New Series, Vol. 2, No. 15
The Crisis and Emergency Risk Communication (CERC) model describes crises as unfolding in five stages (i.e., pre-crisis, initial event, maintenance, resolution, evaluation). This two-part study examines messaging by law enforcement in cases of missing persons during the initial event stage, or onset of this particular crisis context, and experimentally tests proposed relationships between message characteristics and audience outcomes advanced in 2021 following a meta-analysis of all previous studies employing the CERC model. The results of this study can inform law enforcement media liaisons and other public informant professionals who are responsible for crafting messages about missing persons (MPs) to be widely distributed to the public.
The AMBER Alert and Silver Alert systems facilitate public participation in crowdsourced MP investigations—also called crowdsourced criminology—and have been successful in many cases but also can cause message fatigue. When citizens become fatigued by MP message volume, it can lead to negative consequences, such as message resistance, that do not help the investigation. Thus, if messages are too repetitive, they tend to lose their effectiveness, making the initial messaging’s effectiveness imperative.
In this study, an MP is defined as, “an individual who, voluntarily or involuntarily, cannot be located because their whereabouts are unknown” and the Federal Bureau of Investigation reports that around 600,000 U.S. adults and children are reported missing annually. Part one of this study used quantitative content analysis to identify CERC model message characteristics (i.e., timeliness, accuracy, source credibility, empathy, action-orientation, and respect) used in actual MP posts by law enforcement with high engagement (i.e., rates of likes, shares, and replies). Part two of this study experimentally tested these message characteristics and audience outcomes of self-efficacy, knowledge of risks and resources, uncertainty, and emotional turmoil as specified within the CERC model. The authors also evaluated how these outcomes in turn predicted protective behaviors, such as intentions to share the MP posts.
A total of 600 MP posts between July 15, 2021, and Dec. 21, 2023, were analyzed in the first study. Source credibility was the most used message characteristic from the CERC model (92.8%), followed by action-orientation (81.5%), timeliness (73.1%), respect (57.5%), state empathy (23%), and accuracy (11.2%). They also found that when messages were timely they were more likely to receive likes and shares, while messages that were empathetic and respectful were less likely to receive likes and shares, and shares and replies, respectively. No other significant relationships emerged between CERC model message characteristics and engagement.
Recruited via CloudResearch Prime Panels, 377 X (formerly Twitter) users participated in Study Two. Most participants identified as female (57.8%), were between the ages of 18 and 55, and identified ethnically as white (79.05%), Black/African American (14.06%), Hispanic/Latino/Latina (5.31%), Asian/Asian American (3.45%), Indigenous (2.65%), and Middle Eastern, Pacific Islander, and other (all less than 1%). Participants were also Republicans (36.9%), Democrats (34.5%), Independent (23.3%), had no political affiliation (4.0%), or reported “other” (less than 1%). Most were not currently following any X (formerly Twitter) law enforcement accounts (75.6%), and some had a friend or family member who had gone missing (9.8%) and 18 participants also reported that they recognized in the individual in the MP posts that they viewed as part of the online experiment administered via Qualtrics. The researchers acknowledge the homogeneity of this sample as a limitation of this study.
Participants were randomly assigned to one of six experimental conditions featuring a real MP post from Study One. Five of these conditions manipulated CERC model characteristics of timeliness (three levels: immediate, recent, and delayed), empathy (present or absent), and respect (present or absent), and the sixth condition was a control message that did not include any of these three characteristics. Statistical analyses revealed positive relationships between empathy and self-efficacy; empathy and knowledge of risks and resources; empathy and uncertainty; empathy and emotional turmoil; respect and self-efficacy; respect and uncertainty; self-efficacy and the sharing of timely, empathetic, and respectful messages; uncertainty and the sharing of timely, empathetic, and respectful messages; and emotional turmoil and the sharing of timely, empathetic, and respectful messages. There was also a negative relationship between respect and emotional turmoil. Mediation analyses revealed that messages that were timely, empathetic, and respectful also indirectly influenced whether people wanted to share them by affecting how confident, uncertain, or emotionally overwhelmed they felt, which in turn affected intentions to share. Empathy had the strongest positive impact on sharing, while timeliness and respect had more mixed effects. The researchers acknowledge, however, that the manipulation of respect and empathy variables were perceived differently by their participants than they intended, so results related to these message characteristics should be interpreted with caution.
These results provide mixed support for the CERC model’s propositions in the context of MP crises. Specifically, results regarding the relationship between timelines and self-efficacy, timeliness and knowledge of risks and resources, respect and self-efficacy, and respect and emotional turmoil were consistent with the CERC model’s predictions. Conversely, the relationships between timeliness and uncertainty, respect and uncertainty, empathy and uncertainty, and empathy and emotional turmoil contradicted the CERC model’s predictions. Authors speculate that these discrepancies might be because high arousal emotions and uncertainty might motivate individuals asked to act in response to a crisis if that crisis is other-oriented, or impacting a community member, rather than oneself. In other words, future iterations of the CERC model might consider modifying propositions based on whether crises are other- or self-focused.
Communication Currents Discussion Questions
- How do you typically react when you see a missing persons post on social media? This study says people reacted differently to messages depending on whether they were timely, respectful, or empathetic. Which of those three matters most to you when you decide whether to act or share? Why?
- Have you ever felt overwhelmed or numb after seeing too many crisis messages online (like AMBER or Silver Alerts, GoFundMes, or calls for help)? What do you think causes that fatigue, and what could communicators do to make their messages feel more engaging or effective? If you were designing a message to help find a missing person, what would you include to make people care and take action?
- Think about a time when you or someone close to you experienced a crisis. How did your emotions and sense of responsibility differ when it was your crisis versus someone else’s (e.g., a friend, a community member, or a stranger)? Why do you think we react differently depending on our relationship to the person affected?
For additional suggestions about how to use this and other Communication Currents in the classroom, see: https://www.natcom.org/publications/communication-currents/integrating-communication-currents-classroom
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Cailin M. Kuchenbecker is an Instructional Assistant Professor in the School of Communication at Chapman University.
Hannah Ball is an Assistant Professor in the School of Communication at Chapman University.
This essay, by R. E. Purtell, translates the scholarly journal article, C. M. Kuchenbecker & H. Ball (2025). Facilitating social media engagement of missing persons posts: an application of the crisis and emergency risk communication model. Journal of Applied
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