Public Apology Research Articles

Do apologies promote the reintegration of former combatants? Lessons from a video experiment in Colombia

Transitional justice practices frequently involve public apologies where former combatants confess their wrongdoings and ask for forgiveness, with the underlying assumption that such displays facilitate the reintegration of ex-combatants into society. However, little is known about the public response to ex-combatant apologies. In this article, we investigate the causal effect of an armed group apology on attitudes toward ex-combatant reintegration in Colombia. Our study builds on a novel experiment implemented in Meta, a conflict-ridden department of Colombia. The experiment entailed exposing a subset of participants to a video in which a former rebel group leader apologizes for violent acts committed by their armed group during the civil war. To examine the extent to which external actors influence the effectiveness of apologies, we incorporated third-party ‘encouragements to forgive’ (endorsements) in two additional treatment conditions. Our analysis demonstrates that, on average, participants do not exhibit higher reintegration attitudes when exposed to the apology, regardless of third-party endorsements. However, the absence of a treatment effect is not due to an indifference to the apology. In an exploratory heterogeneity analysis, we show that the apology induces negative effects on some indicators of reintegration attitudes among participants that did not support the peace agreement. This finding aligns with qualitative data gathered in a follow-up survey, which indicates that opponents of the peace agreement generally describe negative emotional responses to the FARC-EP apology. The results call for a reconsideration of unchallenged prescriptions of public apologies after conflict.

Corrective communicative behavior in the context of the discourse practice of cancel culture (using the example of public apologies of media personalities)

Corrective communicative behavior in the context of the discourse practice of cancel culture (using the example of public apologies of media personalities)

CHỦ THỂ ĐƯỢC XIN LỖI, CẢI CHÍNH CÔNG KHAI VÀ CHỦ THỂ CHỊU TRÁCH NHIỆM XIN LỖI, CẢI CHÍNH CÔNG KHAI THEO PHÁP LUẬT DÂN SỰ

The subject to and the subject responsible for public apology and rectification are the two main subjects directly involved in the civil legal relationship on public apology. However, the individual directly infringing upon another’s honor, dignity, and reputation may not always be the one legally obliged to make the apology or public correction. Thus, a thorough understanding of the nature and legal responsibilities of each subject is crucial for practical application.

Acknowledging dispossession

Abstract This paper illustrates what can be revealed by a linguistic analysis of the discourse strategies deployed in a bilingual text acknowledging the dispossession of Indigenous peoples in Mindanao (Philippines). The analysis draws on systemic functional linguistics (SFL) descriptions of English, which model language as a resource for making meaning. It explores the choices involved from the perspective of critical discourse analysis (CDA), exposing language in the service of power, and positive discourse analysis (PDA), appreciating language as an instrument of social change. In doing so we exemplify the role of SFL-informed CDA/PDA in processes of reconciliation, including personal and public acknowledgements and apologies, alongside considerations of “making peace” with dispossessed Indigenous people through existing, renovated or emerging genres.

The usage of apologies and group cooperation

Using a repeated public goods game, we experimentally examine how apologies support mutual cooperation in groups. In two treatments where participants can send either public or private apologies, contributions increase by 0.43 and 0.87 standard deviations respectively, compared to a control treatment. Examining the mechanisms, we find much consistency in the usage of apologies: participants apologise when contributing less than others and subsequently make amends by raising contributions. Recipients of apologies also believe that apologisers are more caring and will contribute more. While there are only minimal differences in the effects of sending and receiving individual apologies across the private and public treatments, we find that sincere apology usage by groups is strongly associated with higher group cooperation, especially in the public treatment.

The Knife is Still in Our Backs: Reparations Washing and the Limits of Reparatory Justice Campaigns

ABSTRACTThe Black Lives Matter movement of 2020 has placed reparations firmly on the international agenda. This article discusses the concept of ‘reparations washing’ with reference to the measures of two British businesses, Greene King and Lloyd's of London, in acknowledgement of their historical roots in the slave trade, and the Government of the Netherlands’ public apology for the country's history of slavery. Reparations washing occurs when corporations or governments give a token nod to reparatory justice to enhance their image and to absolve them of institutional guilt. The article employs Malcolm X's metaphor of slavery, as sticking a knife into the back of the enslaved, to argue that in order to repair the harm caused, the knife needs to be removed and the wound healed. It then analyses the reparations demands contained in CARICOM's Ten Point Plan for Reparatory Justice which exposes the limits of reparatory justice campaigns. The paradox of reparations campaigns is that they ultimately leave intact a system founded on White supremacy and the exploitation of the Global South. It is therefore impossible for reparations to be realized without bringing an end to the current political and economic system. The article concludes that, ultimately, the value of reparations campaigns lies in their highlighting the need for revolution.

Equilibrium communication in political scandals

We present a formal model in which elite communication and voters’ beliefs during a political scandal emerge as a communication equilibrium, determined by the severity of the accusations and the degree of media scrutiny. The prediction of our model is that incumbents’ use of denials can garner support even when they face the possibility of evidence showing their guilt. In contrast, public apologies increase approval – compared to denial – only when accusations are not very serious and are likely to be proved. Results from a large survey experiment corroborate these predictions. In order to explore how changes in the information environment shapes the communication equilibrium, we estimate the structural parameters of our model and conduct counterfactual simulations. We find that increasing media scrutiny leads to asymmetric effects on incumbent communication with politicians who are the best at covering up evidence actually benefiting from increased scrutiny.

Brand avatar present or absent? Investigate brand avatar and consumer forgiveness in public apology

PurposeThe rising occurrence of digitally driven public consumer complaints has made it necessary for enterprises to obtain consumer forgiveness. However, existing research has provided little understanding regarding how to obtain consumer forgiveness effectively. Thus, the present study examined how brand avatars can improve consumer forgiveness in the context of public apology.Design/methodology/approachThis study tested the mechanism of a brand avatar on consumer forgiveness using three studies. Specifically, we explored the direct and mediating effect of empathy toward a brand (Study 1); we identified the moderating mediating effect of humorous responses (Study 2) and product type (Study 3). Data for these studies were collected on Credamo. We analyzed the data using SPSS (26.0) for the primary analysis and PROCESS (3.5) for the mediating and moderating mediating analysis.FindingsThe results indicate that brand avatars enhance consumer forgiveness. Moreover, empathy toward a brand plays a mediating role in the effect of brand avatars on consumer forgiveness. Additionally, when a humorous response is present, a brand avatar can enhance customer forgiveness through empathy toward that brand. Compared to utilitarian products, hedonic products can also increase the impact of a brand avatar on empathy toward the brand, thus enhancing consumers' forgiveness.Originality/valueFrom the perspective of emotion, this study explored the impact of brand avatars on consumer forgiveness via empathy toward a brand. It augments the research on brand avatars and consumer forgiveness. The study also verified the moderating mediating effect of humor response and product type while expanding the brand avatar research boundary.

How to rebuild trust through apology: Evidence from public apology letters

This paper explores how apology strategies are used to rebuild the public's trust using evidence from Chinese e-commerce live-streaming hosts' apology letters. It is found that live-streaming hosts can use two strategies to rebuild the public's trust: apology-related metalanguage labels and apology-related supportive moves. The former are routine formulas generally used to give an explicit apology, such as “sorry.” The latter are strategies used to support apology-related metalanguage labels, including offering explanations, taking responsibility, making promises, showing empathy, and expressing integrity. Further quantitative analyses indicate that metalanguage labels alone cannot rebuild the public's trust. Trust can be rebuilt only by combining metalanguage labels and supportive moves. This paper contributes to the theoretical study of trustworthiness building in the public arena and can enhance trust relationships between e-commerce and the public.

Spreading Netflix Culture Stirs a Furore

The availability of a large number of smartphones, widespread internet access and the penetration of high bandwidth, coupled with competitively priced data plans, spurred tremendous growth in the Indian media and entertainment industry, particularly in the realm of over-the-top (OTT) platforms. The demand for OTT services surged even further during the lockdown period brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic. The focal point of this case lies in the entry and expansion of the multinational corporation ‘Netflix’ within India. The case delves into the company’s employment of the marketing mix to address the escalating demand for the novel OTT service in India amid intensifying competition and emerging challenges. In its eagerness to produce original content, Netflix appeared to have inadvertently offended and disregarded the sentiments, religious emotions and beliefs of its audience, resulting in consumer protests. This, in turn, led to the formulation of various regulations governing the content presented on OTT platforms. Owing to its controversial and insensitive content, Netflix faced backlash in India and globally, leading to legal battles in several countries. A recent instance occurred on September 18, 2021, where Nona Gaprindashvili, a Georgian chess prodigy who made history as the world’s first female grandmaster, took legal action against Netflix for defamation and invasion of privacy. This lawsuit was filed in a federal district court in California in response to their show titled ‘Queen’s Gambit’. The core of the lawsuit revolves around a scene in the final episode of the show, wherein a radio commentator suggests that Gaprindashvili was not regarded as a significant contender by her male counterparts. The lawsuit accuses Netflix of belittling Gaprindashvili’s achievements to craft a more sensational narrative and dismissing her previous defamation claim without issuing a public apology or retraction ( https://www.npr.org/2021/09/18/1038442947/nona-gaprindashvili-netflix-lawsuit-chess-queens-gambit ).

Arms, aviation, and apologies: mapping the Boeing social media response to the 2019 Ethiopian Airlines crash

ABSTRACT Boeing is famous for aviation but also produces arms, making $29.2 billion from the latter in 2018. The role of the arms trade in facilitating death can be considered a ‘public secret’ - known, but socially unacknowledged. This allows Boeing to represent its role as one of ‘neutral’ technological advancement, obscuring violence engendered by certain products. This paper builds on works on public secrecy, which investigate how (un)acknowledgement obscures everyday security arrangements. How can we know the public secret? We argue that public apology and scandal are boundary-delineating practices, locating certain issues within the public secret and rendering others knowable and sayable. We examine Boeing’s Twitter response to the March 2019 Ethiopian Airlines flight 302 crash. The content: 1) produced the crash as a tragedy, positioning Boeing as ‘sorry’ and capable of grief, 2) allowed Boeing to ‘take responsibility’, positioning safe operation of their products as a moral obligation. Within the wider political contexts of the arms trade and responsibility for safety in commercial aviation, we explain Boeing’s Twitter navigation of apology/scandal not as simply corporate face-saving, but as a practice of (re)confirming the public secret, positioning aviation deaths as knowable/grievable, and those lost to the arms industry as neither.

ДЕЯТЕЛЬНОСТЬ ТОВАРИЩЕСКИХ СУДОВ БАШКИРИИ В КОНЦЕ 1950-Х - 1980-Е ГГ.

The article examines the activities of the Bashkir ASSR friendly courts in the late 1950s - the first half of the 1980s. A brief analysis of historiography shows that the problem is insufficiently studied. The main sources were unpublished documents of the funds of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the Republic and the Bashkir Regional Council of Trade Unions - bodies that control the work of friendly courts, as well as materials of the periodical press. The growth in the number of friendly courts was characterized by instability, then increased, then decreased. The same applies to members of friendly courts. The friendly courts considered minor civil cases, including in the family and household sphere. Interference in the private life of citizens was especially characteristic of the 1950s and 1960s, after which it weakened. In the 1970s, the friendly courts considered absenteeism, violations of public order, labor discipline (appearance in a drunken state at work), petty theft and others at their meetings. The most common measures of influence used by friendly courts were public apology, warning, public censure and reprimand. However, in the 1970s the importance of fines and applications for transfer to a lower-paid job is increasing. There were many shortcomings in the work of the friendly courts: some of them were inactive for years, others exceeded their powers. In the 1970s and 1980s, friendly courts dealt with only 10 to 20 percent of offenses, which testified to the insufficient effectiveness of the institute of friendly courts. Most minor offenses went unpunished. The activities of the friendly courts were formally under the control of the party, Soviet, judicial and trade union bodies. However, this control was often insufficient, especially in the late 1950s - early 1960s. The author distinguishes two periods in the activities of friendly courts: 1) the end of the 1950s - the first half of the 1960s, marked by their greatest activity; 2) the second half of the 1960s - the mid-1980s, when the courts were increasingly "carried away" by administrative measures of influence.

Decolonising Journalism in Aotearoa New Zealand: Using a Tiriti-Led Framework for News Practice

ABSTRACT In 2020, newspaper conglomerate and owner of Aotearoa New Zealand’s largest news website, Stuff, issued an historic public apology for its racist portrayal of Indigenous Māori after an internal investigation showed it had contributed to stigma, marginalisation and stereotypes against Māori. This study explores what has changed since Stuff’s apology and, by deploying an analytical framework grounded in Māori worldviews and Te Tiriti o Waitangi (the founding treaty signed between Māori and British colonisers), demonstrates how an Indigenous lens can help news organisations better identify and rethink Western-centric journalistic norms to develop more inclusive and equitable practice. The study analyses Stuff’s then largest newspaper, The Press, via a content analysis of two constructed weeks, one before Stuff’s apology (n = 480 articles) and another post-apology (n = 430 articles), along with a topic modelling analysis of 5091 articles published between 2016 and 2021. Analysis grounded in kaupapa Māori and te Tiriti shows some improvement in news coverage—as well as opportunities for more equitable representation by incorporating Indigenous tikanga (custom) in reporting practice. It also finds ongoing problems, indicating more fundamental and transformative action is needed for news media organisations to meet their commitments to anti-racism and de-Westernising the field.

How verbal and non-verbal cues in a CEO apology for a corporate crisis affect a firm’s social disapproval

CEOs often apologize in public to minimize social disapproval after a corporate crisis. We study how certain non-verbal (e.g., shooting angle) and verbal cues (e.g., message construal) in a CEO public apology affect the social disapproval of a firm and the underlying mechanism of these effects. Evidence from 117 news reports of 56 CEO public apologies collected from six major newspapers between 2015 and 2019 confirms an interaction effect between the non-verbal and verbal cues in a public CEO apology. A laboratory experiment replicates this effect by manipulating the shooting angle and construal level and additionally demonstrates the process underlying the effect. We discuss how these findings contribute to a better understanding of stakeholder expectations in the aftermath of a corporate crisis and affect firms’ crisis response strategies and leadership responsibilities.

The PRC’s New Approach to Deterring Pangolin Crime and the Concept of Criminal Incidental Civil Public Interest Litigation

Pangolin crime in the People’s Republic of China (PRC) is high due to the demand for pangolins as food and as a component of traditional medicine in Chinese culture, and the large financial benefits accrued by those involved in the illegal pangolin trade. To better combat wildlife crime and protect wildlife interests, in recent years the PRC has begun to vigorously implement a mechanism of public interest litigation to redress environmental torts. In the criminal sphere, public interest litigation operates in the form of ‘criminal incidental civil public interest litigation’, with the prospect of damages and a public apology serving as a powerful substantive and moral deterrent to criminal acts that harm pangolins. However, as a new litigation system, criminal incidental civil public interest litigation still faces several problems, such as an inadequate basis in procedural law, a lack of interface with the Wild Animal Conservation Law, and confusion over the application of its remedies.

The “sorrystan”: public apologies and moral order in today’s Dagestan

The article deals with the moral implications of the practice of public apologies, based on the case of modern Dagestan. Unlike most studies in linguistics and political science, in this article, we are interested not in the structure of official apologies as speech acts and the conditions of achieving their communicative effect, but rather in the variability of pictures of the moral order that may stand behind the need for public apologies in a particular cultural context, and the type of moral subject that can be constructed through such public acts. The material for the analysis included the public apologies that are relevant within Dagestani society, the apologies by Dagestani people living outside the republic, and the cases of apologies to Dagestanis themselves. The article demonstrates how the spread of the practice of public apologies has problematized the boundaries of collective responsibility in Dagestani society, the notions of the subject, its qualities and agency associated with the institution of reputation, as well as the possibility of subordination and resistance to the social structure.

Getting involved or acting in defence

Abstract This study explores the business ritual practice of apology in corporate crisis management. By comparing the frequencies and analysing apology strategies from fifty local and nonlocal Chinese companies’ public letters of apology, we extend the politeness study of public apology to a broader hierarchy of a ritual frame and discuss the related formulaic patterns and strategies of apology. The results show that both groups share a high proportion of taking responsibility and explaining but differ significantly in their use of such strategies. We find that the business ritual practice of apology varies in accordance with the cultural identity of the corporation. Local Chinese companies tend to greatly rely on a ritual frame of involvement, whereas nonlocal companies take an interest in constructing a ritual frame of defence. The paper provides implications for the scholars of cross-cultural pragmatics and for business practitioners and future research directions for a ritual perspective when revisiting the practice of apology.

PERMINTAAN MAAF NEGARA ATAS PELANGGARAN HAM YANG BERAT SEBAGAI BENTUK REPARASI KORBAN

The settlement of gross violations of human rights cases in Indonesia has faced various obstacles, including the absence of a public state apology. In fact, according to International human rights normative standards, an apology is categorized as an effective form of reparation. By a socio-legal research approach, this article examines the significance of a public state apology from the perspective of victimology and International human rights standards, as well as the victim's perspective. Interviews were also conducted with victims of the gross violations of human rights in the 1965-1966 tragedy and the tragedy of Semanggi I in 1998. This article argues that according to the perspective of radical victimology, an apology is a form of state intervention in the form of symbolic recovery. Based on Boven/Bassiouni Principles, the public state apology is acknowledged as 'Satisfaction' for the victim. Even though some victims tend to reject the public state apology, this article argues that this symbolic reparation should be the first step in fulfilling reparations for victims. An apology should also be accompanied by other forms of reparation, such as the prosecution of the perpetrators of gross human rights violations at the Human Rights Court.

Komunikasi Krisis di MECnesia dan Upaya Pemulihan Citra Perusahaan di Masa Pandemi

The Covid-19 pandemic has impacted the stability of companies in Indonesia, including that experienced by MECNesia. Due to the absence of company income for one year, this company experienced crisis communication so that many employees resigned. This research uses Situational Crisis Communication Theory (SCCT) with qualitative research methods. The results showed that company leaders took a number of strategic steps to overcome crisis communication problems in their companies, including conducting open dialogue with employees, changing the leaner organizational structure, implementing online learning systems, launching for re-branding the company name by inviting journalists and utilizing social media to make public apologies.

Fame and redemption: On the moral dangers of celebrity apologies

Fame and redemption: On the moral dangers of celebrity apologies