Crisis response vs crisis cluster: a test of situational crisis communication theory on two crisis clusters in Indonesian public relations

Situational crisis communication theory (SCCT) is applied in this research to evaluate Air Asia crisis responses. The research tests whether crisis responses are consistent with the SCCT premise related to situation when a crisis has more than one cluster. SCCT argues that in this case, organisation...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Kriyantono, Rachmat, Mckenna, Bernard
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Penerbit Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia 2019
Online Access:http://journalarticle.ukm.my/13178/
http://journalarticle.ukm.my/13178/1/23446-98927-1-PB.pdf
_version_ 1848813204621230080
author Kriyantono, Rachmat
Mckenna, Bernard
author_facet Kriyantono, Rachmat
Mckenna, Bernard
author_sort Kriyantono, Rachmat
building UKM Institutional Repository
collection Online Access
description Situational crisis communication theory (SCCT) is applied in this research to evaluate Air Asia crisis responses. The research tests whether crisis responses are consistent with the SCCT premise related to situation when a crisis has more than one cluster. SCCT argues that in this case, organisation’s crisis response strategy is adjusted according to the crisis clusters. The crisis manager can use a defensive strategy for victim cluster and an accommodative strategy when the company has intentional cluster. From the premise, the researchers formulates a proposition: because of having two crisis clusters (victim and intentional clusters), the crisis response strategies of Air Asia are defensive and accommodative. This study analyses both news and press releases on the selected crisis. The content analysis of media news reveals that the company has both intentional and victim clusters, although the intentional cluster is reported more frequently. Content analysis of the company’s press releases identifies that the response strategies are accommodative and bolstering instead of accommodative and defensive. Accommodative strategy is used because most public attributions appeared to be intentional, while a defensive strategy is not applied because the media rarely reported the event as victim cluster. As a result, the company were able to successfully deal with the crisis. It can be concluded that a company with two crisis clusters should choose the relevant crisis response strategy in accordance with the type of the cluster in the public domain.
first_indexed 2025-11-15T00:14:29Z
format Article
id oai:generic.eprints.org:13178
institution Universiti Kebangasaan Malaysia
institution_category Local University
language English
last_indexed 2025-11-15T00:14:29Z
publishDate 2019
publisher Penerbit Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia
recordtype eprints
repository_type Digital Repository
spelling oai:generic.eprints.org:131782019-07-21T12:33:45Z http://journalarticle.ukm.my/13178/ Crisis response vs crisis cluster: a test of situational crisis communication theory on two crisis clusters in Indonesian public relations Kriyantono, Rachmat Mckenna, Bernard Situational crisis communication theory (SCCT) is applied in this research to evaluate Air Asia crisis responses. The research tests whether crisis responses are consistent with the SCCT premise related to situation when a crisis has more than one cluster. SCCT argues that in this case, organisation’s crisis response strategy is adjusted according to the crisis clusters. The crisis manager can use a defensive strategy for victim cluster and an accommodative strategy when the company has intentional cluster. From the premise, the researchers formulates a proposition: because of having two crisis clusters (victim and intentional clusters), the crisis response strategies of Air Asia are defensive and accommodative. This study analyses both news and press releases on the selected crisis. The content analysis of media news reveals that the company has both intentional and victim clusters, although the intentional cluster is reported more frequently. Content analysis of the company’s press releases identifies that the response strategies are accommodative and bolstering instead of accommodative and defensive. Accommodative strategy is used because most public attributions appeared to be intentional, while a defensive strategy is not applied because the media rarely reported the event as victim cluster. As a result, the company were able to successfully deal with the crisis. It can be concluded that a company with two crisis clusters should choose the relevant crisis response strategy in accordance with the type of the cluster in the public domain. Penerbit Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia 2019 Article PeerReviewed application/pdf en http://journalarticle.ukm.my/13178/1/23446-98927-1-PB.pdf Kriyantono, Rachmat and Mckenna, Bernard (2019) Crisis response vs crisis cluster: a test of situational crisis communication theory on two crisis clusters in Indonesian public relations. Jurnal Komunikasi ; Malaysian Journal of Communication, 35 (1). pp. 222-236. ISSN 0128-1496 http://ejournal.ukm.my/mjc/issue/view/1165
spellingShingle Kriyantono, Rachmat
Mckenna, Bernard
Crisis response vs crisis cluster: a test of situational crisis communication theory on two crisis clusters in Indonesian public relations
title Crisis response vs crisis cluster: a test of situational crisis communication theory on two crisis clusters in Indonesian public relations
title_full Crisis response vs crisis cluster: a test of situational crisis communication theory on two crisis clusters in Indonesian public relations
title_fullStr Crisis response vs crisis cluster: a test of situational crisis communication theory on two crisis clusters in Indonesian public relations
title_full_unstemmed Crisis response vs crisis cluster: a test of situational crisis communication theory on two crisis clusters in Indonesian public relations
title_short Crisis response vs crisis cluster: a test of situational crisis communication theory on two crisis clusters in Indonesian public relations
title_sort crisis response vs crisis cluster: a test of situational crisis communication theory on two crisis clusters in indonesian public relations
url http://journalarticle.ukm.my/13178/
http://journalarticle.ukm.my/13178/
http://journalarticle.ukm.my/13178/1/23446-98927-1-PB.pdf