The intent of this thesis is to better comprehend the strategies used in crisis denial videos from the perspective of kategoria. Benoit and Dorries taxonomy of kategoria was applied to crisis denial claims using the Sandy Hook elementary school shooting as a case study. The claims of prominent truther and YouTuber, Alex Jones, were coded and analyzed based on this taxonomy. The categories of the taxonomy include: accused committed the act before, accused planned the act, accused knew likely consequences of the act, accused benefitted from the act, and other. Two coders trained in identifying these criteria coded three transcribed YouTube videos focused on Sandy Hook with a combined total of over 1.5 million views. Accused planned the act and accused committed the act before were the most used taxonomy, with a 4 to 1 and 2 to 1 margin respectively, showing a consistent preference on how Jones likes to construct his claims. These tactics put the victims of Sandy Hook in an uncomfortable position because they are forced to deny the denial, a process that quickly becomes cyclical. The responses either transcend to an issue of free speech versus defamation or attack the accuser through litigation and public organizations dropping him. Claims that the accused has done it before denies closure to multiple crises while claims that it was planned seem endless and also contribute to denying closure. This denial puts victims in a chronic stage where they are forced to constantly and endlessly re-evaluate the crisis without resolution, disrupting current stage theory in crisis recovery. Truthers have changed how we define hoax. Previously, a hoax was the crisis, but now claims are made post-crisis depicting the crisis as hoax. Further research should focus on the formulation of a response to crisis denial that can break the cyclical pattern.

In history of organizational management have crisis been an issue that has been trying to be solved for so long. A crisis can have so many faces, which makes it so hard to recognize. Crisis management is something that all deal with at some point. Which makes this area so interesting, because there is always room for improvement. That’s why the purpose of this thesis is to get more understanding on how crises can be described and what type of response they use in terms of the description. The thesis is a qualitative case study that will analyze several crises from the recent events of Kommunal.The results show huge variety of different crises Kommunal face but that they are mostly preventable and self-made. Making excuses and justify what actually happened are the most common responses for that. The results also show that Kommunal intend to choose many different ways to respond when a crisis has emerged instead of having one single strategy. / I historien av organisationsutveckling har kris varit en fråga som man har försökt att lösa allt för länge. En kris kan ha så många ansikten, vilket gör det så svårt att känna igen. Krishantering är något som alla behandlar någon gång. Vilket gör detta område så intressant, eftersom det alltid finns utrymme för förbättringar. Det är därför syftet med denna uppsats är att få mer kunskap om hur kriser kan beskrivas och vilken typ av åtgärd som de använder. Avhandlingen är en kvalitativ fallstudie som kommer att analysera flera olika kriser hos Kommunal.Resultaten visar stort utbud av olika kriser Kommunal möter men att de är oftast är möjliga att undvika på grund av att dem är skapade från egna misstag. Ursäkter och olika typer av förklaringar av vad som faktiskt hände är de vanligaste åtgärderna Kommunal använder. Resultaten visar också att Kommunal har för avsikt att välja många andra olika sätt att reagera och agera när en kris har uppstått i stället för att ha en enda strategi.

Crises lurk around our daily life. Disasters happen any time and they always make a huge impact on the life, property or people¡¦s confidence whether the crises are natural or man-made. However, both government and enterprise can not get rid of the challenge of the crisis. As far as the government organization is concerned, each of the disasters challenges the ability of facing crisis towards the authority concerns such as the 921 earthquake, the Bajhang River event, the debris flow disaster and the Typhoon Nari. This research wants to examine the current circumstance of the crisis management in the central public sector by using a large amount of the questionnaires which target the people who are in charge of the public relationship service. This research also wants to discuss the relationship between the organization characteristics of the central public sector and the strategies of the communication management in the crisis response stage. Hence, this research probes into these topics by the following items: 1. To realize the circumstance of the prevention before the crisis and the preparation stage of the crisis communication management in the central public sector. 2. To realize the circumstance of the crisis response from the crisis communication management in the central public sector. 3. To research the relationship of the organization characteristics and the crisis communication management method that differentiates from the different central public sector. This research proceeds with the methodology of social survey and have the investigation towards the different persons in charge of the public relationship service in the varied central public sectors. Some conclusions are conducted such as below: 1. In the prevention stage of the crisis communication, the circumstance of the issue management is that most of the public relationship service departments of the central public sector are capable of issue monitoring. 2. In the prevention stage of the crisis communication, the circumstance of the relation management can be concluded as: most of the people who are in charge of public relationship in the central public sector can be self affirmative and make a decent relationship with stakeholders. 3. The circumstance of the communication mechanism in the crisis response stage in the government departments: a. Within the past ten years, the central public sector has been aware of the importance of the crisis management policy by degree and it makes the percentage of setting crisis management police raised up to 60 %. b. It is more popular to build up the crisis management team than setting the article of the crisis management policy. Moreover, most of them agree to prevent or to be against the crisis event by using a team and emphasize on the participation of the public relationship service in charge. c. The government office, e.g. crisis management center, that sets up the mechanism of the crisis management team and emphasizes on the operation of the crisis communication management would have the latest media list in hand and set up a spokesperson in general. 4. The image restoration strategies in the crisis response stage The circumstance of the message delivering form: the image restoration strategies reach a considerably plane from the aspect of the availability, the quickness and the consistency for the government office. Furthermore, the quickness is the most distinguished one. 5. The communication autonomy of the people who are in charge of the government public relationship in the crisis response stage: In general, the communication autonomy for the people who are in charge of the government public relationship needs to be improved. But, there are no communication conflicts with the law staff during the crisis event. On the contrary, they become a team to work together. 6. The relationship between the characteristics of the organization and crisis communication management. a. The relationship between the characteristics of the organization and issue management: this research shows result that the characteristics of the organization may have some influences to the issue management. b. The relationship between the characteristics of the organization and the relations management: the government office that has an independent public relationship service performs the better results than the office that does not have the independent pubic relationship service towards the most respected people. c. The relationship between the characteristics of the organization and the crisis communication management: the central public sector that has more budget approved, more employees and also set up an independent public relationship department may have high percentage to set up crisis management policy; The central public sector that has more budget approved may have high percentage to have the mechanism of building up the crisis management team; The government department that sets schedule to perform public relationship and it is also a government staff unit may have high percentage to have the latest media list in hand; It obviously has the high percentage to set up crisis management communication center in the government staff unit than the national corporations; The government department that has long history may have high percentage to hold a spokesman; A government department has independent public relationship office may have high percentage to have disciplined spokesman to communicate with mass media. d. The relationship between the characteristics of the organization and the message delivering form: the scale of the organization and the public relationship discipline improve the image restoration strategies in the message delivering form.

Submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the Master in Technology: Public Relations Management, Durban University of Technology, 2010. / The National Plan for Higher Education (2001) provides a framework for achieving the vision of a single co-ordinated higher education system. In order to meet the goals of this plan, various technikons and universities had to merge. Pityana (2004: 4-5) points out that, in addition to opportunities, various challenges have also emerged from these mergers. One such challenge is that higher education institutions may find themselves in tensions with their partners which may result in disagreements that could lead to crisis situations. Marconi (2005: 262) argues that, in crisis situations, the pace of the conflict accelerates dramatically. This means that the affected parties have to react very quickly or risk having their ability to protect their interests substantially reduced, hence the need for a crisis communication plan. Implicit in this plan is the importance of communication. McCusker (2006: 108) maintains that, often in crisis a situation, communication gets distorted. As a result, rumours often supplant real facts. Thus, clear communication needs to be pre-planned and increased during a crisis. This dissertation, therefore, sets out to investigate the role of communication during the planning and management of crises at higher education institutions in KwaZulu-Natal. It reports on preliminary results of in-depth interviews conducted at higher education institutions in KwaZulu- Natal and offers recommendations so that crises planning and management may be improved upon.

Micro blogging sites such as Twitter have fundamentally changed the way that individuals communicate and spread information, with greater speed and greater representation of how affected individuals feel about given situations. By seeking information that is available on Twitter, individuals are constructing their opinions based on a large source of data from their peers. Laypeople are now influential amplification agents during unfolding crises. Factors that amplify or attenuate perceptions of risk may have far-reaching implications for risk communication research within emerging new social media contexts. In order to explore these factors, we experimentally manipulated content about risk information, specific emotion, and emotional imagery via hypothetical Twitter community event pages and measured risk perceptions, behavioral intentions, and subjective emotions that may accompany the amplification or attenuation of risk through social media. Across three experimental studies, emotion increased the seeking and sharing of information and behavior associated with risk prevention and regulation during crisis communication via experimental Twitter feeds. Gender was a substantial factor that impacted subjective emotion, risk, and behavior. Females demonstrated higher scores than males on the majority of these dependent measures when anger and sadness were induced (Studies 1 and 2) and when only anger was manipulated (Study 3). This attests to the significant impact that gender has for processing emotion in crisis communication. Emotion and risk influenced each other recursively for information seeking and sharing behavior, and emotion content increased subjective emotion compared to information content. Spokesperson strategies effectively reduced negative emotion, information seeking and sharing, information generation, and regulatory action related to the risk event. The present research suggests that evidence-based strategies may be applicable in the domain of social media crisis management. It is imperative that we further investigate the interplay of emotion and information as underlying mechanisms in relation to how information diffusion operates in new social media, as we do not know how perceptions of risk may be generated or altered in this relatively unexplored domain. / 10000-01-01

The 2010 explosion of BP’s Deepwater Horizon oil rig was an environmental disaster unparalleled in United States history. Because of this, there has been a great deal of research studies regarding the matter. The purpose of this study was to determine what inshore fishing guides in the Tampa Bay Area feel should be a response to future oil spills using Image Repair Theory, as well as how this important group of stakeholders felt about the image repair responses employed by BP in the wake of the spill. In depth interviews were used to gather data and answer the pertinent research questions, which also generated follow up questions. The findings showed Tampa Bay Area captains feel that BP’s responses in the wake of the spill were inadequate in alleviating the situation. The captains felt that better planning on the part of oil companies is needed and also that oil companies should be mortified and have clear and decisive plans for correcting the situation as well as alleviating the effects of said spill on the pertinent publics.

Toyota faced a massive international recall crisis in 2009 that threatened to destroy its image in relation to the quality and safety of its vehicles. The majority of Toyota’s recalls were issued in the United States, where Toyota was heavily scrutinized in media coverage. This exploratory study examines media and public relations content to examine how the media framed the crisis, and how Toyota framed image repair efforts during the crisis. It explores the foundations of image and communication, drawing upon William James and Jürgen Habermas, in addition to the theoretical underpinnings of impression management and framing analysis (e.g., Goffman, 1959; 1974), source selection (e.g. Hall et al., 1978), and image repair and crisis communication (e.g., Benoit, 1997; Coombs, 2007). Qualitative framing analysis is employed to code and analyze data sourced from three American newspapers, as well as Toyota U.S.A.’s press releases during the crisis period. The framing analysis revealed the fundamental role of customers and industry experts in defining a crisis when an organization’s credibility is diminished in the media, as well as the strong presence of culturally embedded themes in media framing. Toyota’s recovery was strongly linked to its actions to communicate transparently, remedy the situation, and demonstrate cultural sensitivity to its American customers. Drawing upon the findings, this study provides general recommendations for corporate crisis communication at the various stages of issue management, the crisis, and post-crisis.

Crisis situations have the power to restructure knowledge, norms, rules and discourse. The status quo can be changed, transformed, and revolutionized through shocks to a system. These events often lead to chaos and reordering. Deflecting blame, assigning praise and guilt, transcending the situation, and corrective actions are secondary concerns when an organization is trying to change its core identity and epistemic reality. These shocks to the system provide a momentary break in time in which new discursive spaces open and become available. In particular, crisis situations that become marked by high probability/high consequence events enable organizations to establish new meaning. In these moments, a Foucauldian framework that focuses on power as production is able to illuminate certain aspects about crisis situations and crisis response. This thesis delves into the process of how external shocks created opportunities for an organization like the Secret Service to mold a crisis moment through the production of knowledge and meaning. To examine how the Secret Service responded to these shocks, this thesis examines a series of case studies ranging from the attempted assassination of Roland Reagan to the Oklahoma City bombing. In these moments, the Secret Service relied on its ability to create authoritative meaning, discipline the president, and make declarative statements about potential threats and safety precautions. In its ability to formulate these concepts, the president becomes tied to the Secret Service's apparatus of truth production. This allows the Secret Service to produce new meaning that disciplines presidential movement and action. Due to these conditions, the Service pivots on an unstable foundation, which allows it to reformulate and create new protective measures to protect the president in an ever changing environment. / Master of Arts

The purpose of this study was to contribute to current theory-driven research in crisis communication by examining the perceptions of multiple stakeholder groups to a university crisis response strategy. Two main questions were examined in this dissertation. The first question attempted to determine if a significant difference existed between stakeholder groups and their perception of university reputation, responsibility for the crisis, and potential supportive behaviors toward the university following the university’s response to a crisis. The second asked if Coombs’s Situational Crisis Communication Theory is a practical application for universities. The participants were from 4 stakeholder groups associated with a regional public university: students, faculty, staff, and alumni. An online survey was sent to participants via email. The data analysis revealed significant differences in the perceptions of reputation and in the potential supportive behaviors between staff and faculty and between staff and students. Staff perceived the reputation more favorably and had more favorable potential supportive behaviors than both the faculty and the student stakeholder groups. The results of this research provided empirical evidence that distinct stakeholder groups do perceive crisis response strategies differently. It also supported the application of Situational Crisis Communication Theory in a university setting.

Situational crisis communication theory (SCCT), experimentally created by W. Timothy Coombs in 2007, is designed to help crisis managers evaluate a crisis situation and craft an effective response strategy based on the organization's crisis history, the crisis type, and prior reputation with stakeholders.This thesis examined the November 2015 controversial handbook policy update from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which ruled same-sex marriage as grounds for excommunication. Exploring the policy change as a crisis in the context of SCCT and comparing the Church's crisis response strategies with the recommended strategies of SCCT exposes a gap in current SCCT literature—the theory does not lend itself well to crises where an organization's values or guiding morals are under attack. In these scenarios, the organization is unlikely to apologize for or acknowledge the crisis. The study results demonstrate substantial shifts in stakeholder attitudes following certain strategic statements from the Church even though the Church did not strictly adhere to SCCT's guidelines. According to SCCT's guidelines, because the stakeholder groups framed the handbook change as a crisis of organizational misdeed with injuries the majority of the time, the Church should have responded with third-tier strategies that bolstered its reputation and apologized or compensated those harmed by the policy. Instead, the Church has never apologized for the policy change and specifically reminded stakeholders of its past policies regarding same-sex marriage. Although the Church used the same strategies throughout the entire crisis, the Church's relatively larger use of crisis basics, justification, and protection in its second wave of statements on November 13, 2015 shifted the crisis framing and sentiment of bloggers and John Dehlin from negative sentiment with frames of high-level crisis responsibility to neutral and positive sentiment with a majority of blogs and social media posts not framing the policy change as a crisis.