The imperative of government transparency in crisis communication

This paper examines the role of government transparency in crisis communication in influencing national and/or international public opinions during an enfolding aviation disaster. Using case study research on the 2014 AirAsia QZ8501 crash, we addressed the research question: How does government transparency in crisis communication influence national public opinions? We examined 1,896 newspaper articles from December 28, 2014 to January 14, 2015. Of these articles, we specifically conducted content analysis on 328 articles published during December 28--30, 2014 that cited government organization as their information source. From our content analysis several key themes surfaced to shed some light on the role of government transparency in crisis communication. Based on evidence, we proposed a model of government transparency in crisis communication as influenced by government leadership and search and rescue process openness; information quality, search and rescue structure and information and communication technologies use may also moderate the model's key relationships.