In Search of a Scapegoat: The Global Corporate Blame Game

İnci Çinarli 1 *
More Detail
1 Galatasaray University, Turkey
* Corresponding Author
Online Journal of Communication and Media Technologies, Volume 6, Issue December 2016 - Special Issue, pp. 69-85. https://doi.org/10.30935/ojcmt/5642
OPEN ACCESS   1853 Views   1568 Downloads   Published online: 01 Dec 2016
Download Full Text (PDF)

ABSTRACT

Humanity has a long tradition of searching for means to cope with crisis situations and to manage the order of society. In our contemporary world, corporations with their complex global networking often face crises and need to minimise damage. This paper aims to identify why and how scapegoating is used as a strategy in crisis communication by global business. To this end, Situational Crisis Communication Theory has been used to analyse some recent corporate crises (e.g. Volkswagen AG’s handling of its emissions debacle and Costa Cruises’ fatally shipwrecked Costa Concordia). This study reveals that, even though slightly different from its ancient counterparts in its aims, scapegoating is a frequent tool of corporations seeking to mitigate their multi-causal crises. It also appraises the efficacy of this manoeuvre.
Keywords: crisis management, crisis communication, scapegoating, public relations

CITATION

Çinarli, İ. (2016). In Search of a Scapegoat: The Global Corporate Blame Game. Online Journal of Communication and Media Technologies, 6(December 2016 - Special Issue), 69-85. https://doi.org/10.30935/ojcmt/5642

REFERENCES

  • Alexander, D. E. (2012) ‘The 'Titanic Syndrome': Risk and Crisis Management on the Costa Concordia’. Journal of Homeland Security and Emergency Management, 9(1): 1–23.
  • Arthur W. Page Society (n.d.), ‘Carnival Corporation: The Costa Concordia Crisis Case A and B’. Retrieved from http://www.awpagesociety.com/wpcontent/uploads/2013/03/Carnival-Corporation-Case-A-and-B.pdf
  • BBC News (2015, 22 September). Volkswagen CEO: We totally screwed up. Retrieved from http://www.bbc.com/news/business-34323005,
  • BBC News (2013, 11 February), Costa Concordia captain Schettino guilty of manslaughter. Retrieved from http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-31430998
  • Batty, D. (2013, 20 July). Five Costa Concordia staff convicted over shipwreck in Italy, The Guardian, Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jul/20/five-costa-concordia-guilty-shipwreck-italy
  • Baumeister, R. F. and Vohs, K. D. (2007). Encyclopaedia of Social Psychology. Thousands Oak, California, CA: Sage.
  • Benoit, W. L. (1997). ‘Image repair discourse and crisis communication’. Public Relations Review. 23(2): 177-186.
  • Blitz, R. (2013, 24 September). Chairman sees bright future for Carnival’s Costa brand. Financial Times. Retrieved from http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/df840308-2509-11e3-bcf7-00144feab7de.html#axzz4BNJAT2Hb
  • Boston, W. (2016, 28 January). Volkswagen begins recall of diesel cars in Europe. The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved from http://www.wsj.com/articles/volkswagen-begins-recall-of-diesel-cars-in-europe-1453996552
  • Boston, W. and Sloat, S. (2016, 11 May). Volkswagen says emissions probe finds no wrongdoing by boards. The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved from http://www.wsj.com/articles/volkswagen-says-emissions-probe-finds-board-didnt-breach-duty-1462974444
  • Bowler, T. (2015, 2 October). Volkswagen: from the Third Reich to emissions scandal, BBC News, Retrieved from http://www.bbc.com/news/business-34358783
  • Brand Finance (n.d.). VW risks its billion brand and Germany’s national reputation, Retrieved from http://brandfinance.com/news/press-releases/vw-risks-its-31-billion-brand-and-germanys-national-reputation/
  • Brand Finance (2015, October). National Brands 2015. Retrieved from http://brandfinance.com/images/upload/brand_finance_nation_brands_2015.pdf
  • Burke, K. (1945). A Grammar of Motives. New York, NY: Prentice-Hall.
  • Carnival Corporation, Corporate information. Retrieved from http://www.carnivalcorp.org
  • Compton, T. M. (2006). Victim of the Muses: Poet as Scapegoat, Warrior and Hero in Greco-Roman and Indo-European Myth and History. Retrieved from http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn3:hul.ebook:CHS_Compton.Victim_of_the_Muses.2006
  • Concise Oxford Dictionary (1995). Della Thomson (ed.). 9th edition. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
  • Coombs, T. W. (1995). ‘Choosing the right words: The development of guidelines for the selection of the “appropriate” crisis response strategies”. Management Communication Quarterly, 8: 447-476.
  • Coombs, Timothy W. (2012). ‘Parameters for Crisis Communication’. In T. W. Coombs and S. J. Holladay (eds.). The Handbook of Crisis Communication (pp. 17–53). Massachusetts, MA: Blackwell.
  • Coombs, T. W. and Holladay, S. J. (2004). ‘Reasoned action in crisis communication: An attribution theory-based approach to crisis management’. In D. P. Millar and R. L. Heath (eds.), Responding to Crisis Communication Approach to Crisis Communication (pp. 95–115). New Jersey, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
  • Coombs, Timothy W. (2014, 23 April). ‘Crisis management and communications’. Institute for Public Relations, http://www.instituteforpr.org/crisis-management-communications/
  • Cremer, A. and Scherer, S. (2015, 27 September). VW staff, supplier warned of emissions test cheating years ago: reports. Reuters, Retrieved from http://www.reuters.com/article/us-volkswagen-emissions-idUSKCN0RP14U20150927
  • Cremer, A. (2016, 20 April). VW to pay each U.S. customer $5,000 to settle dieselgate: Die Welt, Reuters, 20 April, http://www.reuters.com/article/us-volkswagen-emissions-court-idUSKCN0XH0ZV
  • Douglas, Mary (2003). ‘The go-away goat’. In R. Rendtorff, R. A. Kugler and S. S. Bartlet (eds.). The Book of Leviticus: Composition and Reception (pp. 121-141). The Netherlands: Brill NV.
  • Environment Protection Agency, Volkswagen Violations, May 2016, Retrieved from https://www.epa.gov/vw
  • Esterl, M. and Lublic, J. S. (2012, 23 January). Carnival CEO Lies Low After Wreck. The Wall Street Journal, Retrieved from http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052970204624204577177131752006116
  • Ewing, J. (2016, 21 April). Volkswagen reaches the deal in U.S. over emissions scandal, The New York Times. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/22/business/international/volkswagen-emissions-settlement.html?_r=0
  • Fearn-Banks, K. (2011). Crisis Communication: A Casebook Approach. 4th ed. New York: Routledge.
  • Fink, S. (1986). Crisis Management: Planning for Inevitable. New York, NY: Amacom.
  • Girard, R. (2013). Violence and the Sacred. P. Gregory (Trad.). London: Bloomsbury.
  • Golsan, R. (2002). An Introduction: René Girard and Myth. New York, NY: Routledge.
  • Hetherington, K. (2000). New Age Travellers: Vanloads of Uproarious Humanity. London: Cassell.
  • Lukaszewski, J. E. (2013). On Crisis Communication: What Your CEO Needs to Know About Reputation Risk and Crisis Management. Connecticut, CT: Rothstein Associates.
  • McChesney, R. W. (1999), ‘Noam Chomsky and struggle against neoliberalism’, Monthly Review Archives, 50, pp.40–47.
  • McLean, B. (1990). ‘On the revision of scapegoat terminology’. Numen. 37(2): 168-173.
  • Ohnuki-Tierney, E. (1990), ‘The monkey as self in Japanese culture’. In E. Ohnuki-Tierney (ed.). Culture Through Time: Anthropological Approaches (pp. 128-153). Stanford, California, CA: Stanford University Press.
  • Pauchan, T. and Mitroff, I. I. (1992). Transforming the Crisis-Prone Organization. California, CA: Jossey-Bass.
  • Perera, S. B. (1986). The Scapegoat Complex: Toward a Mythology of Shadow and Guilt. California, CA: Inner City Books.
  • Regester, M. (1989). Crisis Management: What to Do When the Unthinkable Happens. London: Hutchinson Business.
  • Reuters (2015, 8 October), Update 3: Volkswagen’s US boss blames individuals for cheating. Retrieved from http://www.reuters.com/article/volkswagen-emissions-update-3-pix-tv-gra-idUSL8N1281NL20151008
  • Reuters (2016, 22 April). VW hikes emissions provisions to 16-17 billion euros: source. Retrieved from ttp://www.reuters.com/article/us-volkswagen-emissions-provisions-idUSKCN0XJ0K3?mod=related&channelName=businessNews
  • Ruddick, G. and Farrell, S. (2015, 25 September). VW: staff suspended as car giant appoints new CEO. The Guardian. Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/sep/25/volkswagen-appoints-matthias-muller-chief-executive-porsche-vw
  • Schwartz, H. (2004). Tree of Souls: The Mythology of Judaism. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
  • Taylor, E. and Wacket, M. (2016, 22 April). German carmakers to recall 630,000 cars to fix emissions: government official. Reuters. Retrieved from http://www.reuters.com/article/us-volkswagen-emissions-germany-probe-idUSKCN0XJ19U?mod=related&channelName=businessNews
  • Taylor, E. and Shepardson, D. (2016, 22 April). Daimler shares slide on U.S. emissions investigation. Reuters. Retrieved from http://www.reuters.com/article/us-daimler-emissions-idUSKCN0XJ0X0?feedType=RSS&feedName=businessNews&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+reuters%2FbusinessNews+(Business+News)
  • The Group, 31 December 2015, Retrieved from http: //www. volkswagenag.com
  • Ulmer, R. R., Sellnow, T. L. and Seeger, M. W. (2011). Effective Crisis Communication: Moving from Crisis to Opportunity. 2nd ed. California, CA: Sage.
  • Welch, M. (2006). September 11th: Hate Crimes and State Crimes in the War on Terror. New Jersey, NJ: Rutgers.