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Brands, celebrities, or politicians are increasingly facing enormous online outrages in response to moral misconducts. These online firestorms are characterized by high message volume, indignant tonality, and negative opinion climate. Based on the concept of moral panics, this article analyzes why people join online firestorms. We argue that participation behavior is driven by a moral compass and a desire for social recognition. Results of an experiment and a content analysis of user comments show that a higher number of participants decreases users' willingness to participate but fosters compliance with the prevalent opinion and tonality of the comments. We also observe that a higher moral arousal of the issue increases perceived similarity with previous participants, which in turn affects whether and how people participate. In total, our results indicate the importance of social context for participation behavior in an online firestorm.

Conventional wisdom suggests that brands should respond in an accommodative way to consumer complaints. However, this research shows that observers of the communication between complainants and brands on social media may prefer a defensive response under specific conditions. Thus, this study helps managers to find optimal responses to social media complaints, thereby minimizing negative consequences. We introduce a previously unexamined key moderator that takes account of the observer perspective: the benefits sought in the context of a complainant-brand interaction (e.g., brand presences in social media). Hence, we differentiate hedonic from utilitarian contexts and we note the distinct observer benefits and corresponding preferences. A field study and a series of experiments show that a defensive response can be superior in hedonic contexts but inferior in utilitarian ones. We also show how response strategy indirectly affects observers' behavioral consequences and identify complaint reasoning and brand communication style as relevant boundary conditions.

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