VOICES AND DOMINANT EMOTIONS IN THE DIGITAL RHETORICAL ARENA: FACEBOOK COMMUNICATION ABOUT AIRLINES DURING THE COVID-19 CRISIS

Abstract

This article examines the digital rhetorical arena formed around three airlines, TAROM, Wizz Air, and Blue Air, in the context of the COVID-19 crisis and its aftermath. While previous research on airline crisis communication has mainly focused on the messages produced by companies, this study shifts attention toward the broader online environment in which multiple actors participate in defining, amplifying, and emotionally framing the crisis. Drawing on Rhetorical Arena Theory and the Integrated Crisis Mapping model, the article analyzes Facebook posts collected through CrowdTangle, a Meta-provided service that was available at the time of corpus construction, using hashtags associated with the three airlines. The study focuses on two dimensions: the distribution of voices involved in the online conversation and the dominant emotions expressed in these messages. The findings show three distinct configurations of the rhetorical arena. TAROM is associated with a community-based and symbolic arena, shaped mainly by travel groups, diaspora communities, local pages, and supporter groups. Wizz Air is discussed mainly through a media-driven arena, dominated by mass-media mentions and travel-related commercial actors. Blue Air, by contrast, displays a concentrated organizational arena, where the company’s own communication accounts for most of the identified mentions. Anxiety is the dominant emotion in all three cases, but its intensity is highest for Blue Air. Anger and sadness are more visible in the cases of TAROM and Wizz Air, where external voices participate more actively in the construction of the crisis. The article argues that emotions in digital crisis communication should not be interpreted separately from the voices that produce and circulate them.