Komunikasi Krisis Eiger dan Tantangan Perbaikan Reputasi di Era Digital

Surat Keberatan yang dibuat oleh Eiger justru menjadi sebuah boomerang ketika surat tersebut diunggah oleh seorang Youtuber melalui akun Twitternya @duniadian hingga menjadi trending topic yang kemudian memicu reaksi doxing yang dilontarkan oleh warganet dan memunculkan sebuah krisis bagi Eiger yang merupakan sebuah produsen brand ternama yang sebelumnya mempunyai reputasi yang baik. Dengan menggunakan metode kualitatif deskriptif, penelitian ini mencoba untuk mengidentifikasi dan menjelaskan bagaimana Public Relations dari Eiger menangani krisis tersebut dengan menggunakan strategi tanggap krisis dalam konsep Situational Crisis Communication Theory dan mencoba mengembalikan reputasi baiknya dengan menggunakan konsep Image Repair Theory.

Image Repair in Crisis Communication

Image repair theory observes that threats to image (for individuals, groups, and organizations, such as companies or countries) are inevitable. Because reputation is important, criticisms usually provoke a response, defense, or image repair message(s). Each attack (each criticism) has two components, offensiveness and blame. Defenses can address either component (e.g., arguing that an act was offensive or rejecting blame for it). Five general strategies and 14 tactics exist for image repair. Perceptions are key in image repair: the audience’s perceived image of the target prompts criticism and attack; the audience’s perceptions of the message influence the effectiveness of a defense. Those who feel impelled to create image repair messages may face one or more audiences; the image concerns of various audiences may overlap or may be different. This means the defender must decide which audiences to address and develop image repair messages with this in mind. One must select one or more image repair strategies that the defender believes will be most effective with the target audience(s) and embed that strategy in one or more messages. Note that a defender should choose the most effective strategy or strategies; adding in more strategies does not necessary improve the defense. The defender must decide which medium or media should be used to get the message(s) to audience(s). Image repair theory was developed to help understand threats to reputation, face, or image. Such threats are commonplace in human interaction, including contexts such as interpersonal communication, public communication, and social media.

Sorry, not sorry

Right-wing populism emboldens its members to publicly challenge those they find threatening to white conservative frameworks, e.g. progressive female politicians of colour. I critically analyse how Republican Ted Yoho uses discursive agency to deliver infelicitous statements in response to the diatribe he directed at Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in July 2020. Guided by the principles of citationality (Derrida 1988), I utilise image repair theory (Benoit 1997) to reveal how Yoho minimises the alleged offences he committed by redirecting his rant at policy, not person. This allows Yoho to issue non-apologies and – in line with right-wing populism – villainize Ocasio-Cortez and elevate himself and his party. Both Democrats and Republicans deemed Yoho’s apology ‘appropriate’, resulting in unfavourable perlocutionary effects for female politicians of colour. The dismissal of Yoho’s offences highlights the normalisation of violent language directed at women of colour, revealing how white supremacy and toxic masculinity are normalised aspects of US media ecology.

Knowledge types and presuppositions

Public apologies are so prevalent in our social lives that they have become a subject of scholarly investigation all over the globe. The present study, which involves coding, frequency counting, and qualitative analysis, examines the strategic aspects of 16 public apologies issued to Filipino apologizees. The results of our analysis indicate that apologizers often choose varied knowledge types and draw upon presuppositions to strategically omit details that can negatively influence their credibility and the reception of their apology. More specifically, apologizers use the audience’s presuppositions to avoid presenting common knowledge of the offense that may incriminate them further; they also omit the mention of future action that may hold them more accountable for their transgressions. Our present analysis bolsters the view that although the sincerity of public apologies cannot be exactly measured, they are still performed as part of image repair and management of interpersonal relationships.

Indonesian Crisis Communication Response after Deliberate Forest Fires and Transboundary Haze

The issue of deliberate forest fires that set illegally in Indonesia by plantation companies in their slash and-burn forests to clear lands for lucrative palm oil plantations and its caused transboundary haze became a hot issue for discussion. These fires have a negative influence on Indonesia and its neighbourhood countries, especially on their financial and human resources such as environment, economy, properties, and people. Using the right strategies in responding to any crisis determines the success of its management and coping with that crisis with minimal losses. This study aimed to examine the communication crisis response by Indonesia to this crisis by using image repair theory. Also, this study examined how image repair strategies were used by Indonesia. This study analysed the content of news stories from the website of the New Straits Times newspaper. The time frame of this study was from 2015 to 2019. A total of 87 news stories have pertained to Indonesian response, and 37 stories included image repair strategies. Among the strategies of image repair theory, corrective action strategy was the most dominant with 70%, followed by 10.8% for each shift the blame and attack accuser. The least used strategies were mortification and simple denial with 5.4% and 2.7% respectively.

The Catholic Church abuse scandal in Ireland: two steps forward, one step back by Pope Francis?

PurposeIreland is viewed as the shining base for Catholicism. That image is shattered as survivors revealed the abuse in the Magdalene Laundries and Mother and Baby Homes, and sexual abuse by priests. This study aims to examine image repair efforts by the Pope during his August 2018 visit.Design/methodology/approachExamined against the Letter of His Holiness released days earlier, this study evaluates all the Pope's speeches during his visit to Ireland using the image repair theory (Benoit and Pang, 2008) as its theoretical lens.FindingsPope Francis used the evasion of responsibility strategy to address the Magdalene Laundries and Mother and Baby Homes scandal and denial, corrective action and mortification for sex abuse crisis.Research limitations/implicationsAddresses call by Ferguson et al. (2018) to examine the consistency and effectiveness of strategies.Practical implicationsBeyond rhetoric, stakeholders would be looking to organizational leaders to provide relief and concrete steps to recover from their pain.Originality/valueA leader's narratives represent the organization's narratives; thus, insights from this study can help leaders plan what they should say when conducting image repair. It is not just their own reputations that are on the line but, in this case, it is also the reputations of the people they represent

The British Labour Party and the antisemitism crisis: Jeremy Corbyn and image repair theory

This article utilises the work of William Benoit on image repair theory as a framework for examining the crisis communication of Jeremy Corbyn in relation to antisemitism within the Labour Party. By examining the self-defence rhetoric of Corbyn on the antisemitism allegations, the article identifies the following. Of the five strategies for crisis communication, Corbyn was overly reliant on denial, evading responsibility and reducing offensiveness; struggled to explain his attempts at corrective action; and reverted to accepting responsibility – that is, apologies – reluctantly and belatedly. Utilising existing perspectives on the most effective strategies for image repair – which emphasise the importance of effective corrective action and accepting responsibility at the expense of denial, evading responsibility and reducing effectiveness – the article argues that Corbyn undermined his own attempts at image repair in the crisis that defined his leadership.

Responding to Hurricanes Irma and Maria: An Exploration of Puerto Rico Tourism’s Image Repair Efforts

Tourists’ perceived image of a destination, including perceptions of safety and risk, play important roles in deciding whether or not to visit a destination. When crises strike a tourist destination, tourism organizations must work towards restoring their images to a favourable state. In the fall of 2017, hurricanes Irma and Maria swept through the Caribbean with devastating consequences. Puerto Rico, whose tourism industry plays a vital role in its economy, was particularly devastated by the hurricanes. In the wake of hurricanes Irma and Maria, Puerto Rico’s tourism sector was in a state of crisis whereby its economic health depended on tourism revenue. Since image plays a vital role in the health of Puerto Rico’s tourism industry, this Major Research Paper (MRP) seeks to analyze the use of image repair strategies employed by Puerto Rico’s official tourism organization, See Puerto Rico, across multiple online platforms and across varying stages of the hurricane crisis. Drawing from image repair theory (Benoit, 1997), texts and images found on See Puerto Rico’s website and Facebook page were analyzed by identifying the presence of denial, evading responsibility, reducing offensiveness, corrective action, and mortification strategies with the addition of informational and suffering strategies. Findings indicate that See Puerto Rico primarily employed bolstering, informational, corrective action, minimization, and suffering strategies throughout its website and Facebook page. Puerto Rico strived to restore its image by providing tourists select pieces of information regarding the status of Puerto Rico’s tourism industry and by showcasing the positive attributes of the islands. Part of See Puerto Rico’s image repair efforts involved ignoring the hurricanes and minimizing their seriousness and impacts to reassure tourists that they could still travel to Puerto Rico. The application of image repair theory in this study suggests that it can be used to help understand tourism organizations’ crisis responses to natural disaster.