Beyond the Pandemic: Understanding Social Media’s Evolving Role in Crisis Communication through Temporal Analyses of Information Engagement

Authors

  • Neha Chaudhuri Toulouse Business School
  • Gaurav Gupta NEOMA Business School, Mont-Saint Aignan, France

Abstract

Amid unprecedented societal transformations, crisis communication on social media has become vital for adaptability. However, despite enabling real-time information sharing during crises, social media faces challenges like misinformation that can undermine efficacy. Using the COVID-19 pandemic as an illustrative case study, this research elucidates the intricate dynamics of social media’s evolving role in crisis communication. Specifically, it examines how perceptions of information quality and value on platforms shift overtime between active versus passive information seekers, subsequently impacting sustained engagement intentions. Through a longitudinal experiment with 1,405 social media users, results reveal distinctive perceptual evolutions across groups over time, affected by external information flows. Deteriorating perceptions, signaling issues like information fatigue, diminish continued engagement intentions. These findings advance multifaceted theoretical conceptions of social media’s temporally sensitive influences during crises. Practical implications highlight enhancing platform and agency communication strategies to sustain engagement by counteracting fatigue effects over prolonged periods.

Author Biographies

Neha Chaudhuri, Toulouse Business School

Neha Chaudhuri is Assistant Professor of Information Management at Toulouse Business School, France. Her PhD dissertation in Management Information Systems from the Indian Institute of Management Calcutta explored multi-modal factors responsible for online misinformation. She has completed her B.Tech in Computer Science and Engineering and M.Tech in Information Technology from Indian Institute of Engineering Science and Technology, Shibpur. Her research interests are in deep learning, AI for business, data analytics, and online misinformation management. Her research has been published in journals like Decision Support Systems along with proceedings of the IEEE as well as in conferences including HICSS and WeB.

Gaurav Gupta, NEOMA Business School, Mont-Saint Aignan, France

Gaurav Gupta is Associate Professor of Entrepreneurship and Information Systems at NEOMA Business School, France. He holds a PhD from IIM Calcutta, India on the role of operating environment on the business model transformation of technology startups. His research interests include technology entrepreneurship, IS use, strategic IS, and business model transformation. His work has been featured in journals like Information & Management, Decision Support Systems, Technological Forecasting & Social Change, Annals of Operations Research, Electronic Markets, Australasian Journal of Information Systems. He has won various awards for case writing like EFMD Case Writing Award and CEEMAN-Emerald Case Writing Award.

Published

2024-12-01

How to Cite

Chaudhuri, N., & Gupta, G. (2024). Beyond the Pandemic: Understanding Social Media’s Evolving Role in Crisis Communication through Temporal Analyses of Information Engagement. Systèmes d’Information Et Management (French Journal of Management Information Systems), 29(4), 109–146. Retrieved from https://revuesim.org/index.php/sim/article/view/1360

Issue

Vol. 29 No. 4 (2024): Varia

Section

Empirical Research Article

License

License

The author bears the responsibility for checking whether material submitted is subject to copyright or ownership rights (e.g. figures, tables, photographs, illustrations, trade literature and data). The author will need to obtain permission to reproduce any such items, and include these permissions with their final submission.

It is our policy to ask all contributors to transfer for free the copyright in their contribution to the journal owner. There are two broad reasons for this:

  • ownership of copyright by the journal owner facilitates international protection against infringement of copyright, libel or plagiarism;
  • it also ensures that requests by third parties to reprint or reproduce a contribution, or part of it, in either print or electronic form, are handled efficiently in accordance with our general policy which encourages dissemination of knowledge within the framework of copyright.

 

In conformity with the French law, the author keeps the 'moral rights' related to the article:

  • The 'authorship right': It is the author's right to have his name associated with each publication and exploitation of the article.
  • The 'integrity right': It can be claimed by the author if he finds that during an exploitation, his work has been distorted (cutting, reassembly...).