Astroturfing, or the orchestration of manipulative propaganda campaigns, has become the center of conversations amid Fake News disputations. Exploring an astroturf attack as a paracrisis, this research investigates the effects of an attack and how proactive communication strategies can protect organizational outcomes (i.e., credibility, crisis responsibility, account acceptance, and organizational reputation). An online experiment using a U.S. adult sample (N = 597) was conducted to compare the effects of using pre-bunking, PR supportive, and strategic silence strategies. The study provides insights into advancing crisis communication theory by demonstrating the success of pre-bunking to thwart potential damage post-astroturf attack. In addition to expanding theoretical crisis response models, this research offers practitioners with advice that emphasizes the use of proactive strategies to pre-bunk disinformation.

伪造或操纵性宣传运动的编排已成为“假新闻”争议中的对话中心。本研究以草皮草皮攻击为副词，探讨了攻击的影响以及主动的沟通策略如何保护组织成果（即信誉，危机责任，客户接受度和组织声誉）。使用美国成人样本（N（= 597）进行比较，以比较使用预贴，PR支持和策略性沉默策略的效果。这项研究通过演示预保险杠成功地克服了草皮袭击后的潜在伤害，为推进危机传播理论提供了见识。除了扩展理论上的危机应对模型之外，本研究还为从业人员提供建议，这些建议强调了使用主动策略来预先掩盖虚假信息。