Designing a Media Model for Air Accident Crisis Management

In today's world, the air transport industry is considered one of the most important axes of development of countries. In Iran, the growth of economic and social activities and the ever-increasing demand have made the development of this sector an inevitable necessity. However, this industry in our country has always been in a challenge during recent decades due to facing many turbulences, which sometimes has led to air accidents. Considering that the media has a significant role in the crisis management process, the air transportation industry has been unsuccessful in using the media capacities to manage the crisis of accidents. The aim of this research is to design a media model for air accident crisis management. In order to identify the factors and investigate the conditions, with proper planning and creating unity in the ‘’informing command’’, media capacities are used in the event of an air accident. For this purpose, in the interpretation paradigm based on qualitative methodology, Strauss and Corbin's data base theory method has been used. 22 in-depth and semi-structured interviews were conducted using theoretical sampling and snowball technique with managers, professionals and experts in the fields of aviation, media and communication industry. By coding and analyzing the content of semi-structured interviews with experts, 515 open codes were extracted. After collecting the codes, 94 subcategories and 46 categories were identified in the form of the main theme. Based on the analysis of the findings, the main theme of causal conditions includes 11 categories, contextual conditions of 9 categories, intervention conditions of 5 categories, strategies of 15 categories, and positive and negative consequences of 6 categories. The findings of this research show that due to the lack of benefiting from systematic communication at the time of air accident, the media's waiting time in order to receive an answer has been prolonged, and by leaving the first narrative of the news to the unofficial media, rumors start to spread and trust level declines, posing a challenge to the process of crisis management in this sector.