Fending Off Unverified Accusation with Narratives (2023)

This study integrates theories of metanarration and crisis narratives to identify optimal approaches to managing uncertain and high-pressure crisis situations. An online experiment used a U.S. adult sample to examine how (1) the primary narrative in a news story about the victim and (2) the secondary narrative with different crisis narratives used by the accused organization impacted the outcomes of the organization’s public communication about the ongoing crisis situation.