In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, journalists have the challenging task of gathering and distributing accurate information. Journalists exist as a part of an ecology in which their work influences and is influenced by the environment that surrounds it. Using the framework of disaster communication ecology, this study explores the discursive construction of journalism during the COVID-19 crisis. To understand this process in the field of journalism, we unpacked discourses concerning the coronavirus pandemic collected from interviews with journalists during the pandemic and from the U.S. journalism trade press using the Discourses of Journalism Database. Through discourse analysis, we discovered that during COVID-19 journalists discursively placed themselves in a responsible but vulnerable position within the communication ecology—not solely as a result of the pandemic but also from environmental conditions that long preceded it. Journalists found their reporting difficult during the pandemic and sought to mitigate the forces challenging their work as they sought to reverse the flow of misinformation.

The COVID-19 Pandemic created a two-fold challenge for journalists: first, the task of gathering and distributing information vital to the responses of the public, and second, the challenge of mitigating the complexities of the journalism field. The purpose of this study is to connect the theoretical frameworks of metajournalistic discourse and field theory, using the touch point of journalistic practice. Prior research has postulated that metajournalistic discourse operates as a stabilizing force in the journalistic field. Using the timely test of the COVID-19 pandemic, this study seeks to explore the discursive construction of journalistic practice during a pandemic through the lens of both metajournalism and field through metadiscourse (n=141) gathered from the United States, United Kingdom, and Austria. This study will argue that metajournalistic discourse stabilizes the field by affirming the tools western journalists use in order to make sense of a crisis like COVID-19, and by providing a discursive avenue between the ideals of the journalistic field—in the journalistic doxa—and the habits of the field—as represented by journalistic habitus.

The ongoing Covid- 19 pandemic has globally affected aspects such as health, economy and welfare all around the world. The demand for effective communication is to a very high degree a priority from the leading actors in society, such as the media, government and authorities, in order to respond to the spread of infection. The purpose of this bachelor’s essay is therefore, to study how countries like Sweden and Denmark communicate the crisis of Covid- 19, based on Arjen Boins theoretical framework of meaning-making. The frame functions consist of the following: explaining what happened, offering guidance, instilling hope, showing empathy and state responsibility. Meaning making is an important function in crisis communication to reduce political and public uncertainty through crisis communication by the political leaders in crisis management. The political leaders seeks to convince the general public by formulating a convincing message.  The design of this essay is comparative, where the methods consist of a qualitative approach through the use of text analysis. Prime ministers and state epidemiologists will be analyzed on the basis of their participation in press releases. The time period was selected between march-may 2020. The reason for the selected time period is based on the first wave of the virus.  The conclusion of this essay was that there were many similarities and differences in the countries application of meaning making. The noticeable similarities was that both countries have similar characteristics in their communication by helping the nations make sense of the crisis situation. Both countries provide the nation with guidelines which includes, social distancing, good hand hygiene and participation restrictions. However, it differs in how they communicate it. Sweden communicates the providing of guidelines through the assessment of the public health authority, which relies on the responsibility of the individual. Denmark, on the other hand, communicates the guidelines by the Prime Minister deciding on mandatory restrictions, through a total shutdown on society. Furthermore, communication differs on state responsibility, where Sweden used a different strategy which was intended to slow down the spread of infection by not shutting down society. Denmark communicated state responsibility by saying that strict measures are necessary in such types of situations, which allowed for the restriction of civil liberties and rights. The use of empathy and instilling hope were less salient, but both countries did use the strategy by informing that they will beat the spread of the virus together.

In this case study, I focus on Berlin’s BVG (public transport provider), who overcame asevere online firestorm in reaction to their marketing campaign centered around the slogan “Weil wir dich lieben “ (because we love you) in January 2015. Through a content analysis of the BVG’s Twitter feed in January 2015 (during the firestorm) and January 2016 (after the firestorm), I aim to determine how crisis communication strategies were employed by the BVG and what role humor played in their communication on Twitter. My approach to this topic is very much rooted in a rhetorical/ text-based theory of both crisis communication and humor, focusing exclusively on tweets authored by the BVG and analyzing each tweet’s content regardless of its context.My results indicate that humor is employed in the majority of the BVG’s tweets both duringthe crisis and after, a practice that may have helped reduce the perceived severity of the initial cause for the online firestorm. The use of humor in direct response to the crisis is more cautious than after the crisis, showing that despite its newfound jovial image, the BVG in no way underestimated the severity of the crisis situation. Furthermore, the BVG’s Twitter communication is shown to be highly interactive and conducted in a conversational tone. This indicates that the BVG uses their Twitter account to engage with their customers in a friendly and open conversation, building stronger relationships and ultimately creating a network of support, which can be useful both for marketing purposes and as a deterrent for future communication crises.This study can be seen as a small addition to crisis communication and humor research as well as research into online marketing. For future research the framework and methodology may need to be expanded to more widely assess how humor could be employed to overcome negativity online and especially face organizational crises such as online firestorms.

This thesis aims to examine the media company Nent Group's crisis commication and identify which crisis communication strategies have been used in order to repair the organization's damaged image, and to analyze whether the strategies have changed over time. The thesis's purpose will be achieved by answering the three following research questions: What crisis communication strategies can be distinguished in Nent Group's crisis communication? How has Nent Group's crisis communication changed since the start of the crisis in the spring of 2021? What reponsibility does Nent Group have for the crisis that has occurred? The theoretical framework of the dissertation consists of two theories of crisis communication, Situational Crisis Communication Theory by Timothy L. Coombs and Image Repait Theory by William L. Benoit. The theories form a base for further analysis of Nent Group's crisis communication, where thematic textanalysis is applied to code and thematize various documents containing crisis communication by Nent Group. The documents consist of pressreleases, statements in the media, inerviews, and comments from Nent Group on the social media-platform Instagram.  The results of the study show that Nent Groupäs most used crisis communication strategy is "to correct action", which means that the organization takes various measures to deal with the crisis at hand. The results also show that the crisis communication has changed during the crisis, in the beginning it is mainly the strategy "to correct action" together with "avoidance of responsibility" where other actors' responsibility for the crisis is pointed out by Nent Group. Towards the end of the crisis, strategies are used to remind stakeholders of Paradise Hotel's popular program cincept. Finally, the results show that Nent Group can be ascribed a moderate crisis responsinility because they did not cause the crisis.

The purpose of this thesis is to study crisis communication through the organization The Ellen Show and with the crisis they underwent used as a case study. Communication is studied through the company that distributes the program, the producers and the host. To carry out the study, three different questions are used. These questions revolve around response strategies, legitimacy and rhetorical means used by the actors. The main theory used in the study is image repair theory by William Benoit. To support and deepen our analysis based on image repair theory, the concepts of legitimacy by Max Weber as well as rhetorical means were applied. The method used in this study is a qualitative research method and to analyze the collected material a directed content analysis was applied. The material was collected digitally and consists of statements taken from digital magazines. In addition, two videos were collected. The result showed that each actor tries to protect legitimacy in different ways, mainly by focusing on DeGenere´s legitimacy and by proxy also the organization´s. The actors also use different response strategies which varied between the actros. Over-represented in the rhetorical means were the use of different dramatic, emotional and moral-based arguments when trying to influence recipients. The study can be seen as helpful for both organizations that are going through a crisis and those that for preventive purposes plan to acquire knowledge about the subject.

The Covid-19 pandemic contributed to a digital shift where remote work became the new normal in many organizations. This led to more responsibility being put on employees and thereby an increase in self-leadership. Due to the remote work and the communication becoming digital, virtual leadership became highly current as well. The purpose of the paper was therefore twofold. Firstly, we aimed to investigate in what ways leaders could create conditions for self-leadership among their employees. And secondly, we aimed to try to gain a better understanding of how leaders managed the complex crisis situation that the Covid-19 pandemic constituted by integrating motivation and clear communication in their virtual leadership. This was done by trying to answer the following research questions from a leader perspective: (1) In what ways has self-leadership changed due to the pandemic? (2) In what ways can leaders exhort their employees to be more self leading? (3) In what ways are motivation and communication related to self-leadership and virtual leadership (digital leadership)? This was done by conducting eighteen interviews with different leaders within the organization Alleima. Moreover, our findings suggest that relationships are the most important factor for self-leadership and virtual leadership to be effective, especially during a crisis situation. Further, both motivation and communication are of importance for the effectiveness of self-leadership and virtual leadership as well since both self-leadership and virtual leadership is dependent on employee motivation and a clear communication within the team and organization.

Problemformulering och syfte: Det övergripande syftet är att undersöka en organisations kriskommunikation på sociala medier i samband med en pågående kris. Studien syftar även till att undersöka allmänhetens attityd till organisationen under krisen. Ämnet är relevant ur ett forskningsperspektiv eftersom att organisationer är vana att använda sig av traditionell kriskommunikation men i dagens samhälle krävs det mer än så. Sociala medier har förändrat dagens samhälle på många plan, däribland hur en organisation bör använda sig av kriskommunikation samt hur en organisation väljer att ta sig an allmänhetens åsikter. Metod och material: För att uppnå studiens syfte har två frågeställningar formulerats och besvarats på genom två kvalitativa metoder. En kvalitativ textanalys utifrån djurparkens sociala medier och en kvalitativ intervjustudie i form av fokusgrupper. Huvudresultat: Resultatet i denna studie visar utifrån det teoretiska ramverket att Furuvikskris kommunikation på sociala medier gällande schimpansincidenten är bristfällig och att den inte håller måttet i förhållande till de strategier som kriskommunikationen föreslår vid hanteringen av en kris. Allmänhetens attityd mot det som har hänt är skeptisk men resultatet visar på att det inte är Furuviks kriskommunikation som ligger till grund för detta, utan hur organisationen har hanterat händelsen i stort. Studiens teoretiska ramverk påvisar att det är allmänheten som bestämmer hur mycket ansvar som läggs på Furuvik angående händelsen, och utifrån detta tyder resultatet på att Furuviks kriskommunikation har varit tillräcklig i förhållande till allmänhetens krav på organisationen.

This study aimed to highlight the practice of rhetoric and semiotics used in crisis communication during the Russian-Ukrainian war. On the 24th of February 2022, Russia began its invasion of Ukraine which resulted in the Ukrainian president, Zelensky, giving numerous speeches. In light of Zelensky's background as an actor, several discussions arose concerning his execution of delivery. The analyzed material in this study consisted of three speeches that Zelensky performed regarding the Russian-Ukrainian war, and these were collected from Youtube where the speeches were uploaded. The aim of this study was to investigate how Zelensky utilized rhetorical and semiotic tools in his communication. The investigation was carried out by qualitative content analysis, rhetorical analysis, and semiotic analysis, and the study was based on the theories of semiotics, rhetoric, and crisis communication. These literary tools and vocal speeches helped to answer the research question.The research showed that Zelensky was skilled in delivering his speeches in many ways. From a semiotic perspective, important elements, such as his looks and dress wear, as well as objects shown in the background, were analyzed during his speeches. This resulted in advantages such as a strengthened message and worldwide acceptance. Zelensky used influential rhetoric and distinct crisis communication to establish arguments and messages that awakened emotions in the audience to promote action.

In organized sports, Buffers play a bigger role within crisis communications than other industries. These buffers can relieve or intensify a crisis depending on the welfare of the organization's reputation. This paper looks at Manchester United's recent crisis regarding their player Mason Greenwood to identify usage of buffers in their crisis communication. With the help of Coombs, Koerber & Zabaras definitions of buffers paired with Sellnows proposal of dominant narratives the paper's theoretical framework was established. The organization's statements regarding the crisis, as well as their Twitter and Facebook pages were processed with the help of narrative analysis. Through the processing of the material implicit usage of buffers was identified both in their statements and social media. This paper will explore the implicit nature of buffer usage which hopefully will lead to a greater understanding of the topic for academics and organizations.