Responding to Online Hoaxes

The Role of Contextual Priming, Crisis Narrative Type and Communication Strategy

Abstract

This study investigates the interaction between contextual priming, crisis narrative type and crisis communication strategy in the context of a geopolitical conflict. Specifically, it examines how an international company, when its country of origin is being caught in geopolitical tension and being portrayed positively vs. negatively by the media, should respond to misinformation paracrisis on social media using different crisis narrative types and crisis communication strategies. An online experiment (N = 506) found that a narrative response might be more effective; people’s judgment of the crisis response is partially influenced by the contextual priming of how the company’s country of origin is portrayed. This study enriched communication literature by examining strategic crisis narratives in the context of geopolitical conflicts, and exploring the roles of different response types, response strategies and contextual priming into crisis situations. This study yields important implications on how international organizations should respond to threats amid geopolitical uncertainties. Media scanning may be critical when geopolitical tensions are present. International organizations may benefit from adopting informative, accommodative responses rather than informative, defensive responses when handling misinformation-driven paracrises. Alternatively, a narrative response might work better than an informative response.