När data och förtroende läcker - Dataintrång ur ett flerstämmigt perspektiv på kris

Sammanfattning: The aim of this study is to gain knowledge regarding how an organization communicates a data breach to their stakeholders via digital media, in order to identify which communicative factors that can be linked to positive and negative stakeholder reactions. The communicative factors that are studied in this paper in relation to Equifax data breach are crisis response strategies, timing & reputation capital. The empirical material consists of 5 Facebook-posts, 7 Twitter-posts & 8 press releases by Equifax, as well as 11,133 comments written on those posts. These have been analysed by doing a qualitative netnography, and the study’s theoretical framework consists of the rhetorical arena, situational crisis communication theory, reputation capital & timing. The analysis shows that Equifax suffers from a insufficient reputation capital, which results in their stakeholders not accepting their crisis response strategies, and that the same stakeholders ascribe Equifax a high level of responsibility for the crisis. The analysis also show that the fact that Equifax did not announce the data breach until two months after it occurred, contributed to a large amount of negative responses from the organizations stakeholders, which resulted in reputational damage.