Module: Business Discourse and Communication
The material for your analysis may include extracts from the company’s website, press releases, annual report, social media pages as well as print and/or online news articles reporting on the crisis. Describe the strategies used by the company to try to protect its reputation, paying special attention to the linguistic aspects of the message(s). Evaluate and discuss the effectiveness of the strategies in light of recommendations from crisis communication scholars and previous experimental studies.
Answering this question involves the following steps:
1. Choose a recent case of Corporate crisis (e.g. Wolksvagen’s dieselgate, Uber’s sexual harassment scandal)
2. Look for response statements by the company on its website, social media and in news articles that report on the scandal
– Articles can be found through Google news or (better) through LexisNexis
3. Analyze and evaluate the statements using Benoit’s IRT (that are denial, evasion of responsibility, corporate image repair strategies) and the other sources
– Discuss the linguistic aspects of the response, not just the content
4. Which crisis response strategy is best? Guidelines from theoretical literature or case studies, or compare strategies empirically through experimentation.
– Eg. informing and expressing concern for victims, excuses and justifications, compensation and mortification
