I am
sorry if I am frustrating you one more time with monotonous stories about my
country only. However, this is a very interesting story that can be applied in
what we are discussing in our classes about Social media in Emergency and
Crisis.
The
story is about the publicly showed anger and rude behavior of a Vietnamese
public official, who is the Executive Vice Chairman of Vietnam National Traffic
Safety Committee and General Director of Transportation Department, Ministry of
Transport. He was invited to a talk of the National Radio Agency to discuss
about the deteriorating transport safety context of the country. However, when
he came to the studio, he realized that the television talk came out to be a radio
talk due to his assistant’s misinformation! Dressing up and prepared to be live
broadcasted on TV, he got so furious with the assistant (and with the radio
team also, even though they didn’t do anything wrong) that he immediately took
his tie off and throw it to the assistant’s face, together with a tirade of
invectives.
The
rude demonstration shocked the whole studio and the radio team. Being
professional in communication and social media, without hesitation, the team
wrote a critical column to be published on the National Radio Agency’s website
and on some staff’s private Facebook pages. Although the well-known public
official and his impolite attitude were mentioned anonymously, it was not
difficult to the public to figure out who the official was. And immediately,
the posts and article were flooded with comments, most of which criticized the
official’s patronizing attitudes he used to have towards young, inexperienced
reporters. The event made a scandal on Vietnamese Facebook pages and online
newspapers about how bad a public official could treat media in just several
hours afterwards.
About
the official, several hours was enough for him to calm down his anger and
consider appropriate response to the uprising crisis. He posted his official
apology on his personal Facebook page to the public in general and to the radio
team in particular, in which he linked to the original article for the readers
to have an overview about the event. The apology conceded the inappropriate
behavior, unreasonable anger; and expressed his gratitude to the criticized
articles and comments, which “opened his eyes and mind” about how skillful a
public official should be in self-controlling and what should be included in
his daily self-education. The apology attracted thousands of views, likes and
praising comments. The public no longer talks about how bad his behavior was,
but how sincere and self-conscious he was in claiming his fault.
To me,
it was interesting to witness this crisis escalated and de-escalated just in
less one day. From the public scope, Vietnamese citizens, whose disagreements
and criticisms about public sectors used to be not welcomed, has had a new
channel of communication to express their ideas, criticisms about the public
sector, including public policies, administration and public officials.
Vietnamese public has handled social media so well that they set up
constructive social conflicts professionally to engage others in to raise
voices and give public’s message to the officials. On the other hand, they are
opened enough to hold criticisms back as long as the official sincerely
conceded his fault or failure. From the public sector scope, the time of
monopoly and authoritarian in Vietnam has been over due to technological
development. A public official’s figure can easily be either create or damage
through social media platforms. Therefore, they should be more self-aware of
handling their post professionally and ethically.
--- Trang DANG ---