Answering this question involves the following steps:
1. Choose a recent case of Corporate crisis (e.g. Wolksvagen’s dieselgate, Uber’s sexual harassment scandal)
2. Look for response statements by the company on its website, social media and in news articles that report on the scandal
– Articles can be found through Google news or (better) through LexisNexis
3. Analyze and evaluate the statements using Benoit’s IRT (that are denial, evasion of responsibility, corporate image repair strategies) and the other sources.
– Discuss the linguistic aspects of the response, not just the content
4. Which crisis response strategy is best? Guidelines from theoretical literature or case studies, or compare strategies empirically through experimentation.
– Eg. informing and expressing concern for victims, excuses and justifications, compensation and mortification
