Image Repair Strategies Research Articles

Image repair strategies in trump's self-defending speech in response to indictment: A pragmatic perspective

The present study examines the image repair strategies employed by former President Trump as a public response to the indictment against him in his (2023) Mar-a-Lago speech after his arrest and arraignment in New York court, which indicted him on 34 counts of falsifying business records. The current study aims at analyzing the types of image repair strategies and tactics employed as defense strategies to repair the damaged public image, identifying the types of speech acts used for realizing these strategies pragmatically according to the eclectic model developed for the analysis. The analysis reveals that three types of image repair strategies are used, namely: Denial, evasion of responsibility, and reduction of offensiveness, in which reduction of offensiveness is the most achieved strategy through the tactic of attacking the accuser as the frequently employed tactic, followed by the denial strategy in Trump's speech. The realization of image repair tactics as pragmatic strategies is through triggering speech acts, the most frequently utilized SAs are the expressive SAs of criticizing and blaming, and the representative SAs of denying and accusing, that are used to realize the tactics of attack the accuser, simple denial and shift the blame pragmatically as SAs.

Northwestern’s Lack of Direction: A Mishandling of Hazing Allegations

Northwestern University was forced to respond to hazing allegations within its football program when an anonymous complaint was filed following the 2022 football season. This study examines the strategies Northwestern utilized in its communication strategies. The strategies are investigated through the lens of image repair theory. A longitudinal approach was taken to assess how Northwestern handled the communication crisis over a five-month period. Northwestern employed all five of Benoit's major image repair strategies but relied most heavily on reducing offensiveness. Northwestern’s over-reliance on the reducing offensiveness strategy, coupled with the lack of use of the mortification strategy resulted in an increased negative response from the media and likely more lawsuits from alleged victims. Additionally, the strategy employed prolonged the length of the crisis.

EXAMINING CRISIS COMMUNICATION AND ONLINE ACTIVISM IN INDONESIA: A CASE STUDY ON 2022 VOTRE PEAU

This article discusses the crisis experienced by a local beauty brand, Votre Peau, in 2022, following an internal event featuring a "best dress challenge" that was heavily criticized by netizens for being perceived as disrespectful towards Islam and women. This crisis drew condemnation from netizens and sparked an online movement to boycott or cancel the brand due to consumer dissatisfaction. The research aims to examine the crisis communication strategies employed by Votre Peau in response to online activism. Qualitative data analysis is conducted through a case study utilizing concepts from digital activism and image repair theory by William L. Benoit. The analysis findings indicate that Votre Peau implemented image repair strategies by providing open clarifications and apologies on social media. Despite these efforts, disgruntled consumers feel that the approach was ineffective and continued the cancel culture movement against Votre Peau. An intriguing aspect is the slactivism paradox, which shows a decline in the trend of the boycott movement simultaneously with the decrease in its virality. This article contributes to underscores the importance of crisis communication strategies as rapid dialogue dissemination in digital media can profoundly impact the company's or brand’s reputation. Therefore, having a good crisis communication strategy is crucial for addressing various situations, especially in digital era like today.

Introducing the Marginalized Image Navigation and Expression (MINE) principles via the confirmation hearings of judge Ketanji Brown Jackson

Image Restoration Theory (IRT) examines the strategies that people, especially public figures, and organizations use when they face image and reputational threats. Past scholarship has not fully accounted for the impact of identity on an individual or group’s ability to invoke image repair strategies. We examine the 2022 Supreme Court confirmation hearings of Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson through an intersectional lens to spotlight the constraints that minoritized populations, generally, and Black women, specifically, encounter when responding to reputational threats. Given the legacies of patriarchy and whiteness that operate in the West, Black women often lack the standing in the eyes of the public to defend themselves against attacks and accusations, an experience we describe as nonpersonhood. This point suggests that image repair strategies are not neutral, but embedded within socio-political and historical contexts. Via our analysis, we introduce Marginalized Image Navigation and Expression (MINE) principles as a conceptual framework that is useful for understanding the nuanced ways that images are navigated, negotiated, and expressed, especially for marginalized persons. Finally, we examine the implications of our arguments in the context of reputational threats against minoritized people and organizations.The most disrespected person in America is the Black woman. The most unprotected person in America is the Black woman. The most neglected person in America is the Black woman.Malcolm X

Evaluating the effect of Chinese universities’ public opinion governance strategies through online user comments on the Weibo platform

PurposeThis study argues that online user comments on social media platforms provide feedback and evaluation functions. These functions can provide services for the relevant departments of organizations or institutions to formulate corresponding public opinion response strategies.Design/methodology/approachThis study considers Chinese universities’ public opinion events on the Weibo platform as the research object. It collects online comments on Chinese universities’ network public opinion governance strategy texts on Weibo, constructs the sentiment index based on sentiment analysis and evaluates the effectiveness of the network public opinion governance strategy adopted by university officials.FindingsThis study found the following: First, a complete information release process can effectively improve the effect of public opinion governance strategies. Second, the effect of network public opinion governance strategies was significantly influenced by the type of public opinion event. Finally, the effect of public opinion governance strategies is closely related to the severity of punishment for the subjects involved.Research limitations/implicationsThe theoretical contribution of this study lies in the application of image repair theory and strategies in the field of network public opinion governance, which further broadens the scope of the application of image repair theory and strategies.Originality/valueThis study expands online user comment research to network public opinion governance and provides a quantitative method for evaluating the effect of governance strategies.Peer reviewThe peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/OIR-05-2022-0269

Political public relations and crisis communication of the government: The case study of the earthquake of 6 February 2023 in Türkiye

On February 6, 2023, a massive 7.8 earthquake struck southeast Türkiye and caused killing thousands of people and leaving devastation across a wide swath of the country. In this context, this paper examines the government communications and crisis communication in the context of the disaster responses of the emergency management agencies during the earthquake of February 2023 in Türkiye in terms of image repair strategy and aims to reveal how the government responds to the opposing political circles' claims. It was concluded that the ruling party used communication channels intensively to refute the opposition's arguments and presented its own efforts and actions through visual and numerical proof and the main character of the government's crisis communication was based on highlighting what they made well.

Image Repair Strategies in Apology Videos by YouTube Creators

Image Repair Strategies in Apology Videos by YouTube Creators

A Contrastive Study on Image Repair Strategies in Chinese and American Corporate Apologies

Nowadays, frequently-happening wrongdoings have seriously damaged the corporate image and threatened the survival of corporations. For companies in crises, an appropriate apology has become a vital strategy to repair corporate image. Remarkable achievements have been made in the contrastive study of corporate apologies, but there is still much to be explored about Chinese and American corporate apologies. Therefore, this paper investigates the differences of the image repair strategies employed in Chinese and American corporate apologies, in order to help corporations handle crises in a cross-cultural context. With AntConc 2019, the paper first analyzes the major linguistic devices in 100 Chinese and American corporate apologies, and then finds out the differences of image repair strategies and the underlying factors through qualitative analysis, based on Benoit’s image repair strategies and Adaptation Theory. The results show that (1) Chinese companies show their solemnity and sincerity in the crisis through person deixis such as company and customer and strengtheners such as again, seriously and first time, while American companies use more demonstrative pronouns like this, these and it, and politeness words like please, hope and thank to mitigate crisis conflicts. Meanwhile, when providing compensation and follow-up services, American ones would use if-conditionals to control the cost of the apology. (2) Reducing offensiveness and Mortification are the two most commonly used strategies, respectively accounting for 37.7% and 36.3%. In mortification, asking for forgiveness is often used in American corporate apologies (11.3%), while accepting the blame is more common in Chinese corporate apologies (11.1%). When reducing offensiveness, Chinese corporations would choose bolstering (20.9%) and transcendence (10.5%), while American ones prefer compensation (17.6%) and valuing the customer (13.9%). (3) Chinese culture emphasizes collectivism and high-power distance, while American culture emphasizes individualism and low-power distance, which accounts for the difference of image repair strategies in Chinese and American corporate apologies. This paper can act as a complement to the contrastive research on American and Chinese corporate apologies and provide references for corporate communication in a cross-cultural context.

IMAGE REPAIR DISCOURSE OF KENYA POLICE FACING A SCANDAL

The present study aims to analyze image repair strategies employed in press releases issued by the Kenya police. The main aim of the study was to analyze the linguistic resources of image repair strategies in press releases issued by the Kenya police. This study took the reporting periods from 30th March 2008 until 30th May 2012. Seven press releases were selected for analysis: Torture in Turkana, Mount Elgon operation saves lives, Criminal acts attributed to Mungiki, Human Rights Watch Report, brief on the explosion at Kampala coach offices, Allegations on the conspiracy of silence, and a Report on Post-Election Violence. Three major linguistic strategies are adopted: denial, reducing the offensiveness of the event, and corrective action. For this study, the linguistic resources used were the use of active, and passive voice and the use of modal auxiliaries verbs constructions.

Lionel Messi's Dramatic Tearful Barcelona Exit: An Analysis of the Club Image Repair and Fans’ Responses

This study analyses the image repair strategies used by Barcelona after the dramatic exit of its top player, Lionel Messi. Barcelona's image repair efforts included President Laporta's press conference, in which he attempted to repair the club's image by justifying and explaining the situation. The study also evaluated the fans' responses to Barcelona's strategies to determine how fans reacted to such discourse. Therefore, first, it uses Benoit's image repair theory to analyse Barcelona's rhetoric. Second, it conducts a thematic analysis of 2613 comments from active YouTube users. The results show Barcelona's failure to repair its image following Messi's departure. The club employed the denial strategy by shifting the blame. It also used reducing offensiveness through transcendence, differentiation and bolstering. Finally, it deployed evading responsibility through defeasibility. The thematic analysis of fans’ responses to Laporta’s speech shows that Laporta failed to convince fans of his arguments. Over and above, he infuriated them with his speech. Therefore, it is right to say that his image repair strategies were ineffective and unimpressive. The findings suggest that when the audience is eager to see corrective action, it is difficult to accept other strategies that do not align with their desires. The results of this study have several important implications for future practice. First, organisations should consider audience orientations through audience analysis before employing image repair strategies. Second, sports organisations should use media framing before major decisions to avoid shocking fans. Keywords: Thematic analysis, Barcelona, Leo Messi, Joan Laporta, image repair.

Social Media, Crisis, and College Sport: An Analysis of Three Crises

The purpose of this study was to analyze how three universities utilized image repair to address crises involving their athletic departments. Specifically, this study analyzed how the University of Missouri–Columbia, Baylor University, and the University of Louisville employed Facebook to engage in image repair. Additionally, this study examined users’ responses to these image-repair strategies via the theoretical framework of framing. A deductive thematic analysis was employed to examine image-repair strategies, while an inductive thematic analysis was employed to examine users’ comments. The data analysis revealed that the most frequently employed strategies across all three universities were bolstering, stonewalling, and corrective action. The employment of similar image-repair strategies by all three universities suggests that despite the varying level of institutional crisis, universities mostly rely on bolstering and diversionary techniques to disrupt the media noise surrounding the crisis faced by their athletic departments, while employing corrective action minimally in the hopes of making maximum impact. Additionally, this study highlights the ability of audiences to utilize social media to generate narratives via bottom-up framing. Findings suggest that these narratives often shift due to the timing of image-repair efforts and the severity of the institution’s crisis.

So sorry, now please watch: Identifying image repair strategies, sincerity and forgiveness in YouTubers’ apology videos

Many professional and amateur YouTubers are apologizing for their past and current behaviors, which led to the creation of a new media genre called the YouTube apology video. Despite the overflow of these videos, their impact is still questionable to understand the magnitude of this online apology. Thus, applying image repair theory (IRT), this two-part exploratory study examined the message construction, strategies, sincerity and forgiveness of YouTubers’ apology videos. Study 1 was a content analysis of YouTube apology videos (N = 117), and the findings indicated that YouTubers carefully curated their natural appearance and overemphasized the phrase “I’m sorry” to direct their viewers, emphasizing on the mortification strategy. Study 2 utilized Logan Paul’s infamous apology video to conduct an online survey (N = 194), which identified the relationship between perceived sincerity and forgiveness. Our findings suggest that prior connections with the YouTuber increased viewers’ chance of forgiveness, and perceived sincerity was the predictor of forgiveness. Implications of the findings are discussed in terms of future guidelines for crisis communication.

How to deal with negative online employer reviews: An application of image repair theory

AbstractAlthough negative employer reviews pose a threat to employers by reducing organizational attractiveness, employers can respond to reviews to avert these threats. However, we lack a clear understanding of the response strategies and factors that determine response strategies' impact. To address this issue, we introduce image repair theory (IRT) as a promising theoretical foundation in the study of employer response. Using an experimental design, we tested the effects of IRT's general image repair strategies (i.e., Denial, Evasion of Responsibility, Reducing Offensiveness, Corrective Action, and Mortification) and the mechanisms underlying these effects according to IRT. Moreover, we explored the role of review content (i.e., the type of employer image information the review entails) as a contingency factor. We found differences between Denial, Corrective Action, and Mortification, which show that the choice of response strategies can matter and that the relationship between response strategy and potential applicants' perceptions of organizational attractiveness is mediated by attributions of responsibility rather than by perceived offensiveness. In addition, our results suggest that when negative reviews contain information about instrumental rather than symbolic employer image attributes, potential applicants can attribute more responsibility to the employer. Furthermore, only the effects of Reducing Offensiveness and Mortification were dependent on the review's content. We discuss theoretical implications and practical recommendations for employers that respond to negative employer reviews.

Turkey’s “Apology” and Image Repair on the Centennial of the Armenian Genocide

AbstractImage and reputation are key factors in how nations are perceived by global audiences. Current and historical issues can pose as challenges to a nation’s reputation prompting the need to save face. The Armenian genocide is one of the most critical issues the Republic of Turkey has had to manage in terms of its global image and reputation. While the vast body of literature on the subject borrows from history and political science focusing on the mechanism of denial, this paper offers a communication framework to understand the rhetoric of Turkey’s image repair. Turkey’s crisis communication strategies vis-à-vis the centennial of the Armenian genocide are analyzed by employing Benoit’s image repair theory through a content analysis of official statements and declarations by the heads of state given in 2014 and 2015. In response to the emerging political crisis, the Turkish government primarily employed image repair strategies of evading responsibility and reducing offensiveness with the aim to appeal to international audiences.

From SARS through Zika and up to Covid-19: destination recovery marketing campaigns in response to pandemics

ABSTRACT The Covid-19 pandemic has altered the paradigm of risk and recovery management but it is just one of many pandemics to have impacted destinations during the last two decades. This study examines how destination officials combated the image crises that followed SARS-2003, H1N1 Swine flu 2009–2010, Zika 2016–2017 and Covid-19 2020. The literature dealing with combating pandemics has focused on the actual management of either a specific pandemic or regional aspects of a pandemic and less on the recovery marketing and image repair aspect. As a result, tourism academic literature has a shortage of image repair theoretical frameworks addressing multi-case health-related crises. In this study, we use qualitative content analysis of news reports, websites and recovery campaigns taken from media outlets, tourism news websites, Google search engine and YouTube, over the past two decades. This paper posits a new theoretical framework: six-phase image repair strategies during pandemics.

Chinese Universities’ Image Repair after Network Public Opinion Events: Strategy Choice and Effect Evaluation

The study aims to address Chinese universities’ image repair strategies after network public opinion events in the field of crisis management; therefore, it takes 43 network public opinion events in Chinese universities as the research object, encodes the official texts issued by universities according to the image restoration strategy, and sums up the image repair strategies commonly used by Chinese universities. Then, natural language processing is used to conduct the sentiment analysis of the online comments obtained. Accordingly, the sentiment index is constructed to evaluate the effect of Chinese universities’ image repair strategies. We find that Chinese universities commonly use the image repair strategy combination of bolstering, provocation, and corrective action; they have not used the apology strategy commonly used in western discourse systems. We also find that the complete information release process has a better image repair effect, particularly in teachers’ lapse and personal safety events. The sentiment index in teachers’ lapse events is the highest and is related to the universities’ corrective actions. The sentiment index in different public opinion hot events is quite different, which may be related to the nature of specific events. In personal safety events, netizens are more satisfied with image repair strategies.

Recovery strategies and marketing campaigns for global destinations in response to the Covid-19 tourism crisis

ABSTRACT The study analyzes which image repair strategies were adopted by officials and marketers around the world to combat the Covid-19 tourism image crisis. We used qualitative content analysis of news reports, videos/ads, social media posts, and recovery campaigns taken from international and tourism news outlets, websites, and YouTube. As a result, we would like to offer a new theoretical framework that divides the image repair strategies into the three phases of a pandemic tourism crisis: pre-lockdown, lockdown and post-lockdown/recovery. The new theoretical framework might be helpful for studies analyzing destinations’ image repair efforts while combating pandemics, as well for practitioners.

Celebrities and Microcelebrities in Quarantine: Strategies of Parasocial Communication

The research applies the relationship strategies and the image repair strategies frameworks to study and compare celebrities and microcelebrities’ communicative activity on social media during the lockdown in the USA and the UK in spring, 2020. For celebrities, the sample collected on social media in March – April, 2020, reveals qualitative changes: in the quarantine, first-rank celebrities attempted to reduce the assumed gap between themselves and their fans by using the strategies typically associated with microcelebrities, namely openness, positivity, task sharing, and assurance. If applied inappropriately, these strategies damaged the celebrities’ image and the famous chose either to take corrective actions or to ignore the communication failure. The microcelebrities’ messages during the lockdown did not show any qualitative shift: they held on to their typical openness, assurance and task sharing relationship maintenance strategies. Yet, the posts, where some microcelebrities, pursuing the openness strategy, sincerely reported their neglect of the quarantine restrictions, were more destructive to their image than similar posts from celebrities. The negative feedback affected microcelebrities communication on social media quantitatively and qualitatively: the number of messages dropped and the bloggers employed an extensive set of strategies to repair their image. Received: 3 June 2021 / Accepted: 26 July 2021 / Published: 5 September 2021

Association Between Public Opinion and Malaysian Government Communication Strategies About the COVID-19 Crisis: Content Analysis of Image Repair Strategies in Social Media.

BackgroundThe COVID-19 health crisis has posed an unprecedented challenge for governments worldwide to manage and communicate about the pandemic effectively, while maintaining public trust. Good leadership image in times of a health emergency is paramount to ensure public confidence in governments’ abilities to manage the crisis.ObjectiveThe aim of this study was to identify types of image repair strategies utilized by the Malaysian government in their communication about COVID-19 in the media and analyze public responses to these messages on social media.MethodsContent analysis was employed to analyze 120 media statements and 382 comments retrieved from Facebook pages of 2 mainstream newspapers—Berita Harian and The Star. These media statements and comments were collected within a span of 6 weeks prior to and during the first implementation of Movement Control Order by the Malaysian Government. The media statements were analyzed according to Image Repair Theory to categorize strategies employed in government communications related to COVID-19 crisis. Public opinion responses were measured using modified lexicon-based sentiment analysis to categorize positive, negative, and neutral statements.ResultsThe Malaysian government employed all 5 Image Repair Theory strategies in their communications in both newspapers. The strategy most utilized was reducing offensiveness (75/120, 62.5%), followed by corrective action (30/120, 25.0%), evading responsibilities (10/120, 8.3%), denial (4/120, 3.3%), and mortification (1/120, 0.8%). This study also found multiple substrategies in government media statements including denial, shifting blame, provocation, defeasibility, accident, good intention, bolstering, minimization, differentiation, transcendence, attacking accuser, resolve problem, prevent recurrence, admit wrongdoing, and apologize. This study also found that 64.7% of public opinion was positive in response to media statements made by the Malaysian government and also revealed a significant positive association (P=.04) between image repair strategies utilized by the Malaysian government and public opinion.ConclusionsCommunication in the media may assist the government in fostering positive support from the public. Suitable image repair strategies could garner positive public responses and help build trust in times of crisis.

Rethinking crisis dynamics from the perspective of online publics: A case study of Dolce & Gabbana’s China crisis

On November 18, 2018, the Italian fashion house Dolce & Gabbana (D&G) released a controversial video on all their social media channels. The video triggered an instant outcry from the general Chinese public, who called the video a racist caricature of Chinese culture. D&G responded to the crisis with several image repair strategies. This study examines D&G’s crisis communication efforts in the wake of this incident. Departing from corporate-oriented perspectives prevalent in the field of public relations, this study employs a dynamic, public-oriented view of crisis communication, which focuses on the dynamic, interactive process of crisis development from the standpoint of the publics. By analyzing communicative behavior on Twitter (an increasingly influential alternative public sphere in China) and in particular, comments and responses toward the crisis communication strategies employed by D&G, we have identified four prominent themes, or ways that publics framed their key messages against the corporation: “Apology not enough”; “Apology done badly”; “Call to unite against D&G”; and “Sarcasm, mockery, and abuse.” And they can be interpreted as a number of crisis communication strategies of the global, online publics. Based on our analysis of the D&G case, we discuss the theoretical implications of a dynamic, public-oriented perspective (DPOP) on crisis communication, highlighting its key areas of difference from the corporate-oriented perspective (COP).