Online-ignited crises and post-crisis image restoration: example of Flight 3411 incident

The aim of this paper is to examine the flow and evolution of the communication crises in a digital space, how different crisis response approaches contributed to the escalation and suppression of the crisis, and how communicating of post-crisis organizational and policy changes contributed to the image restoration. The crisis evolution and flow have been investigated through the document analysis, based on the publicly available sources related to the exemplary critical situation – Flight 3411 incident. The textual analysis, which is the prevalent and primary method of analysis in image repair and image restoration studies, has been used to analyze both crisis and post-crisis situation. Reactive approach to communication contribute to the quick evolution of the crisis. Denial responses in the early crisis stage contribute to spreading out the crisis. Changing communication approach from reactive to proactive and from denial to rebuilding (Coombs, 2007) may contribute to the crisis suppression and risk mitigation. Consistent communicating of the policy changes in the aftermath of the crisis may contribute to rebuilding the organizational image. This paper is among the rare contributions analyzing mechanisms of the crisis evolution, including transformation of a paracrisis into crisis. Moreover, it depicts the role of post-crisis communications in the organizational image restoration in the digital era. The paper provides an overview how changes of the communications approach affect the flow of the crisis and offers conclusions useful both for theoretical and practical considerations of the paracrises, crisis communications and post-crisis communications.