When terrorists attack: Examining Indonesians’ crisis response communication process and media use

The threat of terrorism still haunts countries across the globe, including Indonesia. This nation has suffered from a long list of terrorist attacks (Rivett-Carnac, 2016). From 1997 to 2002, Indonesia encountered at least 90 bombing attacks with hundreds of deaths and injuries (Pusponegoro, 2004). Since then, these human-made disasters have occurred almost every year, including the recent suicide bombings that took place in Kampung Melayu (KM) bus station, Jakarta, in May 2017. During the terrorist attacks, effective crisis communication with the public for emergency responses is crucial to warn people to protect them from harm, dampen public's anxiety, and facilitate relief efforts (Wray et al., 2004). However, many existing studies in crisis communication emphasize how governments or other organizations use their communication channels, primarily mass communication and social media, for crisis management (Kešetović, Marić, & Ninković, 2017; Tagliacozzo & Magni, 2017). So far, there has been rather scarce research on Indonesians’ technological mediated media behaviors regarding crisis communication during terrorist attacks. 
To fill this research gap, this study aims to explore how Indonesians utilize mass media and social media to digest and respond to crisis information under the theoretic framework of Crisis Response Communication Model (CRCM) (Hale, Dulek, & Hale, 2005). The model divides the crisis communication process into four sequential phases: observation, interpretation, choice, and dissemination. Additionally, media trust plays a crucial role in affecting how individuals select and respond to media content (Hopmann, Shehata, & Strömbäck, 2015). Hence, this study looks into how Indonesians’ media trust in mass media and social media influence their responses to crisis information. 
The findings of this study advance the research of media use by integrating the dimension of connectivity to the framework of CRCM (Hale et al., 2005) to explain how individuals digest crisis information during terrorist attacks. This study also discusses the media trust which is currently problematic as the fake news are rampant. As for practical contributions, the media behaviors during various stages of the crisis response process investigated in this study offer useful insights for the government in developing crisis communication strategies as it scrutinizes communication channels utilized by the public to seek crisis information; thus, the government could increase the reach of the audience during crises through information distribution on effective platforms.