twitter crises - case studies from the pr view by david clare

8/8/2019 Twitter Crises - Case Studies From the PR View by David Clare

1/7

Twitter Crises: Case Studies

from The PR View by David Clare

Twitter Crises: Case Studies from The PR View by David Clare


2/7

About This Series

This series, written by David Clare was created during his time at University studying how Social Media was being used in

crises, with a key focus on how the new medium could be used in Public Relations.

The following four case studies were originally posted to The PR View Blog, where they can be downloaded individually. This

complete document contains minor edits, however, they remain largely the same.

The crises all contain elements of Social Media, mostly showing how Twitter can break the news first and control how the

story develops. The lesson here is that Social Media must be monitored and used when responding to crises.

Contents

Page 1 - Amsterdam Plane Crash

Page 2 - Haiti Earthquake Appeal

Page 3 - Hudson River Plane Crash

Page 4 - Jakarta Bombings

Page 5 - References

Twitter Crises: Case Studies from The PR View by David Clare


3/7

Amsterdam Plane Crash

On 25 February 2009, Flight 1951 of Turkish Airlines crashed into a field only several hundred metres away from the intended

runway.

The flight had flown all the way from Istanbul in Turkey, to Amsterdam in the Netherlands. However on entry to the

Amsterdam Schiphol Airport the plane crashed, killing a total of nine people, these were passengers and crew, including all

the pilots.

The flight was carrying 128 passengers, 7 cabin crew and 3 pilots. Despite being piloted by one of the airlines most senior

captains, the reasons for the plane crash were partial human error.

The crash was caused by a faulty altimeter, meaning the automatic flight systems were working to the wrong height, giving

the plane the wrong entry speed for landing. The crash also occurred due to human error. It was reported that if the pilots

had paid more attention to the airspeed and altitude equipment, the crash could have been averted.

(Times: 2009)

Why Twitter is involved

"Looking at a crashed airplane near Schiphol..." (Nipp, J: 2009) was the first news

of the crash. Jonathan Nip was the first to break the story, by way of Twitter. Nipp

minutes later tweeted that he could not find any information on the internet.

The mainstream media did not break the new story until Twitter and the

Blogosphere had been mentioning the crash for some time.

The first photo of the crash to appear was on TwitPic, a photo application for

Twitter.

(Twitpic: 2009)

What is significant about this case, apart from the fact that Twitter broke the storyfirst, is that the local news in the area were not the first mainstream media to

catch on to the story. In fact it was CNN, in America. (Beaumont, C. 2009)

This case shows a positive shift for the mainstream media, proving that they are

now looking at the likes of Twitter for breaking news, due to the advantage of

having users all over the world - not just in the big cities, a task which is

impractical for news corporations.

Twitter Crises: Case Studies from The PR View by David Clare 1


4/7

Haiti Earthquake Appeal

On 12 January 2010, a 7.0 magnitude earthquake hit Haiti, quickly followed by two after shocks measuring 5.9 and 5.5

magnitudes. Further aftershocks continued days after.

Global aid and fundraising took place, yet aid relief did not arrive till two days later, and further aid was very slow to arrive.

On 22 January, the rescue effort was officially called off, however international teams kept up the search and survivors

continued to appear days and weeks after the quake.

The estimated number of dead is between 150,000 and 200,000. (BBC News: 2010)


The news of the earthquake did not break on Twitter. However

the importance of Twitter is seen through the massive

response and, in particular, the DEC (Disaster Emergency

Committee) Twitter account, @decappeal.

The word Haiti was a trending topic nonstop for at least 3

weeks. Meaning Haiti was always mentioned at a high level for

a long period of time.

Twitter celebrities, such as Ashton Kutcher made sure interest

was always high with Tweets such as the picture above.

(Kutcher, A.: 2010)(McDermott, M: 2010)

The DEC already had a presence on Twitter, since 2 October 2009 (mytweet16: 2010). For the Haiti crisis, the DEC already

had systems in place to respond immediately to the disaster.

The DEC have stated the majority of text message donations come from Twitter, and while a definite amount is unknown, the

DEC tweeted the following:

Has anyone ever raised more than 142,000 in two weeks from an SMS campaign in the UK? Just asking you

understand... (decappeal: 2010)

This can be interpreted that their campaign on Twitter has amounted to 142,000, however no comment was made.

Whether or not this amount of money was generated, it is clear Twitter has been a driving force behind the Haiti campaign,

raising awareness and money directly through the social medium.



5/7

Hudson River Plane Crash

On 15 January 2009, Flight 1549 of US Airways successfully completed an emergency water landing on the Hudson River,

Manhattan.

The flight had only just taken off, however a flock of geese flew into the turbines, causing the plane to lose thrust and unable

to continue flight. The decision was made to land on the river as there was no time to return to the runway.

All 155 passengers, and the aircrew, survived the ordeal. The plane was also very much intact, apart from sinking slowly into

the river.

The media dubbed this as the Miracle on the Hudson River. (BBC News: 2009)


"Theres a plane in the Hudson. Im on the ferry going to pick up the people.

Crazy." (Krums, J.: 2009) was the first news of the crash. Janis Krums was the

first to break the story, through Twitter. In this Tweet was also the first photo of the

plane:

(Twitpic: 2009)

The story quickly became a trending topic, and the picture has been viewed by

more than 550,000 people. In fact the servers of the sight crashed from the heavy

usage. (CNET: 2009)

While Twitter was rife with activity, googles version of trending topics had no

mention of the incident even 1 hour afterwards. Website FlightStats also showed

the flight as en route for a long time after the plane emergency landed.

(Beaumont, C. 2009)

The power of Social Media did not stop at Twitter, while mainstream media was

ignorant of the event, Wikipedia was updated almost instantly, with an entirely new

page dedicated to the incident. (Beaumont, C.2009)



6/7

Jakarta Bombings

On 17 July 2009, the Marriott and Ritz-Carlton hotels in Jakarta were attacked by terrorist suicide bombers.

The terrorists and 7 others were killed in the blasts, while as many as 50 people were injured. (BBC News: 2009)

Jakarta, the capital of Indonesia, has suffered many terrorist attacks in recent years. It is unknown who was behind the

attack, however, the main suspect is Jemaah Isamiah, the group behind recent attacks in Indonesia.

(CNN: 2009)


Bom @ marriot and ritz Carlton kuningan jakarta was the first

news of the crisis. This was tweeted by Daniel Tumiwa (2009).

While he continued to tweet about the attack, others were

uploading photos using TwitPic, like the one shown: (TwitPic:

2009)

Soon the attacks were picked up by the mainstream media,

and the news was reported worldwide.

The significance of this case comes from how the Marriott

group responded to the crisis. They chose to use Twitter to

respond and control the situation. They were tweeting about

gathering info, monitoring the situation and sent out their

deepest sympathies (ABC News: 2009)

The way the crisis was reported is becoming more common, the way the Marriott group chose to respond and engage this

large audience was significant to the shift towards Social Media and Twitter as a Crisis Management tool.



7/7

References

ABC News (2009) Terror on Twitter: users break Jakarta story. ABC News. 17 July, [online]. Available from: http://bit.ly/

dVO7uP [Accessed on: 02 February 2010]

BBC News (2009) Fatal blasts hit Jakarta hotels. BBC. 17 July, [online]. Available form: http://bbc.in/fZvMEF [Accessed on:

02 February 2010]

BBC News (2010) Haiti Earthquake: Day by Day. BBC. 24 January, [online]. Available from: http://bbc.in/gZ6mD4 [Accessed

on: 02 February 2010]

BBC News (2009) Pilot Hailed for Hudson miracle BBC. 16 January, [online]. Available from: http://bbc.in/ec0fd3 [Accessed

on: 02 February 2010]

Beaumont, C. (2009) Amsterdam plane crash: Twitter, Social Media, and the anatomy of a disaster. Telegraph. 25 February,

[online]. Available from: http://bit.ly/hQXHpG [Accessed on 03 February 2010]

Beaumont, C. (2009) New York Plane Crash: Twitter breaks the news, again. Telegraph. 16 January, [online]. Available from:

http://bit.ly/e2AheB [Accessed on: 02 February 2010]

CNET News (2009) Photo of Hudson River plane crash downs TwitPic. CNET. 15 January, [online]. Available from: http://

bit.ly/hFzwPq [Accessed on: 02 February 2010]

CNN Video (2009) Jakarta terror suspects. CNN. 17 July, [online]. Available from: http://bit.ly/hzirLS [Accessed on: 02

February 2010]

decappeal (2010) Has anyone ever raised more than 142,000 in two weeks from an SMS campaign in the UK? Just asking

you understand... Twitter [online]. Posted 27 January. Available from: http://bit.ly/eOEHNx [Accessed on: 02 February 2010]

Krums, J. (2009) Theres a plane in the Hudson. Im on the ferry going to pick up the people. Crazy. Twitter [online] Posted

15 January. Available from: http://bit.ly/g54jkt [Accessed on: 02 February 2010]

Kutcher, A (2010) RT @RyanSeacrest: best photo out of Haiti yet: http://bit.ly/8MSPF1. Twitter [online]. Posted 22 January.

Available from: http://bit.ly/hNHiX7 [Accessed on: 02 February 2010]

McDermott, M (2010) Haiti: is this the best picture in the world. Evening Star 24. 22 January, [online]. Available from: http://

bit.ly/gLdVrJ [Accessed on 02 February 2010]

My Tweet 16 (2010) Mytweet16 [online]. Available from: http://bit.ly/ijIKws [Accessed on: 02 February 2010]

Nipp, J. (2009) Looking at crashed airplane near Schiphol... Twitter. 25 February, [online]. Available from: http://bit.ly/eYf952

[Accessed on: 02 February 2010]

Times (2009) Turkish Airlines pilots ignored faulty altimeter before Amsterdam crash.The Times. 05 March, [online]. Available

from: http://bit.ly/ehPyEw [Accessed on 03 February 2010]

Tumiwa, D. (2009) Bom @ marriot and ritz Carlton kuningan jakarta. Twitter [online] Posted 17 July. Available from: http://

bit.ly/gIYP36 [Accessed on: 02 February 2010]

TwitPic (2009) Smoke from Ritz Carlton / Marriot Jakarta (photo via @yenitas friend) Twitpic. 17 July, [online]. Available from:

http://bit.ly/haY4oj [Accessed on: 02 February 2010]

TwitPic (2009) Theres a plane in the Hudson. Im on the ferry going to pick up the people. Crazy. Twitpic. 16 January, [online]

Available from: http://bit.ly/h6vQ87 [Accessed on: 02 February 2010]

Twitpic (2009) Untitled Picture. Twitpic. 25 February, [online]. Available from: http://bit.ly/ebv4zs [Accessed on 03 February2010]


twitter crises - case studies from the pr view by david clare

Documents