Social Media In Vietnam

On the other hand, according to Van (2013), in Vietnam, younger internet users (aged 15-34) use internet for entertainment and social networking, and older users (aged 35-64) use internet for information gathering. While the worldwide average is 29%, the social media penetration rate in Vietnam is at 33% with 30 million users and a three-hour average daily use of social media. The number of active social media users in Vietnam has grown by 33% since March 2015, and 95% of Vietnamese internet users are Facebook users (Kemp, 2015; 2016). As a result, stakeholders and journalists turn to social media for information.

Research Design

This study consists of two sets of semi-structured, in-depth interviews with Vietnamese PR practitioners and American

Since there is no formal PR association or statistics of current PR practitioners in VN, it is not possible to identify the target population. It is also hard to determine the practitioners with crisis communication expertise. Therefore, I rely on purposive sampling technique to locate the potential participants that fit the objectives of this study. For group 2, as I work in Vietnam and can only access to this target population remotely, through her external professional networks, I also rely on purposive sampling technique to find the potential American participants that fit the objectives of this study.

These interviews will be conducted with the two groups of participants. Each group has its own sets of questions. This research design aims to examine the perception and intention to use social media in crisis communication strategies among organizations. The study process is labelled as follows:

• In-depth interviews with Vietnamese PR practitioners – interview (1).

• In-depth interviews with American PR practitioners – interview (2).

The selection criteria are as follows. There is no preference over

A number of Vietnamese agency practitioners are against the use of social media in crisis communication.

Throughout the interviews, four participants opposed social media use for crisis communication. All four were agency practitioners (out of the eight agency practitioners who participated). These practitioners doubted the effectiveness of social media in crisis communication and strongly opposed adopting social media. They advised that an organization should pay more attention to the priority of each stakeholder group and stakeholders’ actions and reactions to decide how to best communicate in a crisis.

Reflecting on their previous projects, they looked beyond the national trend of wanting to be on social media; they were more concerned about the advantages and disadvantages of this platform. They compared social media to traditional media before making their decisions and suggested sticking to the conventional activities, such as press conferences or offline communication tools, for safer, more controllable and proven