Open government process and government transparency in crisis communication: The case of AirAsia QZ8501 crash

RIS ID

114584

Publication Details

Reddick, C. G., Chatfield, A. T. & Brajawidagda, U. (2016). Open government process and government transparency in crisis communication: The case of AirAsia QZ8501 crash. Information Polity: An International Journal of Government and Democracy in the Information Age, 21 (3), 255-271.

Abstract

This paper explores antecedents of the public's perception of government crisis communication transparency during the 2014 AirAsia QZ8501 crash, which was characterized by hyper-unknown and hyper-uncertainty. A model of government crisis communication transparency was developed to identify known antecedents. The authors collected and analyzed special issue news reports on the 2014 AirAsia QZ8501 crash from the detik.com website. There were 328 articles citing government as the information source, which the authors used to construct a framework to guide their media content analysis of these articles. Our findings strongly indicate that openness of the search and rescue process is the most salient antecedent to the media's positive perceptions of government transparency in crisis communication on ongoing search and rescue operations. Other antecedents of importance are management and structure, information quality, government leadership, and ICT use. A revised model of government transparency in crisis communication is constructed which underscores the importance of implementing open government policy to enhance transparent government crisis communication. The research contribution of this paper is this revised model of government transparency that considers the unique context of crisis communication, something the literature has not fully explored.

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Link to publisher version (DOI)

http://dx.doi.org/10.3233/IP-160392