Pack mentality and community voice

Social media platforms, at their heart, are communities where people go to express shared experiences. The textual analysis demonstrated that Air New Zealand and Jetstar have very different communities, and expressions of community involvement, which may impact reputation and perception. On the Jetstar page, evidence of a pack mentality emerged, whereby one complaint about lack of service or similar sparked other, similar complaints, as shown in Figures 16 and 26. This pack mentality sparked increasingly negative posts, relaying shared experiences of delays, cancellations and other frustrations about Jetstar’s  experiences.  These  posts  suggest  that  Jetstar’s  prior  reputation  may   have caused an increasingly negative and hostile community to form on the Jetstar page, which poses its own risks to reputation. More commonly than not, when these shared experiences were aired in the community, Jetstar would not reply to the complaints of everyone, and would only reply to the initiator. This then allows complaints and shared experiences to be aired that may challenge good reputation without any counter balance provided by the organisation that may help to protect reputation. The challenges of an inherently negative

community, that can air complaints and issues at their leisure is further amplified when the organisation fails to become involved in the debate and address issues in a public manner, as no resolution or counter-point can be seen to prevent other key publics from building a negative perception. The power of a community voice, and the potential challenges posed by an overwhelming

negative community cannot be underestimated in a social media age, as word of mouth becomes increasingly digitised and accessible to all.

4.6.2 Focus groups

Focus Group participants alluded to the power of a public social media

community, and the ability to hold organisations publically accountable through volume and publicness of complaints, as a strong motivating factor behind commenting on social media platforms. When Participants 5,6 and 7 were asked

whether commenting on social media was about being part of a shared experience they nodded in agreement.

“I’d  turn  to  social  media  to  see  if  there  are  any  other  people  in  the  same   boat  as  me.  To  get  that  group  mentality  and  group  pressure  going”   (Participant 8).

“(I  would  comment  on  Facebook  about  Jetstar  and  Air  New  Zealand   because) you get other people backing you up as well, people are like yea they  did  that  to  me  as  well”  (Participant  7)

“People  like  to  vent  and  get  noticed,  saying  their  opinion  in  a  very  public   place”  (Participant  7).  

“It’s good for those that feel like you need to vent, and then they get backed up  by  the  rest  of  the  public”  (Participant  5).

The above quotes indicate that the pack mentality that sparked additional complaints  on  Jetstar’s  Facebook  page  would  be  repeated,  as  participants  were   most likely to comment on a page to serve a public function of providing

warnings and of letting the public validate their complaints. The desire to be part of a shared experience and have complaints validated would lead to a snowball effect of criticism, which airlines would be expected to respond to, as discussed in section 4.2.

4.6.3 Interviews

Interviewees referred to the community voice and shared experiences of social media as being a strong motivating factor for using it in such events. There were also notions of fulfilling a public service,  where  others  could  see  if  the  airlines’   had failed in any way and forcing responses by sheer volume of complaints. Participant 11 said:

“I  feel  like  more  people  see  Air  New  Zealand  as  being  great  and  having  a   good reputation, and it’s not always that great, and I feel like people should know  that,  and  not  just  hinder  Jetstar  as  being  the  bad  airline,  so  that’s  why   I feel like I should have said something to Air New Zealand about their flight.”  

“  (Social  media  is  about)  the  shared  experience  and  getting to vent. And it’s transparent.  You’re  not  just  one  caller  thinking  is  this  just  me  and  am  I  the  

only  one  to  have  this  problem.  On  social  media  you  know  that  you’re  not”   (Participant 15)

“I’m  most  likely  to  post  about  something  that  I  think  is  a  real  injustice, so I would be quite happy to stir other people up and I think social media can do that. I would feel quite happy about that (stirring others up) because you can continue things and get momentum going so I would do that in the future…  It’s about holding an organisation accountable and making sure that everyone is being treated equally and the situation is being dealt with as  a  whole”  (Participant  15).  

The above quotes indicate that both Participant 11 and 15 see and use social media as a tool that enables community to have a voice. Participant 15 clearly stated that they would be happy to fuel discussion and debate on a social media website if they believe an injustice has happened. This idea of serving a

community and holding organisations accountable may be a strong motivating factor behind the pack mentality which causes one complaint to spark several, as the social media community attempts to demand action and recourse for wrong- doing.

4.7 Summary

Findings demonstrated that crisis communication strategies used by both airlines were not all encompassing, and did not - for the most part - alleviate the situation. Standardised replies, lack of communication and the inability to engage in dialogic communication and respond to queries and concerns are all emergent issues with the communication used by the airlines. Participants indicated that they wanted clear, concise, timely, accurate and synchronised information, received across as many platforms as possible. The insincerity and repetitiveness of crisis communication messages issued provided a level of token engagement, that demonstrated both organisations were not participating in the dialogic communication which social media allows for.

Affected publics were increasingly using social media as an information-seeking tool and participants expected that these organisations would be able to provide information over this platform in a timely manner, appropriate to the platform. Inability to provide this information was met with frustration and anger, and with key publics turning to other mediums due to a lack of information. Inability

to provide information on Facebook suggests that both organisations have not fully appreciated the fact that key publics will seek out information in this way. Lack of consideration for the provision of information suggests that crisis

communication strategies are once again lacking in this area, with spokespeople managing the pages being ill-informed and not being given the autonomy they need to effectively handle the crisis.

Emotion and evidence of pack mentality played a significant factor in social media use and in key publics sharing negative word of mouth. Emotional postings were most evident when a perceived injustice had occurred. Findings demonstrated that such negative, emotional postings could be nullified if a solution was provided. However, the repetitive use of standardised replies indicated that both organisations had not incorporated ways of dealing with this type of content into their crisis communication strategies.

Crisis history and prior reputation also played a role in how the organisations were perceived, and how they are able to weather a crisis, with participants indicating that Air New Zealand would remain in their favour longer than Jetstar in the case of bad experiences. This, and the fact that participants indicated that social media is increasingly being used to judge reputation of organisations, suggests that crisis communication strategies must adapt to enable organisations to protect reputation before, during and after crises. Findings demonstrated that current  strategies,  in  this  circumstance,  were  not  adequate,  as  key  publics’   expectations require more engagement and less control by the organisations as evident in their limited and unhelpful responses. The implications of these findings, and the changes and adaptations that they demand, will be discussed in depth in the following chapter.

5. Analysis

5.1 Overview

Social media presents a number of new challenges to the practice of crisis communication. Findings highlighted a myriad of salient issues in current crisis communication practices as applied to the social media environment of Facebook. In compiling the findings, it became increasingly clear that current crisis

communication practices adopted by both Jetstar and Air New Zealand were lacking. There was strong evidence of ill-preparedness in the crisis

communication plans employed by both airlines, which led to the use of

standardised replies and superficial engagement. There was also evidence that the airlines were ill-equipped to deal with the highly emotive nature of some of the posts - choosing to either ignore these posts or to only provide general evasive answers. Furthermore, the publicness of social media forums heightened the risks associated with negative prior reputation and crisis history, as people increasingly turn to these forums to inform perceptions of reputation. These issues demonstrate that social media demands change in crisis communication practices employed in that environment. Crisis communicators can work to adapt practices by understanding areas in which current practices lack and ensure their strategies continue to protect and maintain reputation while using social media platforms.