2010 - Public Relations Society of America

Method
This study included screening questionnaires with 37 college students and interviews
with 22 college students as the first empirical evaluation of propositions 2.1, 3.1, and 3.2.
Because college students are typically savvier with social media and new technology and their
use often sets trends for how the broader culture views technology, studying this population
lends insight to future studies in this area (ECAR, 2008; Lenhart, et al., 2010). Additionally,
because research questions address how publics use social media in times of organizational
crises, participants were asked about issues they self-identified as involving.
Process. Participants were recruited through convenient and purposive means. Before
conducting the interviews, the researchers launched an online questionnaire via a participant pool
system at a large East Coast university. Thirty-nine students answered a brief questionnaire about
daily media habits to prescreen participants, which yielded 37 valid responses—from this prescreen,
22 individuals were invited to participate in in-depth, in-person interviews, which were
audio-taped and fully transcribed. The researchers stopped conducting interviews once the major
categories identified in the propositions displayed depth and variations (Corbin & Strauss, 2008).
The interviews lasted on average 26 minutes with a range of 15 to 45 minutes. Participants
received extra credit for their participation in the study.
Online questionnaire and interview guide. The online questionnaire asked 19 openended
questions related to older and new media consumption on a minutes-per-day and hoursper-week
basis (e.g., “How much time on average do you spend reading blogs per day and per
week?”) and two demographic questions (“What is your age?” and “What is your gender?”). The
interview guide asked eight open-ended questions with additional probes related to the BMCC’s
propositions. For example, for proposition 2.1 on participants’ motivation, the guide asked, “For
what reasons do you use social media in a crisis?” For propositions 3.1 and 3.2 on the indirect
influence of social media, the guide asked, for example, “How did you first learn about the
crisis?” and “Did you talk about this crisis with friends, family, and/or coworkers?”
Analysis. Analysis occurred during and after data collection. During data collection, the
researchers immediately transcribed interviews, sharing transcripts, observer comments, and
memos. This co-current data collection and analysis process allowed the researchers to capture
early themes and identify needs for shifting questions or approach. Once the interviews were
completed, the researchers systematically analyzed the transcripts through Miles and
Huberman’s (1994) data analysis procedures: data reduction, data display, and conclusion
drawing/verification. During data reduction, interview transcripts were coded using Atlas.ti and
Excel. First, using Atlas.ti, researchers coded comments relevant to the theoretical propositions.
During this stage, the researchers also coded for data that did not fit into the propositions (i.e.,
outliers) and developed new codes for this data. During data display, the researchers merged any
related codes into common themes using Atlas.ti and then exported the data into an Excel
spreadsheet for each theme, called checklist matrices. Lastly, during conclusion drawing/
verification, researchers reviewed the matrices to identify the multiple meanings that emerged
from the data, noting commonalities as well as discrepancies in interpretation.
Findings
On average, the 37 questionnaire respondents most frequently spent time using social
networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace (M = 27.40 hours/week, SD = 77.55), reading
newspapers (M = 7.28 hours/week, SD = 25.15), and reading blogs (M = 7.15 hours/week, SD =
27.12) (see Table 2). As expected, there was a wide variety in the respondents’ media
consumption as evidenced by large standard deviations.
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