive to the criticalcontributions. But if the organizations cannothandle this, the immune system of society mighttake them out of the social evolution. Now, withthe new media environment, society is moreobservant and more synchronized with itselfthan ever before, and only organizations thatcan adapt to the new conditions will be able tomaintain themselves. In the media environment,including digital media organizations may bene-fit from being more consistent with their commu-nicated values over time and/or able to alter ormodify them in such a way that they continu-ously manage to stay observed as consistent,and thereby worthy of gaining trust in a hyperdynamic social surrounding world.

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Jesper Tække ([email protected])



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