ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Commun.
Sec. Organizational Communication
PUBLIC RELATIONS AND REPUTATION RESILIENCE: AN APPLIED STUDY OF FACEBOOK'S CRISIS MANAGEMENT STRATEGIES
Provisionally accepted
Omnia Mohamed Ahmed Salem1
Ahd M.M. Abudraz1Wafaa Abdel Khalek Tharwat1
Sameh Abdelhay1Ibrahim Alghoul2
Mohammad Naouss2*- 1Umm Al Quwain University, Umm Al Quwain, United Arab Emirates
- 2Department of Information System and Security, College of Information Technology, United Arab Emirates University, United Arab Emirates, Al Ain, United Arab Emirates
Select one of your emails
You have multiple emails registered with Frontiers:
Notify me on publication
Please enter your email address:
If you already have an account, please login
You don't have a Frontiers account ? You can register here
The study investigates the role of public relations strategies in fostering reputation resilience during crises on digital platforms, with a specific focus on Facebook. The research is grounded in Situational Crisis Communication Theory (SCCT) and Image Repair Theory (IRT), addressing how transparent communication (TIC), speed of response (SOR), and consistency in messaging (CIM) influence two key outcomes: rebuilding user trust (RT) and the overall effectiveness (OE) of crisis management. Data were collected through a structured survey of 174 respondents and analyzed using structural equation modeling (SEM) via AMOS v.24. The confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) confirmed reliability, validity, and model fit indices within acceptable thresholds. Findings revealed significant positive relationships between TIC and RT (β = .401, p = .002), SOR and OE (β = .393, p = .001), and CIM and RT (β = .531, p < .001). Collectively, TIC and CIM explained 44.7% of the variance in user trust, while SOR accounted for 15.5% of the variance in effectiveness. The results empirically validate the theoretical proposition that transparency, timeliness, and coherence in messaging are essential to mitigating reputational damage and restoring trust in digitally mediated crises. Practically, the study highlights the necessity for organizations to adopt proactive and harmonized crisis communication strategies, particularly in high-visibility environments like Facebook, where missteps can rapidly amplify negative public perceptions. The research contributes to advancing crisis communication scholarship by providing platform-specific empirical evidence while offering actionable insights for public relations practitioners.
Keywords: crisis management strategies, facebook, Mass communication, Public Relations, reputation resilience
Received: 05 Nov 2025; Accepted: 16 Feb 2026.
Copyright: © 2026 Salem, M.M. Abudraz, Tharwat, Abdelhay, Alghoul and Naouss. 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: Mohammad Naouss
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.