Within two months of its emergence, the BP Gulf Oil spill had become the worst environmental disaster in United States history. However, for those studying public relations the oil spill brought more than ecological disaster, by providing a case study of crisis communication. Although there were a number of crisis responses from BP throughout the course of the oil spill, the primary crisis response crafted by BP was an image restoration campaign which premiered in early June 2010. This campaign, though it exhibits qualities of a standard crisis response, was wildly unpopular with the United States Government and citizenry. This rhetorical analysis attempts to uncover the reasons behind the campaign's failure through an application of the genre model of criticism. By defining the crisis communication genre and applying it to the artifact, the current study uncovers the reasons behind the failure of the campaign. Through this discussion, this analysis identifies that BP did not address all necessary exigencies, nor did it consider the influence a rhetor can have on a message. An explanation for the failure of BP' s campaign provided a plethora of implications to the fields of public . relations and rhetorical criticism, while beginning a discussion to help define the crisis communication genre.

The purpose of this chapter is to acquaint the reader with the general scope and trend of Maxwell Anderson's work in order to give a more complete conspectus for the discussion of his plays. By so doing a foundation will be laid for a more intelligible discussion of the specific aspects of the seven plays concerned in the thesis proper, the title of which is, "An Essay on Character Portrayal, Style, and Technique of' Writing in Maxwell Anderson's Biographical Plays in Verse."

It has been the purpose of this study to make a comparative analysis of the most significant characters in two selections of dramatic literature: Gordon Bottomley’s King Lear’s Wife and William Shakespeare’s King Lear. The significant characters are Goneril and Regan, the “evil influence” in both plays; the two Lears, the “neutral influence” in both plays; and Hygd and Cordelia in King Lear’s Wife and King Lear, respectively. Hygd and Cordelia are the “honorable influence” in the stories. It has been the further purpose of this thesis to delete from both plays all subplots which do not directly pertain to the Lear story and to include both plays in this volume for the use of presentation before an audience. The edited version of both plays uses Bottomley’s King Lear’s Wife as a prologue to Shakespeare’s King Lear. It is hoped that the total effect will give a new significance to the motives of Lear’s daughters and to the character of King Lear Goneril and Regan are given justification, through Bottomley’s play, for their evil actions in Shakespeare’s play.

The explosion of the Deepwater Horizon oil platform on April 20, 2010 resulted in the second largest oil spill in history. In this study, the distribution and chemical composition of hydrocarbons within a 45 km radius of the blowout was investigated. A complete set of hydrocarbon data were acquired from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and from BP, including data from 16 research missions collected over eight weeks. The distribution of hydrocarbons was found to be more dispersed over a wider area in subsurface waters than previously predicted or reported. Several hydrocarbon plumes were identified including a near-surface plume (0.5 to 50 m), two small mid-depth plume (240 to 290 m and 850 to 880 m), and a large deepwater plume approximately 1,050 to 1,300 m below surface. Water soluble compounds were preferentially extracted from the rising oil in deepwater, and were found at potentially toxic levels both in and outside of areas previously reported to contain the majority of hydrocarbons. Data collected from different research missions were measured for a wide variety of chemical compounds, but not every sample was analyzed for the same chemical compounds. To overcome the challenge of variability in sample data, a non-parametric method of evaluating the percentage of detectable results, was used for all data analysis in addition to evaluation of total sample concentrations. The two analysis techniques yielded similar results. This approach may be useful in other studies in which samples are measured for varying number of compounds and have varying detection limits. The distribution and toxicity of hydrocarbons in sediments between August and October, 2010 was also investigated and was found to be fairly localized.