Syftet med uppsatsen är att undersöka hur två reseföretag i förtroendekris bemöter kritik via Twitter samt vilka strategier inom den image reparerande diskursen de använder sig av. Studien ämnar även ta fasta på om det finns ett mönster bakom bemötandet. För att uppfylla uppsatsens syfte har två frågeställningar formulerats: · Hur bemöter SJ och SAS kritik på Twitter? · Verkar företagen vara medvetna om valda strategiers möjliga effekter? För att genomföra denna undersökning utfördes först en förundersökning där antalet dialoger mellan företagen och dess kunder sammanställdes samt dialogernas längd och antalet aktörer räknades. Till huvudundersökningen studeras 20 dialoger innehållande kritik som låg närmast i tiden. För att studera dessa använde vi oss av en kvalitativ textanalys. De viktigaste resultaten visar att båda reseföretagen tillämpar liknande strategier i situationer där de kritiseras för händelser av liknande karaktär. De mest använda strategierna var för både SJ en SAS av ignorerande eller förnekande karaktär, två strategier som i denna studie har kategoriserats som avståndstagande strategier. Den huvudsakliga slutsatsen i uppsatsen är att den valda strategin inte påverkar ett företags rykte så mycket som sättet själva strategin tillämpas på. / Aim: The purpose of this paper is to examine how two travel companies in different kinds of crises respond to criticism through social media, more specifically on Twitter. The paper also aims to identify whether crises of various kinds in the travel industry are met by specific image repair strategies. If possible one aim is also to take note if there is a certain relationship between chosen strategy and the impact on the examined companies reputation. Material and Method: The first part of the research consists of a preliminary investigations where the two companies tweets is counted and measured in order to get an overall picture of their activity on Twitter. This part of the research was based on one week ́s activity per company and the tweets were recalculated to get average numbers. The qualitative part represents the key study of this research and the material consisted of the 20 latest dialogues where customers expressed criticism and complaints directed to the companies SJ and SAS. Main Results: The main results of this research found that the two companies applied similar strategies in situations when accused for incidents of resembling nature. The most used strategies was for both SJ an SAS of ignoring or denial character, two strategies that in this research was categorized as renunciative strategies. The main conclusion this essay found is that the chosen strategy does not impact a company’s reputation as much as the application of the strategy.

Thesis (M.A.)--Indiana University, 2010. / Title from screen (viewed on July 18, 2010). Department of Communication Studies, Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI). Advisor(s): John Parrish-Sprowl, Kristina Horn Sheeler, Ronald Sandwina. Includes vitae. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 133-138).

Baseball's Steroid Era put many different high-profile athletes under pressure to explain steroid allegations that were made against them. This thesis used textual analysis of news reports and media portrayals of the athletes, along with analysis of their image repair strategies to combat those allegations, to determine how successful the athletes were in changing public opinion as evidenced through the media. The contexts, media reports, and strategies of Jason Giambi, Mark McGwire, Andy Pettitte, and Roger Clemens were analyzed and revealed important implications involving effective use of image repair strategies. They provided a deeper framework for the success of mortification strategies. An authentic, sincere mortification strategy has more power to change the media's reporting and portrayal of the athlete, while stunted or incentivized mortification strategies provide diminishing results. The four different situations of the players and the different combinations of strategies used provide insight into how much a public persona matters in confronting allegations. They show how ineffective the strategy of minimization is against allegations that involve on-field performance. The situations reveal how the promise of future on-field actions, along with actual on-field success can help repair an athlete's image without a solid rhetorical strategy. They show the amount of information offered, along with the strategies used, influences the amount of persuasion that occurs. The different situations also showed how a complete image repair strategy is successful in ending news coverage of the allegations and not just changing the media portrayal.

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / The importance of image management has created the need to for organizations to continually work in order to improve their image or defend it against perceived threats. Since organizations engage in a constant struggle to preserve their reputation, it is important to understand the persuasive discourse associated with image repair strategies. In addition, a successful rhetor must also acknowledge the importance of perception of the appropriateness and effectiveness of the apologetic discourse from the perspective of an audience. Focus groups were conducted and analyzed in order to better understand the perceived appropriateness and effectiveness of the image repair strategies employed by the Big Three Automakers as perceived by the audience. The findings of this study complement the original findings of Benoit and Drew’s quantitative study assessing the appropriateness and effectiveness of image repair strategies in an interpersonal setting. However, there were observable differences between the studies in terms of the perception of both the appropriateness and effectiveness of bolstering and the effectiveness of differentiation. The implications of these differences can be important in developing a better understanding of the utilization of image repair strategies in the apologetic discourse of organizations. Specifically, the results demonstrate how the audience determines the appropriateness and effectiveness of the strategies and how rhetors are able to successfully use different strategies based in context.