All Publications

Schwarz, Andreas; Diers-Lawson, Audra
Mediated crises and strategic crisis communication of third sector organizations: a content analysis of crisis reporting in six countries. - In: Corporate communications, ISSN 1758-6046, Bd. 0 (2024), 0

Purpose: This study aims to contribute to strategic crisis communication research by exploring international media representations of third sector crises and crisis response; expanding the range of crisis types beyond transgressions; and developing a framework that integrates framing and crisis communication theory. Design/methodology/approach: Quantitative content analysis was applied to identify patterns in crisis reporting of 18 news media outlets in Canada, Germany, India, Switzerland, UK and US. Using an inductive framing approach, crisis coverage of nonprofit organizations (NPOs) and intergovernmental organizations (IGOs) between 2015 and 2018 was analyzed across a wide range of crises, including but not limited to prominent cases such as Oxfam, Kids Company, or the Islamic Research Foundation. Findings: The news media in six countries report more internal crises in the third sector than external crises. The most frequent crisis types were fraud and corruption, sexual violence/personal exploitation and attacks on organizations. Exploratory factor analysis revealed three components of crisis response strategies quoted in the media, conditional rebuild, defensive and justified denial strategies. Causal attributions and conditional rebuild strategies significantly influenced media evaluations of organizational crisis response. Three frames of third sector crises were detected; the critique, the damage and the victim frame. These frames emphasize different crisis types, causes, crisis response strategies and evaluations of crisis response. Originality/value: The study reveals the particularities of crises and crisis communication in the third sector and identifies factors that influence mediated portrayals of crises and crisis response strategies of nonprofit organizations (NPOs) from an international comparative perspective. The findings have relevant implications for crisis communication theory and practice.

https://doi.org/10.1108/CCIJ-08-2023-0117

Schwarz, Andreas; Unselt, Janina Jacqueline
Rage against the machine? : framing societal threat and efficacy in YouTube videos about artificial intelligence. - In: Risk analysis, ISSN 1539-6924, Bd. 0 (2024), 0, S. 1-19

Artificial intelligence (AI) has become a part of the mainstream public discourse beyond expert communities about its risks, benefits, and need for regulation. In particular, since 2014, the news media have intensified their coverage of this emerging technology and its potential impact on most domains of society. Although many studies have analyzed traditional media coverage of AI, analyses of social media, especially video-sharing platforms, are rare. In addition, research from a risk communication perspective remains scarce, despite the widely recognized potential threats to society from many AI applications. This study aims to detect recurring patterns of societal threat/efficacy in YouTube videos, analyze their main sources, and compare detected frames in terms of reach and response. Using a theoretical framework combining framing and risk communication, the study analyzed the societal threat/efficacy attributed to AI in easily accessible YouTube videos published in a year when public attention to AI temporarily peaked (2018). Four dominant AI frames were identified: the balanced frame, the high-efficacy frame, the high-threat frame, and the no-threat frame. The balanced and no-threat frames were the most prevalent, with predominantly positive and neutral AI narratives that neither adequately address the risks nor the necessary societal response from a normative risk communication perspective. The results revealed the specific risks and benefits of AI that are most frequently addressed. Video views and user engagement with AI videos were analyzed. Recommendations for effective AI risk communication and implications for risk governance were derived from the results.

https://doi.org/10.1111/risa.14299

Schwarz, Andreas; Sellnow, Timothy L.; Geppert, Johanna; Sellnow, Deanna D.
Protective action as an enduring keystone of risk communication: effective form, function and process of risk messaging as advocated by global higher education practitioners during a pandemic. - In: Journal of contingencies and crisis management, ISSN 1468-5973, Bd. 32 (2024), 1, e12545, S. 1-6

Risk communication is a keystone in crisis prevention and mitigation. For that purpose, many institutions worldwide have the task of translating scientific risk information into actionable messages for public safety. As a collaboration among international risk and crisis communication scholars and practitioners, we sought to identify what risk communication practitioners at higher education organizations in the Global South and North identify as essential elements of effective risk communication, based on 32 interviews in 16 countries during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic (June-August, 2020). Results exemplify a shared vision for addressing the stickiest, most wicked challenges to effective risk communication globally. The interviews revealed globally shared best practices related to form, function, and process leading directly to what we consider the keystone of effective risk communication: saving lives (outcome).

https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-5973.12545

Schwarz, Andreas; Alpers, Francis; Wagner-Olfermann, Elisabeth; Diers-Lawson, Audra
The global study of COVID news: scope, findings, and implications of quantitative content analyses of the COVID-19 news coverage in the first two years of the pandemic. - In: Health communication, ISSN 1532-7027, Bd. 0 (2023), 0, S. 1-14

Researchers and practitioners have unanimously acknowledged the impact of legacy media coverage of past pandemics as well as COVID-19 and its importance for health-related risk communication. Therefore, this study provides scholars and health communication practitioners with a deeper understanding of the patterns, main themes, and limitations of media reporting and peer-reviewed research in the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic in different national media environments. Because the objective is to evaluate patterns, this paper focuses on early quantitative and automated content analyses for theoretical contribution, geographic diversity, methodological rigor, and inclusion of risk and crisis communication theory. It also assesses whether authors deduced implications, for both theory and practice of health-related risk and crisis communication. We conducted a content analysis of 66 studies in peer-reviewed journals from the beginning of the pandemic until April 2022. The findings demonstrate that early quantitative analyses of the news coverage of COVID-19 are often not theory-driven, apply heterogeneous forms of framing analysis, and lack references to risk and crisis communication theory. Consequently, only few implications for health communication practice during pandemics were drawn. However, there is evidence of improvement in geographic scope compared to previous research. The discussion addresses the importance of developing a consistent approach to framing analyses of risk and crisis media coverage and the importance of well-designed cross-cultural research in a global pandemic.

https://doi.org/10.1080/10410236.2023.2226932

Wagner-Olfermann, Elisabeth;
Political leadership in transboundary crises, responsibility attributions, and the role of the media: a synthesis of previous research and theoretical extension. - In: Annals of the International Communication Association, ISSN 2380-8977, Bd. 46 (2022), 4, S. 290-304

With the increasing frequency of transboundary crises in the twenty-first century - examples from the past are the financial crisis, the migration crisis and the current coronavirus pandemic - the need for political leadership beyond national borders is growing. As public visibility is an essential leadership resource with regard to transboundary leadership, the question arises of how media construct and thus legitimize political leadership in transboundary crises. The basic theoretical assumption is that perceived leadership in a transboundary crisis results from publicly observable processes of attributing responsibility beyond geographical and hierarchical boundaries. Consequently, a tool for capturing attribution statements, their senders and addressees as well as their reasoning in the media coverage is presented.

https://doi.org/10.1080/23808985.2022.2120520