مقاله سال ۲۰۱۶

Crises manifest themselves in multiple ways—from organizational crises to large-scale humanitarian crises. In public relations, understanding and studying crises have largely been limited to crises that occur to organizations—particularly corporations (Coombs, 1999; Heath & O’Hair, 2010). However, nonprofit organizations also need to prepare for the potential for crises that can negatively impact their reputations (Sisco, Collins, & Zoch, 2010; Schwarz & Pforr, 2011), particularly as new and social media allow activists to reach intended and unintended audiences across the globe (Seo, Kim, & Yang, 2009). But how do social media influence the intersection of humanitarian and nonprofit organizational crises? For Invisible Children, Inc. (IC), a nonprofit organization focused on stopping the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) in Eastern and Central Africa, the intersection of multiple crises began on March 5, 2012. On that day it released a 30-min documentary on YouTube called “Kony 2012” to raise awareness about the humanitarian crises perpetuated by Uganda’s LRA leader Joseph Kony. IC’s initial goal was to receive 500,000 views within two months of releasing the video (Chalk, 2012). However, in just six days, the video received more than 100 million views, becoming the most viral video in history at that time (Wasserman, 2012). The initial positive reception of the video quickly turned negative on social media channels, including questioning the legitimacy of the organization, the efficacy of its methods, and the motivations of the filmmakers (Briones, Madden, & Janoske, 2013). In addition to credibility attacks leveled against the organization, the attacks quickly became personal for one of the three founders of IC, Jason Russell, whose very public meltdown shortly after the release of Kony 2012 was captured on social media.

This study explores social media as a double-edged sword in IC’s crisis response. Although the organization found that social media helped raise awareness of humanitarian crises, it also created an organizational crisis through negative comments and discussions online that prompted questions about their leadership, motivations, and financial structure. Using the ideas of social media activism and organizational learning to guide analysis, this paper explores IC’s social-mediated response to the humanitarian crisis in Central and East Africa, the organizational crisis these responses created, and the organization’s response to these different types of crises via social media.