ABSTRACT
This chapter reviews a specific line of social media channel research and its potential connection to stealing thunder. In 2011, Schultz, Utz, and Göritz published an article titled "Is the Medium the Message? Perceptions of and Reactions to Crisis Communication via Twitter, Blogs, and Traditional Media". The crisis situation was a problem with spark plugs in Mercedes Benz automobiles. The study found a main effect for media on reputation and secondary crisis reactions but not for secondary crisis communication. A well-documented effect in crisis communication is stealing thunder. Stealing thunder is when the organization is the first source to disclose existence of a crisis. The opposite of stealing thunder is when news media or some other source is the first to report on the existence of the crisis. In the two social media channel-effects studies, the social media channels were operated by organization. The blog, Twitter, or Facebook conditions all present the organization as the source of the crisis information.
