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NTU Management Review Vol. 35 No. 2 Oct. 2025

Message Life Cycle and Firm Crisis: A Case Study

Shuo-Min Li, Department of Business Administration, Ming Chuan University
Jen-Shyang Chen, Department of Business Administration, Ming Chuan University

1. Background

Information on social media is powerful and difficult to control. This study examines
how messages posted on social media accumulate influence and shape perceptions that
may ultimately trigger crises for firm stakeholders. It also analyzes how such messages are

disseminated, what factors enhance or reduce their influence, and what consequences they
generate.
On social media, posting messages, expressing approval through likes, and sharing
content are common actions that can attract substantial attention. This attention may

eventually escalate into matters of public concern. If not properly managed, such messages
may evolve into full-blown crises for stakeholders.
In the past, situational crisis communication theory (Coombs, 2007), social-mediated
crisis communication (Jin, Pang, and Cameron, 2012) and the integrated crisis mapping

model (Jin et al., 2012) have emphasized crisis management on social media platforms.
However, they have not addressed the cumulative influence of online negative messages
that may eventually cause crises.
This study aims to explore how the influence of online messages evolves through

social media activities during a crisis.

2. Framework

We develop a message life cycle framework to illustrate how the influence of social
media messages varies over time. This framework assesses the following three factors.
First, affect-driven amplification identifies how users elicit emotional responses from a
message while perceiving violations of shared values, and thus rapidly disseminate the
message. Second, participative interaction mechanisms define how user engagement,

interactions, and discourse on social media affect the dissemination, evolution, and varying

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