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This study examined the Penn State sex abuse scandal by applying traditional crisis communication strategies, usually invoked by an organization, to the online communication of the university’s active stakeholders, sports fans. Previous findings suggest sports fans will act on behalf of an organization during a crisis. Yet, the tweets of Penn State fans showed that they turned on the university and placed their loyalty with Coach Joe Paterno. Furthermore, this study discovered that fans engaged in the ingratiation, reminder, and scapegoat strategies most befitting the typology offered by Coombs, empowering the active stakeholders in the process. Results of this case provide a warning for organizations that online fan-based crisis response may not always be enacted in their best interests.
Brown et al. (Thu,) studied this question.