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.     

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.     

The Floyd Landis doping scandal: Implications for image repair discourse

Floyd Landis’ efforts to repair his image in the wake of charges that he used illicit substances to win the 2006 Tour de France have been judged a failure. Analysis of his complex and contradictory rhetorical strategies reveals three important implications for the theory and practice of image repair. First, the use of absolutive stances can be severely confounded by the introduction of strategies designed to evade responsibility. This essay explains why attempts to evade responsibility contradict the combined strategies of denial and differentiation in such a way that weakens image repair efforts and confuses audiences. Second, the success of third party bolstering, cited elsewhere as an effective means of repairing one's image, is dependent upon the credibility of those third parties. Third, attacks on one's accuser have their limitations and may even worsen one's public image in some instances.     

From aspiring presidential candidate to accidental racist? An analysis of Senator George Allen's image repair during his 2006 reelection campaign

This study analyzes how Senator Allen responded to the negative public relations incidents that occurred during his 2006 reelection campaign. Through a content analysis of Allen's media releases and interviews with Allen's communication staffers this study identifies Allen's image repair discourse strategies and tactics. This study also evaluates the effectiveness of these strategies and tactics through a content analysis of the newspaper coverage Finally, this study identifies three new image repair tactics.     

“Mad Money” madness: Jim Cramer's image restoration effort

The following is an evaluation of “Mad Money” host Jim Cramer's image restoration attempts during his March 2009 week-long media battle with Jon Stewart, host of “The Daily Show.” Using Benoit's (1995) image restoration theory as a conceptual framework, it is apparent that Cramer failed in restoring his reputation because he frequently coupled incongruent strategies and was unable to grasp the dynamic nature of communicative image restoration.     

Managing Organizational Emotions: Framing Feelings of Illegitimacy in the Radical Women's Prison Movement

Abstract

This article examines how activists manage the potentially deleterious emotions that arise in social movement organizations. Using data from a case study of an organization in the contemporary radical women's prison movement in California, I explore how feelings of illegitimacy are managed and sublimated by activists, during the course of organizational life, to sustain participation in the movement. Drawing on framing theory, I find that organizational frames serve as mechanisms that manage and focus activists' feelings, delimit movement strategies, and inspire and legitimate collective action.     

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.     

A Sisterhood: The Collective Resilience Born in the Periphery of Prison

The collateral consequences of incarceration and prison visitation, transcend the boundaries of prison and transform women's lives. Through an intersectional approach, this research uncovers in what capacity degradation and secondary prisonization shape women's lives, and what coping mechanisms women form in response to the difficulties of visitation. Existing research has yet to identify visitors' relationships to one another and how these relationships aid in fostering coping strategies and resilience within the carceral realm. To fill the gaps, I employed qualitative research to explore the process of visitation, processing procedures, challenges of visitation, staff relations, and women's support systems. Findings indicated visitors are subject to an environment of gendered, racist, and classist oppression that varies in degree depending on social heirarchy and status. However, as a manifestation of resilience, women construct coping mechanisms in the form of information and support networks that aid in the dismantling the prevailing culture of scarcity of information and the degradation of free women by prison staff. These marginalized women habitually resist carceral domination through informal interpersonal support systems.     

President Barack Obama's image repair on HealthCare.gov

Obama's health care initiative HealthCare.gov went live on October 1, 2013. It was plagued with problems. Furthermore, the President promised that if people liked their current health care plan, they could keep it. People were shocked when they started to receive cancelation notices from their insurance companies. Republicans seized on the opportunity to savage the president, his administration, and his health care program. Obama's approval rating was anemic and on November 7, he was interviewed by Chuck Todd and on November 14, 2013, Obama held a press conference to try to mend his image. His defense relied heavily on mortification, corrective action, and minimization but also contained instances of defeasibility, bolstering, and transcendence. This essay uses Image Repair theory to analyze and evaluate the President's image repair effort.     

Nelson Rockefeller in Latin America: Global Currents of US Prison Growth

Nelson Rockefeller is a key piece of the puzzle that is the explosion of the US prison population in the last forty years, thanks both to his drug policies of 1973 and his response to the Attica prison rebellion two years previously, which set in motion a series of changes in prison practice. This essay argues that understandings of Rockefeller’s attitudes about crime and pun-ishment, and US prison growth in general, would be enhanced by paying at-tention to transnational currents, in particular the riptides of the Cold War. It therefore places Rockefeller’s prison-related actions within the context of his long experience in Latin America prior to and during his governorship of New York, showing his evolving anti-communism to be a product of his Latin-American engagements, including a crucial trip to the region in 1969. Contextualizing Rockefeller in this way reveals some of the transnational currents of his punitive turn, as well as the nation’s.     

Striking A Balance: Female Correctional Officers,Gender Role Stereotypes,and Male Prisons*

This paper examines the strategies developed by female correctional officers to circumvent interactional and organizational barriers to advancement in the traditionally-male work organization of the men's prison. Data for the analysis are drawn from interviews with female officers and other staff in a state department of corrections located in the western United States. In a dramaturgical-like fashion, female officers seeking to advance must moderate–strike a balance–between a series of countervailing negative sex role stereotypes. However, regardless of their success in presenting a “balanced” image at work, female officers experienced stress from their responsibility of accommodating to this predominantly male work environment.     

Sex,lies, and post-trial publicity: The reputation repair strategies of Dominique Strauss-Kahn

The object of this investigation is the only interview given so far by the former Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund, Dominique Strauss-Kahn (DSK), after being declared innocent of sexual assault charges brought against him by New York's District Attorney. During his television appearance, DSK used some rhetorical and, more precisely, dramaturgical image repair strategies, but also combined them with other communication strategies. This article analyzes said strategies and suggests that image repair theory researchers must include other analytical elements, strategic as well as contextual, when researching responses to crises. Furthermore, this study also discusses the role of culture and post-trial publicity in image repair strategies.     

Elena Andreevna Shvarts (17 May 1948–11 March 2010)

Abstract

A critical exploration is provided of the path and building metaphors used in the speeches of the former Russian president Vladimir Putin. We use the concepts of 'discourse metaphor' and 'frame' in our analysis of a corpus of Putin's speeches written and delivered between 2000 and 2007 in order to reveal the rhetorical strategies employed in them, and establish the ideological patterns of metaphor use. The metaphors are identified, analysed according to source domains, and then explored for their contribution to the overall project of the Russian president. Our findings suggest that, although the metaphorical expressions used by Putin are conventional and have a strong experiential grounding, in pragmatic terms, the choice of them appears to be in line with the legitimization and delegitimization strategies adopted by the former Russian president during his two terms in office.     

An inconvenient vote: Hillary Clinton's Iraq war image repair debate strategies and their implications for representative democracy

Hillary Rodham Clinton was one of four 2007–2008 Democratic presidential candidates who had voted to authorize U.S. military use in Iraq. Given her status as the front-runner, Clinton's vote, in particular, presented a public relations problem for her among primary voters who strongly opposed the war and favored its prompt end. This study analyzes Clinton's attempts in debate performances to repair her image among voters. Clinton attempted to reduce offensiveness through differentiation, attempted to evade responsibility through defeasibility, and employed qualified mortification. Clinton's strategies were rated as inconsistent and their effectiveness is questionable.     

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.     

Older Women's Bodies and the Self: The Construction of Identity in Later Life*

Laura Hurd Clarke Cet article étudie les difficiles et souvent conflictuelles relations entre l'image de soi d'une femme âgée et son corps vieillissant. Se fondant sur les données d'entrevues semi‐structurées avec 22 femmes âgées de 61 à 92 ans, l'auteure examine l'influence de la perte de la perception de l'aspect esthétique et celle de la détérioration de la santé et des capacités fonctionnelles sur le sentiment d'identité d'une femme âgée. Elle commente aussi l'expérience du corps des femmes en tant qu'à la fois masque et prison du soi et dégage le défi de l'image réfléchie que se fait une femme de l'idée d'être jeune « de l'intérieur ». This paper explores the uneasy and often conflicted relationship between an older woman's sense of self and her aging body. Using data from semi‐structured interviews with 22 female participants aged 61 to 92 years, the paper examines the influence of the loss of perceived physical attractiveness and the deterioration of health and functional abilities on an older woman's sense of identity. The paper discusses the women's experience of the body as both mask and prison of the self and elucidates the challenge of the reflected image to a woman's sense of being youthful on the “inside.”     

Queer visual pleasures and the policing of male sexuality in responses to images of David Beckham

Since he stepped out in a sarong in 1998, David Beckham's sexuality and gendered image has been a popular topic of discussion in the media. He has also attracted academic attention for the expanded range of masculinities he seems to represent. Some academic studies of Beckham have employed ‘queer theory’ to analyse the destabilising of gender that his public presentations seem to embody but little attention has been paid to the specifically visual dynamics of images of Beckham. In this essay, I take Sam Taylor-Wood's David (2004) as a starting point to suggest the types of visual pleasure that images of Beckham might be seen to offer to both male and female audiences. For the remainder of the essay I focus on an Armani male underwear advertisement from the 2007–2008 campaign. Informed by discourse analysis and queer theory, I identify a set of ‘queer’ responses to the advertisement, suggesting they represent the ‘policing’ of male sexuality, which often accompanies potential signifiers of homoeroticism. I conclude by considering how and why Beckham has retained his status as a heteronormative masculine icon despite his continued appearance in homoerotic images.     

President Bush's image repair discourse on Hurricane Katrina

Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans and the surrounding area on August 29, 2005. This storm was devastating, causing death, injury, dislocation, and massive property damage. President Bush came under fire for the apparently slow and inept federal response. On September 15 President Bush gave a speech to repair his image. He employed three principal strategies: bolstering, defeasibility, and corrective action. An evaluation of how these strategies were used in his persuasive message judged his image repair effort to be largely ineffective. Bolstering did not counteract the slow response (e.g., Bush waited days to visit the area). Defeasibility is risky for a president to use because it explicitly portrays him as unable to solve the problem. Corrective action was too little (often proposals rather than direct action—and proposals with important unanswered questions) too late. Evidence of the public reaction is consistent with this unfavorable evaluation.     

To invest in the invisible: A case study of Manti Te’o's image repair strategies during the Katie Couric interview

The purpose of this study was to examine Manti Te’o's image repair strategies during an interview with Katie Couric. This interview followed reports that Te’o had been involved in an elaborate hoax featuring a fake girlfriend. The interview was a worthy avenue of investigation as it was Te’o's first opportunity to publicly defend himself on camera following a week of ridicule and speculation by media outlets and the public. A deductive thematic analysis was conducted on Te’o's responses utilizing Benoit's image repair typology and other recently identified image repair strategies as a guide. Results revealed that Te’o did not deviate from previously established strategies by employing defeasibility, victimization, good intentions, stonewalling, retrospective regret, bolstering, shifting blame, and simple denial. Collectively, the employment of these tactics illustrated a timid, naïve, and remorseful approach to image repair. While some of Te’o's choices were appropriate, the heavy use of stonewalling and victimization may have been ineffective in changing audience perception.     

Paternal Incarceration and the Housing Security of Urban Mothers

High rates of imprisonment among American fathers have motivated an ongoing examination of incarceration's role in family life. A growing literature suggests that incarceration creates material and socioemotional challenges not only for prisoners and former prisoners but also for their families and communities. The authors examined the relationship between fathers' incarceration and one such challenge: the housing insecurity of the mothers of their children. Using data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study (N = 4,125) and a series of longitudinal regression models, they found that mothers' housing security was compromised following their partners' incarceration, an association likely driven in part, but not entirely, by financial challenges following his time in prison or jail. Given the importance of stable housing for the continuity of adult employment, children's schooling, and other inputs to healthy child development, the findings suggest a grave threat to the well‐being of children with incarcerated fathers.