Image Restoration Strategies Research Articles

Image Restoration Strategies for the (mis-) handling of COVID – 19 Pandemic in Greece

During the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak all countries around the world used several kinds of response strategies to protect public health and control the outbreak. The main aim was to stop the disease from spreading into the community and put a pressure on the health system of the countries. However, severe measures like lockdown of cities and countries brought side-crises like economic pressure on the individuals, corporations and even the state itself. Although the Greek Government was considered to have managed the first phase of the crisis in March effectively, during the aftermath of the first phase, the complete opening of the economy and tourism, the lowering of measures leaded to the increase of new cases. The increased number of cases together with the late imposition of a new lockdown, leaded to the perception of a governmental failure. This perception mobilized direct or indirect image restoration strategies by officials of the Greek Government to maintain the positive image of their handling despite the general perceptions. This paper explores the image restoration strategies used by the prime minister of Greece for the handlings of the second phase of the pandemic in Greece. The methodology used is discourse analysis with the tools of Image Restoration Strategies by Benoit (1995) from October till December 2020.

The Case of Toxic Leadership on Mars Hill: Conflict Framing and Image Restoration Strategy in the Devolution and Dissolution of a Megachurch

Large-scale, highly publicized organizational conflicts constitute organizational crises by threatening the normalcy and vitality of organizing. This study examines the case of toxic leadership within a megachurch, whose pastor and other leaders were over or founders of multiple organizations. Integrating 1) issue development within organizational conflict framing literature and 2) image restoration strategies within crisis communication literature, this study examines how issues were named, blamed, and claimed in public organizational texts during the outing of toxic leadership. Conclusions highlight the value of multiple and complimentary frameworks to analyze crisis communication and leadership.

Assessing Tunisian Tourism Development Policy Parameters Using Participatory Systems Mapping

Using a mixed-methods approach, this article explores various issues related to tourism development in Tunisia. It also presents a system dynamics (SD) simulation model using a participatory system mapping (PSM) framework. Following the Arab Spring in 2011, and subsequent terror attacks in 2015, the Ministry of Tunisian Tourism has been pursuing destination image restoration strategies to revive the sector. We attempt to identify the key policy levers that can help to achieve destination image restoration using PSM; to do so, we formulated a model and analyzed it using SD. We conclude that controlling terror attacks and focusing on providing alternate holiday options represent policy levers that can significantly restore the image of Tunisia. This research will enable policymakers to identify the influences of feedback loops in the system and work towards a viable strategy.

Factors to Consider While Attempting Image Restoration: Limitations to the Impact of Sound Strategy Application

William Benoit has been the leading scholar in image restoration. Case studies based on his work give insight into effective and ineffective use of image restoration strategies. However, various factors appear to limit the success of attempts to restore individual or organizational image after it has been damaged through an untoward act, even when sound image restoration tactics are applied. Analysis of a situation involving former Ohio State University football coach, Jim Tressel, offers insight into why it is possible to apply proper strategy, as outlined by Benoit, and still fail in one’s attempts to restore image.

Sustainability reporting after the Costa Concordia disaster: a multi-theory study on legitimacy, impression management and image restoration

PurposeCan sustainability disclosures be a tool for executing image restoration strategies after corporate manslaughter? This is the question explored in this study of Costa Crociere's sustainability reports after the Concordia disaster.Design/methodology/approachMerging traditional textual content analysis with visual analysis and supported by machine learning tools, this is a predominantly qualitative study framed by legitimacy theory, image restoration theory and impression management.FindingsCosta Crociere's voluntary sustainability reporting is strongly influenced by a mix of text and visual signals that distract readers' attention from the disaster. A “nothing really happened” communication strategy pervades the disclosures, with the only rational motivation being to change perceptions and erase memories of this tragic and avoidable event.Research limitations/implicationsAlthough the analysis covered multiple sources of corporate information, media coverage was not one of them. A more in-depth exploration of sustainability reporting in the cruise industry, including evidence of similar cases, to test impression management theory would be a worthwhile avenue for future research.Social implicationsWhile Costa Crociere technically followed the customary guidelines of disclosing human resource impacts, there was almost no acknowledgement of the people involved in the accident. Costa Concierevastly understated their responsibility for the accident, did not apologize, and conveyed very little remorse. The majority of disclosures centred on disaster recovery management.Originality/valueThe authors discuss why and how a company can overcome a legitimacy threat by completely freezing its voluntary sustainability reporting, and the authors show how a company can restore its image by minimizing specific aspects of an accident and shifting attention from the human victims to corporate operations. Incorporating image recognition driven by AI models and combining the results with narrative disclosures contributes an innovative and original analysis technique to the field of impression management. In addition, this research also contributes to our knowledge on the cruise industry – a sector currently under scrutiny for its ethical, social and environmental practices.

Analyzing dynamic change of tourism destination image under the occurrence of a natural disaster: evidence from Japan

ABSTRACT This study attempts to investigate the dynamic impact of a natural disaster on tourism destination image. The data analysis through a case study of Japan confirmed three hypotheses. Firstly, the results showed that a natural disaster would bring a significant damage to tourism destination image, but the negative impact reduced over time. Secondly, it confirmed that the change of destination image after a natural disaster was different for tourists with different country of origin. Lastly, this study also revealed that the influences of destination image on travel intention would change under the occurrence of a natural disaster. Based on these results, some implications have been derived for tourism destinations to develop image restoration and tourism recovery strategies in the future.

Self-adaptive block-based compressed sensing imaging for remote sensing applications

In order to effectively alleviate the pressure of high-resolution imaging and massive data storage and transmission, it is of great practical significance to introduce compressed sensing into remote sensing applications. From the perspective of imaging control strategy, the typical block-based compressed sensing (BCS) system is optimized. Based on the fact that there are generally significant differences between regions of remote sensing images, a self-adaptive BCS method is proposed. Compared with the traditional BCS system, the prior information of the imaging target is obtained first by adding a presampling process. On the one hand, it is used to generate a saliency information map, which guides the reasonable allocation of self-adaptive sampling ratios between blocks in the compressed sampling process, thereby improving the sampling efficiency. On the other hand, it is used to generate the weighted sparse coefficient matrix, which will be substituted into the theoretical model in the image restoration process, thus improving the image restoration efficiency. The experimental results show that the imaging quality of the proposed method has a significant improvement compared with the traditional system and is also superior to several existing self-adaptive methods. In addition, on the basis of the above method, a multiangle image restoration strategy is proposed, which further improves the image quality at the cost of four times the image restoration time.

Social media crisis communication in racially charged crises: Exploring the effects of social media and image restoration strategies

Using a 3 × 4 between-subjects experiment, the present study delineates the effects of social media platforms (Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram) and image restoration strategies (denial, reduction of offensiveness, corrective action, and mortification) on post-crisis reputation evaluations, positive social media engagement, and offline behavioral intentions, in the context of a fictitious hotel company facing a racially charged crisis. The results indicate that Twitter was more effective than Facebook and Instagram in terms of restoring a company's post-crisis reputation, triggering positive social media engagement with the message, and enhancing the offline behavioral intentions of users. Irrespective of the social media platform on which the message was disseminated, corrective action proved to be the most engaging strategy, triggering more online reactions such as likes, shares, and positive comments. This study also sheds light on the interplay between the dependent variables (post-crisis reputation, positive social media engagement, and offline behavioral intentions) and social media usage frequency. Important implications for crisis managers facing racially charged crisis are derived.

Image Restoration for University Leaders’ Public Health COVID-19 Response: A Case Study of Notre Dame

Do as I say, not as I do is a common phrase that applies to the case of Notre Dame’s president as he began the Fall 2020 semester chastising students for gathering in large groups off campus leading to the spread of COVID-19 while he, just a month later, gathered unmasked in the U.S. White House Rose Garden to celebrate the nomination of a Notre Dame alum to the Supreme Court. This study draws upon image restoration strategies in crisis response literature to examine Notre Dame and its president’s public response to both the two-week move to remote education in Fall 2020 following COVID-19 outbreak among its students and the unmasked attendance to an event that resulted in Notre Dame’s president testing positive for COVID-19. Overall, evasion of responsibility and corrective action typified the university’s response to students’ behaviors that led to public health risk, but mortification along with contradictory messages evading responsibility typified the individual response of the university’s president that led to public health risk. Of interest to the case is the lack of religious appeal intertwined in the image restoration strategies used in the president’s apology yet the use of religious appeal in the university’s accusations against student public health behavior. Given that Notre Dame is a religiously affiliated university and the president is clergy, the inconsistent use of religious appeal may undermine the image restoration rhetoric of the president.

Single Underwater Image Restoration Based on Adaptive Transmission Fusion

Underwater images are often deteriorated with blurring, darkness, poor visual quality of low contrast, and color diminishing. This is mainly due to the fact that the light is exponentially attenuated while traveling through water and the strength of attenuation is color dependent. After constructing a simplified image formation model, this paper proposes a new strategy for single underwater image restoration. In light of different perspectives, two distinct transmission coefficient estimation approaches have been developed. One is based on the optical characteristics while the other relies on the essence of image processing knowledge. Subsequently, these two transmission maps are fused to produce the final outcome, which is adaptively weighted by their respective saliency maps. The obtained signal radiance is dissolved through point spread function deconvolution and color compensation to produce the final scene radiance. A variety of underwater images with various scenarios were exploited to evaluate the restoration performance. Experimental results demonstrated the superiority of the proposed algorithm over other competitive methods for underwater image restoration.

Starbucks’ Racial-Bias Crisis: Toward a Rhetoric of Renewal

ABSTRACTThis paper seeks to reframe crises as moments of organizational opportunity instead of moments of organizational threat. The predominant crisis communication approach involves defensive posturing, image restoration and corporate apologia strategies to protect and defend organizations in crisis. Some organizations, however, engage in crisis discourse that focuses on evolution and growth instead of issues like blame and liability. This paper employs Robert Ulmer, Timothy Sellnow and Matthew Seeger’s discourse of renewal to examine Starbucks’ crisis response to the April 12, 2018, arrests of two black men waiting for a friend in one of the coffee chain’s Philadelphia locations. While Starbucks has not characterized it as such, the organization demonstrated a renewing response. Through the Starbucks case, this paper illustrates how crises challenge organizational practices and offer platforms for organizational rebirth, development and long-term survival. Through Kantian ethics, this paper suggests duty-driven responsibilities for enacting renewal discourse and practical implications.

How to Care for Your Image and Reputation Following a Smear Campaign: Case of Africa Food Distribution

Our interest in writing this article is based on the fact that positive reputation is paramount to the development and survival of a company's business. So, we would like to make our contribution on How to care for your image and reputation especially in a situation of denigration of the image of a company. The case that fuels our thinking concerns the company 'Africa Food Distribution' which was the victim in December 2018 of a campaign of sabotage of two of its products in social networks: Armanti rice and Broli. The purpose of this article is to assess how Africa Food Distribution has handled this crisis internally and, at the end, we will try to make our contribution in crisis management relating to a campaign to denigrate the reputation of a company. First, the literature review allowed us to clarify the themes Image and Reputation; then this review of the literature will build us on strategies for restoring reputation in crisis situations. As a first step, we will summarise the company in question. Then we will take stock of the actual smear campaign, the reaction of the victim, the actions of certain stakeholders such as the government; Finally, we will make our contribution in the conduct to be taken in the event of the implementation of the image restoration strategy and therefore repair the reputation following a sabotage campaign.

Kenya Airways Dominant Image Restoration Strategies during the 2015/16 Financial Crisis

Kenya Airways Dominant Image Restoration Strategies during the 2015/16 Financial Crisis

Progressive Image Restoration Based on CP-ABE With Constant-Size Ciphertext and Constant Bilinear Calculation

Sharing photos on an open social platform with one-to-many features increases the leakage risk of information of the shared photos. Ciphertext-policy attribute-based encryption (CP-ABE) is a one-to-many public key cryptosystem, and its access policy can be set by data owners. Therefore, if we share the protected image on the social platform and encrypt the restoration parameters of the shared image with CP-ABE, then only the accessor whose attribute set satisfies the access policy of CP-ABE can decrypt the ciphertext corresponding to his/her attribute level and then restore the image with the corresponding sharpness level. Consequently, image information protection is realized in a one-to-many scenario. However, for the existing CP-ABE, only when further shortening its ciphertext, reducing the number of bilinear pairing calculations during decryption, and ensuring flexible access policies is it beneficial for CP-ABE to be widely used in popular smart terminals that can run social software. Furthermore, existing algorithms for restoring images also have room for improvement in terms of time and space requirements. For this reason, we propose a progressive image restoration strategy based on the improved CP-ABE in this paper. For the improvement of CP-ABE, we design a new encryption scheme to achieve a shorter constant-size ciphertext, construct an auxiliary function to help the independent authority centers generate private keys for users in new ways, design a decryption algorithm with only one bilinear pairing calculation, and provide the update algorithms for attribute revocation. Subsequently, we build a distributed CP-ABE based on our improved CP-ABE, and the correctness and security of the proposed CP-ABE algorithm are also proven. In addition, we follow the tree access policy to support the access policy, including AND, OR, NOT and threshold operations simultaneously, to adapt to the requirement of some user attributes that undergo frequent changes. Moreover, based on the atmospheric scattering model, we adopt three algorithms to restore the protected image in the dehazing mode according to the sharpness parameters. Compared with the existing literature, we provide users with not only a flexible and efficient access control strategy, shorter constant-size ciphertext and fewer bilinear calculations but also multiple algorithms for restoring images. The experimental results for six privilege levels demonstrate the superiority of our algorithms in protecting image information.

High-resolution depth profiling using a range-gated CMOS SPAD quanta image sensor.

A CMOS single-photon avalanche diode (SPAD) quanta image sensor is used to reconstruct depth and intensity profiles when operating in a range-gated mode used in conjunction with pulsed laser illumination. By designing the CMOS SPAD array to acquire photons within a pre-determined temporal gate, the need for timing circuitry was avoided and it was therefore possible to have an enhanced fill factor (61% in this case) and a frame rate (100,000 frames per second) that is more difficult to achieve in a SPAD array which uses time-correlated single-photon counting. When coupled with appropriate image reconstruction algorithms, millimeter resolution depth profiles were achieved by iterating through a sequence of temporal delay steps in synchronization with laser illumination pulses. For photon data with high signal-to-noise ratios, depth images with millimeter scale depth uncertainty can be estimated using a standard cross-correlation approach. To enhance the estimation of depth and intensity images in the sparse photon regime, we used a bespoke clustering-based image restoration strategy, taking into account the binomial statistics of the photon data and non-local spatial correlations within the scene. For sparse photon data with total exposure times of 75 ms or less, the bespoke algorithm can reconstruct depth images with millimeter scale depth uncertainty at a stand-off distance of approximately 2 meters. We demonstrate a new approach to single-photon depth and intensity profiling using different target scenes, taking full advantage of the high fill-factor, high frame rate and large array format of this range-gated CMOS SPAD array.

Organisational communication management during the Volkswagen diesel emissions scandal: A hermeneutic study in attribution, crisis management, and information orientation

The discovery in September 2015 of diesel emissions software cheat technology in Volkswagen (VW) cars initiated a process of organisational crisis management and damage limitation by VW, reflected in the contemporaneous intensive production of public information statements, including press releases, statements to shareholders and investors, and transcripts of oral evidence. Through taking stock of a selection of these public information statements, this article examines the organisational communication management strategies employed to respond to the crisis situation, making an integrated use of attribution, crisis management, and information orientation theories as an interpretive lens. An interpretivist, hermeneutic approach was used to carry out qualitative content analysis on selected statements issued by VW. The analysis reveals that there is a connection between statements relating to attribution and statements relating to information orientation, at the time of the crisis and in preparing future action. Priorities for action form part of the overall crisis management and image restoration approach. Proposed changes in information orientation constitute a key dimension of the company's public response to mitigate the offensiveness of the crisis. The analysis performed demonstrates the applicability of the proposed integration of attribution, crisis management, image restoration, and information orientation theories to better understand and explain how large corporations respond publicly to organisational crisis episodes, more specifically the ways in which attributions, crisis management, and image restoration strategies are related to aspects of information orientation as both components and consequences of the crisis.

Do Investors See Value in Ethically Sound CEO Apologies? Investigating Stock Market Reaction to CEO Apologies

Since the late 1990s, the number of apologies being offered by CEOs of large companies has exploded (Lindner in Austin American-Statesman, 2007; Adams in USA Today, 2000). Communication and management scholars have analyzed whether and why some of these apologies are more effective or more ethical than others (Souder in Sci Eng Ethics 16:175–184, 2010; Benoit in Accounts, excuses, and apologies: a theory of image restoration strategies, 1995a; Benoit and Czerwinski in Bus Commun Q 60:38–57, 1997). Most of these analyses, however, have remained at the anecdotal level. Moreover, the practical, economic consequences of apologies have not been examined. Almost no rigorous or systematic empirical work exists that examines whether stakeholders (1) reward firms whose CEOs give apologies that are more, rather than less, ethical; and (2) punish firms whose corporate apologies are not ethically sound. This lacuna is surprising given that the whole purpose of an apology is to restore trust between the apologizer and the recipients of the apology. It is also surprising, given that stock market participants do appear, in at least some cases, to evaluate and respond to apologies by CEOs. When Johnson and Johnson was hit by the Tylenol poisonings, its stock price plummeted. One day after CEO James Burke’s apology—an apology widely praised for being ethically sound—approximately a half billion dollars of its previously lost stock value was restored (The financial effect of Burke’s 1982 apology was calculated using Eventus data for a window −1, +1 days around the date of the actual apology.). It appears, then, that a good CEO apology may lead to an increased stock value ceteris paribus. But is the Johnson and Johnson case representative of how the market responds in general to CEO apologies?

English

A real crisis experienced by a national nonprofit organization is used in this case study to help students apply concepts associated with crisis management planning (CMP). Students are introduced to crisis planning, management, and communication strategies to help them develop the skills necessary to lead a nonprofit organization through a crisis. Concepts introduced in the theoretical background of the case provide students with a theoretical and a practical understanding of crisis, crisis management, crisis communication planning, and crisis communication strategies. Communication strategies presented are focused on image restoration strategies. The case is appropriate for undergraduate and graduate students preparing to work in the nonprofit sector. Instructors are encouraged to use this case in conjunction with discussions of public relations, crisis management, or crisis communication strategies. The sample assignments and discussion questions allow students to connect crisis management theory to a practical organizational crisis within a classroom setting.

Representing shipowners: explaining strategic interactions with the media

This study examines the strategies of the association representing Greek shipowners interests towards the media. As key activities of effective business interests' representation, public relations, image restoration and media response strategies of business associations have attracted widespread scholarly attention in recent years. This paper contributes to this discussion by posing the question of how communication strategies were shaped when the members of a leading shipping community collectively advocated their interests. It does so by exploring the analytical power of historical institutionalist perspectives in addressing fundamental questions regarding the shaping of the practices that business associations develop in specific periods of crisis. This is a search for the causal factors of interests mobilisation and for an understanding of the content, the technique, and the format that interactions with media develop and maintain. Challenging axioms of 'excellence' in media relations, the empirical research suggests that although a changing institutional setting (i.e., a socio-economic crisis) prompted the Union of Greek Shipowners (UGS) to consider reforming existing strategies, path dependency prevailed over the examined period (2013-2015). The absence of a major strategy change reflects the initial origins and idiosyncrasies of the creators of the business associations.

Ethos in Sports: An Aristotelian Examination Focused on Source Credibility and the Modern Day Athlete

Abstract The current study analyzed source credibility in a sports related context. A review of previous literature was undertaken in order to highlight the central findings focused on the dimensions of competence, goodwill, and trustworthiness. Quantitative methods were then utilized as a means to empirically test whether unconfirmed reports of performance-enhancing drug use could negatively impact perceptions of athlete ethos. Findings revealed that athletes who were inconclusively linked to performance-enhancers were evaluated less favorably in terms of their overall competence, goodwill, and trustworthiness. The implications from this study indicate that clean athletes who are wrongfully accused should proactively communicate their innocence to the general public. Athletes who are not clean should employ various face and image restoration strategies in order to effectively manage their public credibility. Study limitations and directions for future research were appropriately addressed within the present scholarship.