How does modern media impact decision-making in high-risk organizations?

Abstract: Accidents always get a lot of public attention. Journalists appear at the site of an accident, taking pictures and making interviews with professionals and eyewitnesses. With the emergence of smartphones, online-media, and social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, etc. everyone became a journalist. It is no longer only accidents catching public attention but also near misses, small irregularities, or even normal business if spectacular pictures or video clips are involved. This information is spread via social media platform and often taken and published completely unfiltered by online newspapers. In our thesis, we examine the impact this development has had on high-risk organizations with Skyguide, the Swiss air navigation service provider as a case study. By means of semi- structured interviews with three Skyguide senior managers and two Swiss journalists, we identified changes in the media landscape and their impact on Skyguide. From our research, we will show that Skyguide’s Just Culture is under immense pressure. However, senior managers have managed to withstand this pressure and managed to uphold the Just Culture principles. At the end of our thesis, we provide several recommendations to high-risk organizations on addressing these challenges and provide subsequent risk mitigation strategies. With our thesis we provide a starting point for further research in this new field.