Public Relations Review 41 (2015) 72–79 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Public Relations Review Multiple voices and multiple media: Co-constructing BP’s crisis response Lisa V. Chewning * The Pennsylvania State University – Abington College, 1600 Woodland Road, Abington, PA 19075, United States a r t i c l e i n f o Article history: Received 9 August 2013 Received in revised form 7 July 2014 Accepted 30 October 2014 Keywords: Crisis response Social media Dialogic communication Semantic network analysis a b s t r a c t This article explores the impact of new Information and Communication Technology (ICT) on the field of crisis communication, and argues that the term “crisis response” needs to be re-conceptualized in order to include the polyvocality of crisis response enabled by online media. This article deconstructs the crisis response to the British Petroleum (BP) Oil Spill from organizational, media, and stakeholder perspectives. Using semantic network anal- ysis, linguistic maps of news articles, press releases, BP Facebook posts, and stakeholder Facebook posts were created to detect the core messages of each group and to determine the roles that source and media play in creating crisis response. Findings support the idea that both source and media contribute to the overall crisis narrative, emphasizing the impor- tance of online media in both organizational and stakeholder response. This study offers insight into the emotional contributions of stakeholder response to the overall crisis nar- rative, as well as, suggests a new element of dialogic communication called inter-media dialog. © 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction New media is changing the face of crisis communication. This change has implications not only for how organizations communicate with stakeholders, but also for the role of stakeholders in crisis communication. Traditionally, crisis response has been conceptualized in terms of how the organization presents itself to stakeholders during the crisis, and has been classified in terms of message strategies. However, such a focus ignores the fact that now many stakeholder voices are present when a crisis occurs, and that online media provides an opportunity for those voices to be heard. Essentially, there can be multiple narratives for any crisis: the organization’s narrative, that of the media, and those of the stakeholders. This study explores the concept of considering the contributions of the multiple voices present during a crisis as part of crisis response by deconstructing the British Petroleum (BP) Deepwater Horizon oil spill in terms of organizational, media and stakeholder response. Theoretically, this idea departs from a traditional conceptualization of crisis communication, setting the stage for further inquiry into the evolving role of online media in crisis communication. * Tel.: +1 732 915 2124. E-mail address: lvc3@psu.edu http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.pubrev.2014.10.012 0363-8111/© 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.