Exam 2: Understanding Preconditions of Social Media Storms

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Psychology literature distinguishes three related types of negative moral emotions: anger, contempt, and disgust. Negative moral emotions represent a link between individual's moral standards and moral judgements and can occur individually or jointly. While anger aims to improve the relationship between the attacker and the target (constructive approach), contempt is focusing to destroying the target by the attacker (destructive approach). Therefore, Romani, Grappi, and Bagozzi (2013) hypothesized that in the context of corporate wrongdoings, anger will be associated with so-called constructive punitive actions (e.g., temporary boycotts/buycotts directed at changing corporate practices) while contempt will be associated with destructive punitive actions (e.g., so-called "cancel culture", a modern form of ostracism, directed at harming the corporation by promoting un-following their social media channels and/or permanent avoidance of their products/services). If negative emotions can be used in a constructive way, companies should embrace this opportunity by giving customers the opportunity to express their anger and participate in decision-making process in order to correct companies' behavior. Unfortunately, many companies usually do the opposite and discourage or ignore negative feedback. If consumers' anger is unaddressed, contempt is usually developed, leading to more severe consequences for companies. This can also be applied to social media storms, which can be driven by both anger and contempt. Business leaders should assess the nature of negative emotions expressed during the storm, and by that improve their understanding of the storm's drivers and dynamic.

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Anti-branding activities are websites, accounts on social media or other forms of digital presence, created and managed by dissatisfied and angry consumers, or even the members of the general public who never had any relationship with the brand that is being talked about. It is important to understand that anti-branding is much more than complaining. According to Krishnamurthy and Kucuk (2009), complaint and product evaluation forums are focusing on transactional dissatisfaction and product quality respectively, while anti-brand websites are focusing on affecting individual consumption through the construction of a negative brand identity. Anti-branding activities are more likely to address a wider range of issues beyond bad customer experience, such as cultural, technological, political, and legal issues. The main antecedent of anti-branding is consumer empowerment (technological, economic, social, and legal). While anti-branding activities usually have a long(er)-term lifespan than social media storms, these two constructs could be seen as interconnected. For example, the presence of anti-branding activities (e.g., an anti-brand website) can support the emergence of a social media storm. On the other hand, social media storm can initiate the emergence of anti-branding content, that will stick around much longer than the storm itself.

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Kaplan and Haenlein (2010) proposed one of the most cited classifications of social media platforms, by using theories of media research (i.e., social presence theory and media richness theory) and social processes (i.e., concepts of self-presentation and self-disclosure), as a classification criterion. They identify six major types of social media platforms. Collaborative projects are built around collective content creation (e.g., Wikipedia) or bookmarking (e.g., Pinterest), where attention is on the content, and not on its creator or bookmarker. These platforms are important sources of information and inspiration for consumers, which can be important in the context of social media storms. Content communities are also built around content creation, which is mostly done by individual creators who want their content to be shared. Due to their prominent sharing capabilities, they are often used for viral marketing (e.g., viral YouTube videos), which also makes them a place where many social media storms start. Blogs and microblogging sites, are important means for gaining thought leadership in social media due to high visibility of content creators and participators. These platforms also proved to be important entities in social media storms, since they are often used to express dissatisfaction and disappointment with corporate practices. Social networking sites enable users to create their profiles and interact with other users (peer-to-peer) and companies/brands, create and publish content, and engage with content (both UGC and FGC) via comments, likes/dislikes, and shares. High media richness and to some extend immediate communication (e.g., via live streams on Instagram and Facebook), combined with the possibility for users to engage with the content in many ways, makes social networking sites an ideal context for social media storms. Virtual social worlds and virtual game worlds share a very few features with other types of social media, and they are considered more as platforms for gaming than media for social interactions. They are not a suitable context for social media storms.