Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Crisis Communication For Public Organizations: Examining Pakistan Railways' Use Of Information Technology And Social Media For Image Repair, Shafiq Ahmad Kamboh, Muhammad Ittefaq, Yan Jin

School of Communication Studies - Faculty Scholarship

This study examines the induction of information technology and the use of image-repair focused crisis response strategies on social media by Pakistan Railways amid a recent crisis. A mix-method based content analysis (i.e., qualitative and quantitative) to investigate whether and if so, how Pakistan Railways used Benoit's suggested image restoration strategies on social media to repair its image among customers and in print media. Our results show that Pakistan Railways predominantly used reducing the offensiveness of event (40%), followed by corrective action (34.6%), evasion of responsibility (10.6%), denial (8%) and mortification (6.4%) strategies, respectively. In addition, the use of image-repair …