Theses and Dissertations from UMD
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Item Every Cloud Has a Silver Lining: How Residents in Flood-prone Areas in China Cope and Cultivate Community Resilience in the Post-Crisis Stage(2023) Yan, Yumin; Liu, Brooke; Communication; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Background and Purpose. Catastrophic crises such as floods have resulted in millions of fatalities and tens of billions of dollars in direct economic losses annually worldwide throughout the twentieth century (Merz et al., 2021). Crises can create severe and widespread disruption, but successful communication may also act as a catalyst for constructive change in the post-crisis stage, as it fosters a shared understanding of the situation and provides protective action taking instructions (Liu et al., 2016; Sellnow & Seeger, 2021). The role of crisis communication in the post-crisis stage is insufficiently examined (Liu & Viens, 2020) despite the fact that many communities have the greatest need for support when the media spotlight and widespread public attention disappears. This dissertation emphasizes the notion of learning from crises in the post-crisis stage (Huber, 1991; Moynihan, 2009; Renå & Christensen, 2018) by examining individuals’ coping and their perceived community resilience in the post-crisis stage within a collectivistic and non-democratic context (i.e., mainland China). Theoretical Frameworks. To understand how individuals adapt to emotionally charged situations like floods, this dissertation draws insights from the integrated crisis mapping model (i.e., ICM; Jin et al., 2012; Jin et al., 2016), the infectious disease threat appraisal model (i.e., IDT; Jin et al., 2020; Jin et al., 2021), emotional contagion theory (Barsade, 2002; Barsade et al., 2018), social appraisal theory (Manstead & Fischer, 2001; Parkinson, 2011; 2021), and identity-based emotions research (Mackie et al., 2008; Smith & Mackie, 2015; Tajfel & Turner, 1979; Turner et al., 1987) to explore how individuals’ appraisal of a crisis, susceptibility to emotional contagion (Doherty, 1997; Jin et al., 2020), and identification with their local communities influence individuals’ coping and perceived community resilience (the communities advancing resilience toolkit (CART) assessment; Kim et al., 2023; Pfefferbaum et al., 2013; Pfefferbaum et al., 2015). Methods. As a country prone to flooding, China’s flood damage constitutes a significant portion of global flood losses (Ding et al., 2022; Guo et al., 2023; Qazlbash et al., 2021). Yet, no found crisis communication research provides evidence-based scientific guidance for individuals and social groups in flood-prone areas of China to recover and rebound. Thus, this dissertation explores how individuals cope and cultivate community resilience in the post-disaster recovery phase in the Lukou District, Zhuzhou City, Hunan Province of China. This dissertation deploys a self-report survey utilizing systematic cluster sampling to test the proposed model. Because the flood season in Hunan historically is from April to the beginning of September (Du et al., 2019; Hu et al., 2021; Zeng et al., 2021), the data collection started in mid-September 2022 and was completed by mid-October 2022 to capture residents’ post-flooding experiences. A total of 1,000 complete responses were collected. Because this dissertation’s proposed model includes latent factors, a two-phase modeling process (i.e., measurement and structural; Muller & Hancock, 2019) with maximal likelihood with robust standard error (MLR) estimation is adopted for analysis. Results. The overarching idea delivered in this dissertation’s findings is that individual coping mechanisms (e.g., perceptions, affective experiences, and behavioral intentions) as adaptive and socially functional coping, further contribute to individuals’ perceived local community resilience. Focusing on the adaptive perspective of individuals’ coping, this dissertation’s findings show that vulnerable individuals (e.g., those who perceive greater incurred damage and resource constraints) are more likely to experience negative emotions and less likely to engage in information seeking behaviors or take protective measures to recover from damage and prevent future threats in the post-crisis stage. This dissertation’s findings on the relationships between individuals’ crisis appraisals (e.g., perceived crisis predictability, controllability, and responsibility) and individuals’ affective experiences of emotions and behavioral intentions differ from previous research that focuses on the pre-crisis and crisis stages in Western contexts (e.g., Austin et al., 2021; Jin, 2010; Jin et al., 2020). Furthermore, this dissertation’s findings reveal that negative and positive emotions’ influences on individuals’ information seeking intentions, passive protective action taking intentions, and active protective action taking intentions are largely muted in the post-crisis stage within a collectivistic and non-democratic context. Focusing on the socially functional perspective of individuals’ coping, this dissertation reveals that individuals’ perceived social support, feature-driven emotional contagion, meaning-driven emotional contagion, and ingroup identification influence individuals’ affective experiences of negative and positive emotions, information seeking intentions, passive protective action taking intentions, and active protective action taking intentions. Specifically, findings on perceived social support show that participants who perceived higher levels of social support are less likely to experience negative emotions about floods and more likely to have passive protective action taking intentions. Findings on feature-driven emotional contagion in public emergencies show that participants with higher tendencies of unconsciously capturing others’ emotional expressions are more likely to experience negative emotions about floods and have passive protective action taking intentions. Findings on meaning-driven emotional contagion in public emergencies show that participants with higher tendencies to capture others’ emotional expression by cognitively interpreting the crises are more likely to experience positive emotions about floods and have active protective action taking intentions. Findings on ingroup identifications show that participants’ identification with the local community contributes to their information seeking intentions, passive protective action taking intentions, and active protective action taking intentions. For individuals’ perceived community resilience, this dissertation’s findings show that participants with higher information-seeking intentions and active protective action taking intentions were more likely to perceive greater community resilience. Whereas there is no found statistically significant relationship between participants’ passive protective action taking intentions and perceived community resilience. Theoretical and Practical Implications. This dissertation’s findings contribute to crisis communication research and practices. This dissertation contributes to crisis communication research by examining individuals' coping in the post-crisis stage, extending existing crisis communication literature on emotion by integrating group-level factors (e.g., feature-driven emotional contagion, meaning-driven emotional contagion, and ingroup identification) and broadening previous crisis communication literature by studying a collectivistic and non-democratic context. This dissertation also advances crisis communication research on community resilience by tripling the explained variance of perceived community resilience (from 21% to 65%) and paving the way for future crisis communication research by providing measurement instructions with high reliability scores. This dissertation also offers valuable insights for crisis communicators, enabling them to comprehend the intricate mechanisms of individuals' coping and community resilience in a collectivistic and non-democratic context. This dissertation's findings can assist crisis communicators in devising culturally sensitive messaging and recovery-focused intervention programs that cater to the needs of vulnerable groups while bolstering the community's overall capacity to rebound in the crisis recovery phase.Item The Communication Solution for Attentional Bias Among Project Decision Leaders during Critical Incident Stress Phase of Crisis(2020) Djolevic, Natalija; Baecher, Gregory; Civil Engineering; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This research addresses barriers and solutions to crisis communication challenges based on existing crisis communication theories. The theories highlighted and expanded upon are integrated crisis mapping theory (ICM) and situational crisis communication theory (SCCT). Using these two theories, a new theory, attention crisis communication theory (ACCT) is postulated as a solution for attentional bias. Attentional bias is observed in crisis management teams during the onset of the critical incidence phase or at the beginning of a crisis trigger event. Other theories including real options decision theory and networks theory are considered and discussed as potential alternatives to ACCT.Item MEASURING A WORLD IN CRISIS: A NEW MODEL OF REPUTATION REPAIR(2018) Page, Tyler Grant; Liu, Brooke F; Communication; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Reputation repair is a paradigm within public relations and crisis communication. The reputation repair paradigm is currently focused on the symbolic strategies organizations use to repair their reputations in the aftermath of a crisis. This dissertation proposes significant revisions to the reputation repair paradigm and builds a series of scale measures and a revised model of reputation repair to achieve this goal. Using moral foundations theory, situational crisis communication theory (SCCT), image repair theory, and input from 20 participants with expertise in public relations, this dissertation designs new measures for instructing information, adjusting information, reputation management messages, offensiveness of a crisis, and perceived virtuousness that buffers against reputational harms posed by crisis. This dissertation then refines and validates these measures with a pilot test with 797 participants recruited from mTurk. Finally, it concludes with an experiment testing these measures in a crisis situation operationalized as a potentially deadly fire in a building. The experiment used 1,000 participants recruited from mTurk in a 2 (crisis types: rumor or organizational misdeed) x 2 (offensiveness: high or low) x 2 (instructing information: yes or no) x 2 (adjusting information: yes or no) x 2 (crisis response: denial or rebuilding) factorial design to test the effect of SCCT’s matching construct of response strategies and the proposed revised model of reputation repair that explains how messages, offensiveness of a crisis, and perceived virtuousness impact post-crisis reputation. This dissertation finds that matching strategies according to SCCT have a very small effect (ή2 = .005) on post crisis reputation while reputation management messages overall have a very strong structural effect on post crisis reputation (.814). Further, it finds that the revised model of reputation repair explains how messages, perceived offensiveness, virtuousness, and post-crisis reputation interrelate and that the revised model changes slightly under different situations. Implications for theory and practitioners are discussed.Item When Love Becomes Hate(?): The Interplay Between Consumer-Brand Relationships and Crisis Situations(2016) Ma, Liang; Toth, Elizabeth L; Communication; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This study had three purposes. First, it aimed to re-conceptualize organization-public relationships (OPRs) in public relations and crisis communication. This OPR re-conceptualization helps find out when the OPR buffering effect or the OPR love-becomes-hate effect happens. Second, it aimed to examine how consumer emotions are influenced by OPRs and influence consumer behavioral intentions. Third, it aimed to address the current problematic operationalization of the concept of consumer. Three pilot studies and one main study were conducted. Apple and Whole Foods were the two brands examined. One crisis that undermined the self-defining attributes shared between the brand and its consumers and another crisis that did not were examined for each brand. Almost 500 Apple consumers and 400 Whole Foods consumers provided usable questionnaires. This study had several major findings. First, non-identifying relationship and identifying relationship were different constructs. Moreover, trust, satisfaction, and commitment were not conceptually separate dimensions of OPRs. Second, the non-identifying relationships offered buffering effects by increasing positive attitudes and tempering anger and disappointment. The identifying relationships primarily offered the love-becomes-hate effects by increasing anger and disappointment. Third, if the crisis was relevant to consumers’ daily lives, brand response strategies were less effective at mitigating consumer negative reactions. Moreover, apology-compensation-reminder strategy was more effective compared to no-comment strategy. However, the apology-compensation-reminder strategy was no more effective than other strategies as long as brands compensate to the victims. Identifying relationships increased the effectiveness of response strategies. If the crisis did not undermine the self-defining attributes shared between consumers and brands, the response strategies worked even better. This study contributes to crisis communication research in multiple ways. First, it advances the OPR conceptualization by demonstrating that non-identifying relationship and identifying relationship are different concepts. More importantly, it advances the theory building of OPRs’ influences on crises by finding out when the buffering effect and the love-becomes-hate effect happen. Second, it adds to emotion research by demonstrating that strong OPRs can lead to negative emotions and positive emotions can have negative behavioral consequences on organizations. Third, the precise operationalization of the concept of consumer gives more insights about consumer reactions to crises.Item Flooded with Information from Social Media: Effects of Disaster Information Source and Visuals on Viewers' Cognitive, Affective, and Behavioral Responses(2016) Fraustino, Julia Daisy; Liu, Brooke F.; Communication; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)While a variety of crisis types loom as real risks for organizations and communities, and the media landscape continues to evolve, research is needed to help explain and predict how people respond to various kinds of crisis and disaster information. For example, despite the rising prevalence of digital and mobile media centered on still and moving visuals, and stark increases in Americans’ use of visual-based platforms for seeking and sharing disaster information, relatively little is known about how the presence or absence of disaster visuals online might prompt or deter resilience-related feelings, thoughts, and/or behaviors. Yet, with such insights, governmental and other organizational entities as well as communities themselves may best help individuals and communities prepare for, cope with, and recover from adverse events. Thus, this work uses the theoretical lens of the social-mediated crisis communication model (SMCC) coupled with the limited capacity model of motivated mediated message processing (LC4MP) to explore effects of disaster information source and visuals on viewers’ resilience-related responses to an extreme flooding scenario. Results from two experiments are reported. First a preliminary 2 (disaster information source: organization/US National Weather Service vs. news media/USA Today) x 2 (disaster visuals: no visual podcast vs. moving visual video) factorial between-subjects online experiment with a convenience sample of university students probes effects of crisis source and visuals on a variety of cognitive, affective, and behavioral outcomes. A second between-subjects online experiment manipulating still and moving visual pace in online videos (no visual vs. still, slow-pace visual vs. still, medium-pace visual vs. still, fast-pace visual vs. moving, slow-pace visual vs. moving, medium-pace visual vs. moving, fast-pace visual) with a convenience sample recruited from Amazon’s Mechanical Turk (mTurk) similarly probes a variety of potentially resilience-related cognitive, affective, and behavioral outcomes. The role of biological sex as a quasi-experimental variable is also investigated in both studies. Various implications for community resilience and recommendations for risk and disaster communicators are explored. Implications for theory building and future research are also examined. Resulting modifications of the SMCC model (i.e., removing “message strategy” and adding the new category of “message content elements” under organizational considerations) are proposed.Item Building online communities after crises: Two case studies(2014) Janoske, Melissa; Liu, Brooke F; Communication; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Building community in a crisis situation offers individuals a chance to not just survive, but potentially thrive through a disaster. Communities offer a unique benefit in a crisis by expanding beyond the geographic to include virtual spaces, particularly when other media are not available for survivors. This project applies theoretical frameworks from both complexity theory and the community of practice model to explore how individuals form online communities after crises, how those communities impact crisis recovery, and how the model can be used to understand communities' crisis communication. This project used a qualitative case study method, including content analysis of two communities that formed online after two crises, and interviews with nine members, including the founder, of one of the communities. The first case is the Jersey Shore Hurricane News Facebook page, formed during Hurricane Sandy in October 2012. The second case looks at a hashtag-based (#batman and #shooting) community on Twitter after the shooting at a Colorado movie theater in July 2012. The results show that instead of a typical one-to-many communication model and organizational focus, utilizing a community of practice allows for both a one-to-one model and a consequent focus on affected individuals. The community of practice model accommodates findings which suggest that location is important in building community, a need for adapting information needs to the community, and the acceptance of multiple relationship types. A new, alternate final dimension of communities of practice, continuation, is suggested and exemplified. This project argues for developing these online communities prior to a crisis. There are also specific suggestions for tools within technology that would be most useful to crisis-based communities of practice, and both benefits and drawbacks to the platforms studied. Practically, social media platform designers need to spend time thinking through how people connect during a crisis, and to make it easier for them to get the information they need quickly. In showcasing how to integrate social media, crisis communication, and a community-based model, this dissertation offers theoretical and practical suggestions for altering and improving current understandings of the best way to aid individual crisis response and recovery.