Crisis Communication

Corporate Apologia

Corporate apologia adapted the idea of apologia from rhetorical theory for application in crises. Apologia is self-defense and the rhetorical genre examines how individuals would defend their character when that character was under attack. Corporate apologia extended self-defense to organizations in crisis. Corporate apologia occurs when some negative event happens and the organization is held responsible for that event. The negative event threatens the character of the organization (its reputation) and the organization must respond to the situation. Corporate apologia examines the case to determine how the organization responded and provides a qualitative assessment of the effectiveness of the crisis response. Corporate apologia uses the four response strategies from apologia: denial (people claim they are not involved in any wrongdoing), bolstering (the audience is reminded of the good things the people had done), differentiation (remove the action from its negative context), and transcendence (place the action in a new, broader context that is more favorable). Three additional strategies based on the concept of dissociation (dividing a concept into two parts) were later added. The dissociation strategies are opinion/knowledge (once people examine the facts they realize the organization is not responsible for the crisis), individual/group (just a few people inside the organization are responsible for the crisis), and act/essence (the crisis is an isolated event that does not accurately represent the organization). Dissociation benefits an organization by redefining the crisis situation so that the organization is viewed as less responsible for the crisis.

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