| This study uses 2 (Country-of-origin: China vs. France) x 2 (Media Channel: Twitter vs. traditional news release) x 2 (Emotional Support: messages with emotional support vs. messages without emotional support) factorial experimental design to assess how three factors in crisis communication: country-of-origin of the organization involved, media channel used to deliver crisis response strategies, and emotional support as part of the crisis responses messages, influence the public's crisis appraisal. The findings suggest that a favorable country-of-origin effect exerts a halo effect to reduce damages to organizations' reputation. In addition, the intrinsic feature of Twitter, interactivity, substantially mitigates participants' negative evaluation of the crisis. Moreover, it is found that Twitter is a more suitable platform to deliver emotional support to the public while news releases serve as a better medium to disclose objective information in a crisis. Finally, participants' personal involvement with the crisis intensifies the reputational threat for an organization. |
