ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Commun.
Sec. Disaster Communications
Volume 10 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fcomm.2025.1559553
Crisis Frame Alignment in Southwest Airlines and News Media Discourse Post-2018
Provisionally accepted
- University of Missouri, Columbia, United States
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This qualitative study explores the framing process during the 2018 Southwest Airlines crisis, analyzing the alignment between organizational messaging and media coverage. Using a single case study design, frame analysis was conducted on Southwest Airlines' press releases and related news articles to identify patterns of alignment and divergence in crisis frames over time.The findings reveal two dominant frames-accountability and concern for passengersconsistently present in both organizational and media narratives. Instances of frame divergence emerged in the economic and conflict frames, where discrepancies were observed between Southwest's messaging and media coverage. Overall, a high degree of frame alignment was identified, indicating that media narratives closely reflected Southwest Airlines' crisis communication strategy. These results underscore the intricate interplay between organizational messaging and media framing, highlighting their collective influence on public perception during crises.
Keywords: framing, Frame alignment, Frame divergence, Crisis, Attribution, and human interest
Received: 13 Jan 2025; Accepted: 21 Jul 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Nzau. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Teresia M Nzau, University of Missouri, Columbia, United States
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