SK-II China and its skin cream scandal: An extended analysis of the image restoration strategies in a non-Western setting

SK-II, a global luxury cosmetic and skincare brand of Proctor & Gamble (P&G), was sued by a Chinese consumer in 2005, which raised serious questions about SK-II's product safety and the credibility of its advertisements. This public relations debacle resulted in a dip in SK-II's performance in the China skincare market. The theory of image restoration discourse was applied in this case to analyze SK-II's public relations efforts to rebuild its prestigious brand image in China and to regain Chinese consumers’ trust. More rigorous image restoration strategies for multinational corporations (MNCs) in the Asian market were also discussed.     

Representations of reliability: The rhetoric of political flip-flopping

This study used a qualitative analysis of political flip-flops (N?=?141) to create a typology of rhetorical strategies for politicians who are perceived to have changed positions on political issues. The core purpose of such rhetoric is to achieve a representation of reliability. Politicians who appear to change positions must do so in a way that does not make them seem unreliable to their key stakeholders. Strategies for achieving this goal fall into four primary categories: ignore, deny, justify, and repent. Within each category are more specific tactics, such as evading questions, claiming one was misquoted, arguing one is adapting to new circumstances, or explaining that one has acquired new information about an issue. Using Bitzer’s theory of the rhetorical situation, we argue that certain strategies are more appropriate than others in certain situations. We discuss the practical and ethical implications of these strategies.     

Further explorations of post-crisis communication: Effects of media and response strategies on perceptions and intentions

Crisis communication represents a rapidly growing body of research and is seeing an increased use of experimental methods. However, the experiments have relied exclusively on print stimuli resulting in little knowledge of channel effects on crisis communication. This study evaluates the effects of different response strategies and media channels on respondents exposed to a crisis. The study used a 2 (crisis response: sympathy and compassion) × 2 (media: print and video) design. We selected two similar response strategies that could differ in terms of the additional cues provided by video. Results revealed virtually no meaningful difference between the use of video versus print or sympathy versus compensation.     

Combating negative blog posts and a negative incident: A case study of the “Mayday” incident between Juneyao Airlines and Qatar Airways

This case analysis examined the image repair strategies used by Juneyao Airlines after an anonymous blog posted information on a Juneyao flight's refusal to yield to a flight that issued an emergency call. This case revealed that addressing the credibility of the blog post and relying a third-party – Civil Aviation Administration of China – to combat the inaccuracies in the blog post was successful and that Juneyao's final announcement to take responsibility for the incident and to apologize was effective as well.     

Mayhem in the Magic City: Rebuilding legitimacy in a communication train wreck

This study explores the relationship between corrective action and rebuilding legitimacy. Specifically, the corrective actions taken by the City of Minot and Ward County officials in response to the emergency communication breakdowns during the 2002 Canadian Pacific train derailment and anhydrous ammonia spill are analyzed. The study concludes that corrective action when employed as organizational learning can expedite image restoration, rebuild legitimacy, and better prepare organizations for future crises.     

Preventing damage: The psychology of crisis communication buffers in organized sports

Sports crisis communication is a growing field of study, with research focusing on the image repair of athletes and teams, fan solidarity during crises, and the role of mass and new media in crisis development. However, reflecting a broader tendency in crisis communication to emphasize the study of response strategies at the expense of other factors, sports crisis communication research has not examined the unique factors in sports that prevent crises from causing severe image and reputation damage. In this paper, we apply Coombs’ notion of buffers to argue for new attention to two particularly important buffers in sports: communities and political economy. These buffers often preclude the need for any response at all, and crisis communication practitioners would do well to implement them around their own sports teams to prevent damage from crises.     

The Gulf Coast oil spill: Extending the theory of image restoration discourse to the realm of social media and beyond petroleum

The explosion of Transocean's Deepwater Horizon, an oil-rig licensed to BP, set in motion a chain of unfortunate events that led to BP's ruptured oil well disgorging millions of gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico. Since the spill, the corporate image of BP has been severely challenged. The company has used many strategies to preserve and restore the corporate image, and has sought means to mitigate the intensity of the ongoing threat to individuals, businesses, and a delicate ecosystem. Among these means are interacting with individuals and interest groups through social media channels. Benoit's (1995) theory of image restoration discourse posits various strategies corporations use to restore their image during a crisis. The BP crisis presents an opportunity to extend the theories of image restoration to the realm of social media. Results of a content analysis showed that corrective action was the dominant image restoration strategy employed by BP in their Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Flickr pages. A high presence of negative emotions revealed that corrective action was not an effective means of swaying public opinion in favor of BP's efforts. Dominant themes in all four social media channels and audience comments in terms of dominant issues and emotions on Facebook and YouTube were also analyzed.     

Image restoration: An examination of the response strategies used by Brown and Williamson after allegations of wrongdoing

Organizations often respond to allegations of wrongdoing made by whistle-blowers. Response mechanisms may take several forms, from simply denying the wrongdoing, to offering an apology. This study sought to examine the various response strategies an organization employed after a whistle-blowing incident. Using the whistle-blowing case of Brown and Williamson Tobacco Company, this study sought to examine the different image restoration strategies the organization (Brown and Williamson) used in responding to the allegations of wrongdoing made by the whistle-blower, Dr. Jeffrey Wigand.     

Prior reputation and the transition from image repair to image makeover: The case of Hosni Mubarak

Through an analysis of Hosni Mubarak's speeches made over the course of the Arab Spring, this study examined Mubarak's response to criticism about his role in the crisis and the resultant attempt to repair his image. The study thereby draws attention to the image repair strategies of an individual with a negative prior reputation in a crisis. Data indicate that Mubarak's negative prior reputation resulted in his attempting not just an image repair as image repair discourse theory would suggest but rather a more complex image makeover. The cultural significance of his rhetorical choices and the implications for theory are discussed.     

Crisis communication in higher education: The use of “negotiation” as a strategy to manage crisis

This case study examined the crisis response strategies of Louisiana State University after its women's head basketball coach resigned amid charges of inappropriate conduct with former basketball players. This case study draws on relationship management and negotiation as the theoretical lens to examine the efforts of the University in managing relationships and restoring its image. Data for this study was collected through opened-ended questionnaires from students, faculty, and staff at the University. The findings from this study indicate that the good reputation of the University was responsible for the positive evaluation of the crisis management. In addition, results from this study suggest that “negotiation” can play an important role in managing a crisis when the conflicting parties are not willing to participate in a dialogue.     

The syllogism of apologia: Rhetorical stasis theory and crisis communication

Rhetorical stasis theory – the process of identifying a debate's core issue – can provide a hierarchical structure for crisis response strategies. The accusation in a crisis situation – the kategoria – has a syllogistic form, allowing crisis managers to decide whether to attack an accusation at its minor premise level, major premise level or conclusion. This article connects current crisis communication options to those three staseis.     

Meshworked reputation: Publicists’ views on the reputational impacts of online communication

This paper discusses the conceptual and empirical connections between an organization's reputation management and online communication. The paper develops a theory driven model of the structural dimensions of reputation and analyzes organizational communication professionals’ views on the potential that online communication has for reputation management. The survey data showed that online communication was perceived to have positive impacts on the structure and advantages of reputation, and that these two aspects would seem to be strongly dependent on each other. Thus, online communication can be used to influence the assessments made by stakeholders about an organization's products and services, corporate responsibility, success, its ability to change and develop, and its public image. In addition, online communication can generate reputational advantages by strengthening stakeholder relationships and building social capital for the organization.     

Finding the path beyond reputation repair: A structural topic modeling analysis of the crisis communication paradigm in public relations

This research utilizes computational methods to examine crisis communication scholarship from 2010 to 2020 in two studies with a census of all articles in Public Relations Review and the Journal of Public Relations Research (n = 1293 articles, 7400,685 words). Results indicate crisis scholarship has expanded beyond its prior focus on reputation repair. Situational crisis communication theory and image repair are compared in volume of scholarship and methodological affinity. Social media, SCCT, and media relations are identified as central topics within crisis communication scholarship.     

Image repair in late night comedy: Letterman and the Palin joke controversy

David Letterman, host of The Late Show, told a joke about Sarah Palin's daughter during one of his nightly monologues. During the ensuing controversy, Letterman offered two extended statements about the joke. Approaching Letterman's responses from the perspective of Benoit's image repair typology reveals three primary strategies: denial, mortification, and corrective action. While Letterman's first attempt to resolve the controversy failed, his second attempt was largely successful. Implications for public relations image repair strategies are offered.     

When sorry is not enough: Archbishop Cardinal Bernard Law's image restoration strategies in the statement on sexual abuse of minors by clergy

In January 2002, the Boston Globe ran a two-part story on sexual abuse of minors by clergy in the Archdiocese of Boston that sparked the biggest crisis in the history of the American Catholic Church. Two days after the articles appeared, Archbishop Cardinal Bernard Law held a press conference to respond to the Globe's charges. This study examines Law's image restoration strategies in his press conference and proposes that even though Law failed to restore his image, he provided a fitting response. The study proposes that one may attribute Law's failure to restore his image to his relational history with his audience and to the perceived offensiveness of his actions.     

How Fortune 500 companies used the Web for philanthropic and crisis communication following Hurricane Katrina

This study examined how Fortune 500 companies used their Web sites to provide philanthropic and crisis communication response following Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Results showed that companies tended to use traditional means of communication versus new media tactics to disseminate information related to the disaster. Companies with holdings in Louisiana and Mississippi tended to use slightly more types of information than companies without a substantive presence in those two states.     

The Israeli Mossad and the media: Historical and theoretical perspectives

This essay presents for the first time an integrated and comprehensive historical analysis of the relationship between the external intelligence service in Israel, the Mossad, and the media. The theoretical framework of this research demonstrates the significance of analyzing the relationship through the lens of a challenge–response model, based primarily on public relations literature. Since different changes have taken place in society, culture and media, it is crucial to define what issues the Mossad faced during each era in order to accurately evaluate its strategic communications. The Mossad's ability to cope efficiently with crisis situations was majorly influenced by the proportions between the challenges and the responses.     

Crisis communication online: How medium,crisis type and emotions affected public reactions in the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster

Social media play in today's societies a fundamental role for the negotiation and dynamics of crises. However, classical crisis communication theories neglect the role of the medium and focus mainly on the interplay between crisis type and crisis communication strategy. Building on the recently developed “networked crisis communication model” we contrast effects of medium (Facebook vs. Twitter vs. online newspaper) and crisis type (intentional vs. victim) in an online experiment. Using the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster as crisis scenario, we show that medium effects are stronger than the effects of crisis type. Crisis communication via social media resulted in a higher reputation and less secondary crisis reactions such as boycotting the company than crisis communication in the newspaper. However, secondary crisis communication, e.g. talking about the crisis communication, was higher in the newspaper condition than in the social media conditions because people consider traditional media as more credible. We also found higher levels of anger in the intentional crisis condition than in the victim crisis condition. Anger in turn was related to reputation, secondary crisis communication and secondary crisis reaction. The results stress the need for more complex models of crisis communication.     

Getting out of the doghouse: The image repair strategies of Michael Vick

Michael Vick's federal dog-fighting conviction in 2007 made him notorious. Vick spoke publicly about his role in the dog-fighting operation only once before beginning a prison term. Three years after entering prison, he returned to National Football League action. By 2011, some in the media proposed that Vick had successfully rehabilitated his image and redeemed himself in the eyes of the public. This study examines the image repair strategies Vick employed at his August 27, 2007, press conference. It concludes that Vick chose appropriate strategies but did not fully develop one critical strategy: corrective action. The paper also explores Vick's strategic use of the third person and appeals to a supernatural being.     

Managing a nation's image during crisis: A study of the Chinese government's image repair efforts in the “Made in China” controversy

The image of a nation is crucial in the conduct of international relations (Wang, J. (2006). Managing national reputation and international relations in the global era: Public diplomacy revisited. Public Relations Review, 32, 91–96). A favorable image plays a critical role in asserting one's influence (Benoit, W. L., & Brinson, S. L. (1994). AT&T: “Apologies are not enough”. Communication Quarterly, 42, 75–88; Wang, J. (2006). Managing national reputation and international relations in the global era: Public diplomacy revisited. Public Relations Review, 32, 91–96). Often, strategic communication tools like public relations and media diplomacy are used to enhance a nation's image (Giffard, A., & Rivenburgh, N. K. (2000). News agencies, national images, and global media events. Journalism Quarterly, 77, 8–21). In 2007, China's reputation as “the workshop of the world” (Gaulier, G., Lemoine, F., & Unal-Kesenci, D. (2005). China: A workshop of the Cd and a market for Europe. At: http://ideas.repec.org/a/cii/cepill/2005-245.html. Accessed on 14 May 2009) came under severe threat with a series of product recalls. This was arguably the first time that allegations of product deficiencies were targeted at a country. Using the image repair theory, this paper examined the strategies used and the image these strategies generated for China. Findings showed that the initial defensive strategies generated an image of a hurried and harried country. After it was willing to confront the crises through corrective action, a surer and more determined image emerged.