Gwyneth Howell

#A little bird told me : birdcaging the message during the BP disaster

The purpose of crisis planning is to prepare for the inevitable. This paper examines BPs crisis response following the Deepwater Horizon oil rig explosion and the subsequent environmental disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. This event severely damaged BPs corporate standing, and the companys response and management of the crisis and cleanup exacerbated the damage to BPs reputation. The companys crisis communication strategies failed amid an onslaught of online and social media commentary from traditionally passive stakeholders and activists. The resultant damage to the companys reputation saw

Exploring breastfeeding support on social media

95B wiped off the companys equity value and the CEO forced to resign. It is shown that crisis planning needs to be continually reviewed to take account of the evolving nature of social media during a crisis; in this instance, the use of Twitter proved particularly damaging to BP. Rolling crisis plans that encompass all media are required to provide the conclusive and swift action necessary to minimise the impact of a crisis.

The role of social media as psychological first aid as a support to community resilience building.

BackgroundLack of breastfeeding support is often cited by mothers as one of the key reasons for premature weaning. The experiences and perceptions of breastfeeding mothers in a range of contexts and their support needs have been studied, but there has been little exploration of the specific breastfeeding topics that women are investigating via social networking sites (SNSs) such as Facebook, and how breastfeeding peer supporters respond to queries about breastfeeding concerns on a SNS.MethodsThis online ethnography took place in the Australian Breastfeeding Association’s (ABA) closed Facebook groups. These groups have been created for breastfeeding mothers to seek and provide support to their peers. All wall posts, comments and images for 15 of these groups were captured over a four-week period between 21 July and 17 August 2013.ResultsThe data were collected on a total of 778 wall posts with a total of 2,998 comments posted into the initial wall posts. Analysis revealed that 165 (21%) of these wall posts were queries and 72 (44%) of the queries were specific breastfeeding questions. Twelve breastfeeding topic areas were identified, and the top three topic areas were further analysed for not only their content but the nature of informational and emotional support provided to the community members.ConclusionsThe closed Facebook groups hosted by the ABA provided both informational and emotional support that appeared to be facilitated by an authentic presence from both trained peer breastfeeding counsellors and other mothers. The group administrators played a vital role in both responding to the queries and overseeing the discussions to ensure they adhered to the ABA’s Code of Ethics.