Contextual Factors and Crisis Attribution in Social Media Crisis: Revisiting Situational Crisis Communication Theory in the Chinese Context

The neglect of broader social and cultural contexts in crisis communication research raises the question of the applicability of Western originated theories in nonwestern contexts. To address the issue, this study revisits Situational Crisis Communication Theory (SCCT) in Chinese contexts by taking an online discussion on Weibo about a high-profile homicide in a McDonald’s restaurant as the case. Built on framing theory and categorization of national contexts, an inductive framing analysis of 100 top forwarded posts demonstrates the complex negotiation process of context-embedded frames and its significant impacts on crisis attribution. Based on the empirical results, this study takes an initial step towards a contextually sensitive perspective in the field of crisis communication by refining the model of SCCT: first, the consideration of modifier should integrate contextual factors; second, the determination of crisis type should rely on crisis framing.