Visualisation of image restoration for Indonesian public officials during the Covid-19 Pandemic

Miftha  Pratiwi; , Rindang Senja  Andarini; Rini  Setiyowati; Anang Dwi Santoso

doi:10.25139/jsk.v6i3.4971

Miftha Pratiwi Department of Communication Science, Universitas Sriwijaya
, Rindang Senja Andarini epartment of Communication Science, Universitas Sriwijaya
Rini Setiyowati Department of Civic Education, Universitas Sriwijaya
Anang Dwi Santoso Department of Public Administration, Universitas Sriwijaya

https://doi.org/10.25139/jsk.v6i3.4971

Abstract views: 387 ,

PDF downloads: 295

Keywords: image restoration, public officials, Indonesia, COVID-19

Abstract

Most studies on image restoration concentrate on text analysis of firms and CEOs in the Western context; hence, there is a need to explore similar practices in public organisations or public officials in an Eastern context. This study intends to investigate tactics and methods for repairing the image of public officials in eastern nations, including Indonesia, to fill this void. Visual and thematic analysis was performed on a dataset containing 2,000 Instagram posts from seven public officials in Indonesia. According to our findings, the visual analysis identifies six content kinds, while the thematic analysis identifies ten content types. They constitute image restoration methods, such as compensation, bolstering, corrective action, and shifting the blame, and image recovery strategies, such as reducing offensiveness of event, corrective action, and denial. This study reveals that, contrary to western literature, public authorities in Indonesia tend to employ the method of minimising the offensiveness of an occurrence.

References

Adamış, E., & Pınarbaşı, F. (2022). Unfolding visual characteristics of social media communication: reflections of smart tourism destinations. Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Technology, 13(1), 34–61. https://doi.org/10.1108/JHTT-09-2020-0246

Arendt, C., LaFleche, M., & Limperopulos, M. A. (2017). A qualitative meta-analysis of apologia, image repair, and crisis communication: Implications for theory and practice. Public Relations Review, 43(3), 517–526. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pubrev.2017.03.005

Avery, E. J., Lariscy, R. W., Kim, S., & Hocke, T. (2010). A quantitative review of crisis communication research in public relations from 1991 to 2009. Public Relations Review, 36(2), 190–192. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pubrev.2010.01.001

Ayoko, O. B., Ang, A. A., & Parry, K. (2017). Organisational crisis: emotions and contradictions in managing internal stakeholders. International Journal of Conflict Management, 28(5), 617–643. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJCMA-05-2016-0039

Benoit, W. L. (1995). Accounts, excuses, and apologies: A theory of image restoration strategies. Albany: State University of New York Press.

Benoit, W. L. (2015). Accounts, excuses, and apologies: Image repair theory and research (2nd ed.). Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.

Benoit, W. L., & Czerwinski, A. (1997). A Critical Analysis Of USAir's Image Repair Discourse. Business Communication Quarterly, 60(3), 38–57. https://doi.org/10.1177/108056999706000304

Blaney, J. R., Benoit, W. L., & Brazeal, L. M. (2002). Blowout!: Firestone's image restoration campaign. Public Relations Review, 28(4), 379–392. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0363-8111(02)00163-7

Brainard, L. A., & McNutt, J. G. (2010). Virtual Government–Citizen Relations. Administration & Society, 42(7), 836–858. https://doi.org/10.1177/0095399710386308

Bundy, J., Pfarrer, M. D., Short, C. E., & Coombs, W. T. (2017). Crises and Crisis Management: Integration, Interpretation, and Research Development. Journal of Management, 43(6), 1661–1692. https://doi.org/10.1177/0149206316680030

Carnevale, J. B., & Gangloff, K. A. (2022). A Mixed Blessing? CEOs' Moral Cleansing as an Alternative Explanation for Firms' Reparative Responses Following Misconduct. Journal of Business Ethics. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-022-05138-6

Chen, Q., Min, C., Zhang, W., Wang, G., Ma, X., & Evans, R. (2020). Unpacking the black box: How to promote citizen engagement through government social media during the COVID-19 crisis. Computers in Human Behavior, 110(2020), 106380. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2020.106380

Coombs, T, & Schmidt, L. (2000). An empirical analysis of image restoration: Texaco's racism crisis. International Journal of Phytoremediation, 21(1), 163–178. https://doi.org/10.1207/S1532754XJPRR1202_2

Coombs, TW. (2006). The Protective Powers of Crisis Response Strategies: Managing Reputational Assets During a Crisis. Journal of Promotion Management, 12 (3/4)(July), 39–46. https://doi.org/10.1300/J057v12n03

Djalante, R., Lassa, J., Setiamarga, D., Mahfud, C., Sudjatma, A., Indrawan, M., … Surtiari, I. G. A. (2020). Review and analysis of current responses to COVID-19 in Indonesia: Period of January to March 2020. Progress in Disaster Science, 6, 100091. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pdisas.2020.100091

du Plessis, C. (2018). Social media crisis communication: Enhancing a discourse of renewal through dialogic content. Public Relations Review, 44(5), 829–838. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pubrev.2018.10.003

Ferguson, D. P., Wallace, J. D., & Chandler, R. C. (2018). Hierarchical consistency of strategies in image repair theory: PR practitioners' perceptions of effective and preferred crisis communication strategies. Journal of Public Relations Research, 30(5–6), 251–272. https://doi.org/10.1080/1062726X.2018.1545129

Gai, L. (2016). Managing Crisis Overseas: An Explorative Analysis of Apple's Warranty Crisis Communication in China. Developments in Marketing Science: Proceedings of the Academy of Marketing Science, pp. 825–830. University of North Texas, Denton, TX, United States: Springer Nature. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-11815-4_242

Gesuele, B. (2016). Municipalities and Facebook Use: Which Key Drivers? Empirical Evidence from Italian Municipalities. International Journal of Public Administration, 39(10), 771–777. https://doi.org/10.1080/01900692.2015.1034323

Graham, M. W., Avery, E. J., & Park, S. (2015). The role of social media in local government crisis communications. Public Relations Review, 41(3), 386–394. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pubrev.2015.02.001

Hanna, C., & Morton, J. T. (2020). Urban Meyer Needs an Image Repair Coach. Journal of Global Sport Management, 5(2), 167–183. https://doi.org/10.1080/24704067.2019.1604076

Herrero, J. C., & Marfil Medina, J. P. (2016). Crisis communication in politics: Forgiveness as image restoration tool | La comunicación de crisis en política: El perdón como herramienta de restauración de imagen. Estudios Sobre El Mensaje Periodistico, 22(1), 361–373. https://doi.org/10.5209/rev_ESMP.2016.v22.n1.52603

Hillman, C. (2018). Drafting like a king: Daily fantasy sports websites in crisis. In Case Studies in Sport Communication: You Make the Call. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315189833

Katadata. (2022). Pengguna Instagram di Indonesia Bertambah 3,9 Juta pada Kuartal IV-2021. Retrieved 20 September 2022, from 2012 website: https://databoks.katadata.co.id/datapublish/2022/01/10/pengguna-instagram-di-indonesia-bertambah-39-juta-pada-kuartal-iv-2021

Kim, H. K., & Niederdeppe, J. (2013). The Role of Emotional Response during an H1N1 Influenza Pandemic on a College Campus. Journal of Public Relations Research, 25(1), 30–50. https://doi.org/10.1080/1062726X.2013.739100

Kim, S., Avery, E. J., & Lariscy, R. W. (2009). Are crisis communicators practicing what we preach?: An evaluation of crisis response strategy analysed in public relations research from 1991 to 2009. Public Relations Review, 35(4), 446–448. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pubrev.2009.08.002

Krippendorff, Klaus. (2013). Content analysis : an introduction to its methodology. SAGE.

Le, J., & Bartlett, J. L. (2014). Managing impressions during institutional change - The role of organisational accounts in legitimation. Public Relations Inquiry, 3(3), 341–360. https://doi.org/10.1177/2046147X14540912

Lee, E., & Weder, F. (2021). Framing sustainable fashion concepts on social media. An analysis of #slowfashionaustralia instagram posts and post-covid visions of the future. Sustainability (Switzerland), 13(17). https://doi.org/10.3390/su13179976

Mietzner, M. (2020). Populist Anti-Scientism, Religious Polarisation, and Institutionalised Corruption: How Indonesia's Democratic Decline Shaped Its COVID-19 Response. Journal of Current Southeast Asian Affairs, 39(2), 227–249. https://doi.org/10.1177/1868103420935561

Molleda, J.-C., & Stephen, G. C. (2015). When Conflict Shifts: An Analysis of Chiquita Brands' Transnational Crises in Colombia and Guatemala: Colombia and Guatemala. In Culture and Crisis Communication: Transboundary Cases from Nonwestern Perspectives. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781119081708.ch17

Nazione, S., & Perrault, E. K. (2019). An Empirical Test of Image Restoration Theory and Best Practice Suggestions Within the Context of Social Mediated Crisis Communication. Corporate Reputation Review, 22(4), 134–143. https://doi.org/10.1057/s41299-019-00064-2

O'Connell, B., De Lange, P., Stoner, G., & Sangster, A. (2016). Strategic manoeuvres and impression management: communication approaches in the case of a crisis event. Business History, 58(6), 903–924. https://doi.org/10.1080/00076791.2015.1128896

Power, K., & Crosthwaite, P. (2022). Constructing COVID-19: A corpus-informed analysis of prime ministerial crisis response communication by gender. Discourse and Society. https://doi.org/10.1177/09579265221076612

Ramírez, Y., & Tejada, Á. (2019). Digital transparency and public accountability in Spanish universities in online media. Journal of Intellectual Capital, 20(5), 701–732. https://doi.org/10.1108/JIC-02-2019-0039

Rim, H., & Ferguson, M. A. T. (2020). Proactive Versus Reactive CSR in a Crisis: An Impression Management Perspective. International Journal of Business Communication, 57(4), 545–568. https://doi.org/10.1177/2329488417719835

Rudkin, B., Kimani, D., Ullah, S., Ahmed, R., & Farooq, S. U. (2019). Hide-and-seek in corporate disclosure: evidence from negative corporate incidents. Corporate Governance (Bingley), 19(1), 158–175. https://doi.org/10.1108/CG-05-2018-0164

Sáez-Martín, A., Alonso-Cañadas, J., Galán-Valdivieso, F., & Caba-Pérez, C. (2018). Citizens' engagement in local Government in a new political scenario: Emergent vs. traditional parties. In Public Administration and Information Technology (Vol. 29). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-73386-9_6

Sanders, J. G., Tosi, A., Obradovic, S., Miligi, I., & Delaney, L. (2021). Lessons From the UK's Lockdown: Discourse on Behavioural Science in Times of COVID-19. Frontiers in Psychology, 12. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.647348

Santoso, A. D., Rinjany, D., & Bafadhal, O. M. (2020). Social Media and Local Government in Indonesia: Adoption, Use and Stakeholder Engagement. Romanian Journal of Communication and Public Relations, 22(3), 21–35. https://doi.org/10.21018/RJCPR.2020.3.307

Sheldon, C. A., & Sallot, L. M. (2008). Image repair in politics: testing effects of communication strategy and performance history in a faux pas. Journal of Public Relations Research, 21(1), 25–50. https://doi.org/10.1080/10627260802520496

Sobral, F., Carvalho, J., Łagowska, U., Furtado, L. M. G. P., & Grobman, M. (2020). Better safe than sorry: Leadership sensemaking in the time of covid-19 . Revista de Administracao Publica, 54(4), 758–781. https://doi.org/10.1590/0034-761220200262x

Stapleton, K., & Hargie, O. (2011). Double-bind accountability dilemmas: Impression management and accountability strategies used by senior banking executives. Journal of Language and Social Psychology, 30(3), 266–289. https://doi.org/10.1177/0261927X11407165

Statista. (2022). Number of Instagram users worldwide from 2020 to 2025(in billions). Retrieved 17 August 2022, from https://www.statista.com/statistics/183585/instagram-number-of-global-users/

Steinmetz, C., Rahmat, H., Marshall, N., Bishop, K., Thompson, S., Park, M., … Tietz, C. (2020). Liking, Tweeting and Posting: An Analysis of Community Engagement through Social Media Platforms. Urban Policy and Research, 1–21. https://doi.org/10.1080/08111146.2020.1792283

Stratulat, M. (2019). Impression management during a crisis event . Logforum, 15(1), 119–128. https://doi.org/10.17270/J.LOG.2019.320

Tække, J. (2017). Crisis Communication and Social Media. A Systems- and Medium-Theoretical Perspective. Systems Research and Behavioral Science, 34(2), 182–194. https://doi.org/10.1002/sres.2451

Volo, S., & Irimiás, A. (2021). Instagram: Visual methods in tourism research. Annals of Tourism Research, 91(October), 103098. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.annals.2020.103098

Vykydalova, N., Jibril, A. B., Pilik, M., & Kwarteng, M. A. (2019). The nexus between social media engagement and local e-government participation for accelerated growth: A conceptual study. Proceedings of the European Conference on E-Government, ECEG, 2019-Octob, 170–177. https://doi.org/10.34190/ECDG.19.020

Weber, M., Erickson, S. L., & Stone, M. (2011). Corporate reputation management: Citibank's use of image restoration strategies during the u.s. banking crisis. Journal of Organisational Culture, Communications and Conflict, 15(2), 35–56.

Willecke, C. (2020). Impression Management Techniques of Pharmaceutical Companies on Instagram. University of Twente.

Works, W. B. L., Wong, J. S., & Lee, C. (2021). Damage control: Canadian University crisis management responses to sexual assault. Atlantic Journal of Communication, 29(1), 39–52. https://doi.org/10.1080/15456870.2019.1698580

Ye, L., & Pang, A. (2011). Examining the Chinese Approach to Crisis Management: Cover-Ups, Saving Face, and Taking the 'Upper Level Line'. Journal of Marketing Channels, 18(4), 247–278. https://doi.org/10.1080/1046669X.2011.613318

Yu, T. hsiang, & Wen, W. C. (2003). Crisis communication in Chinese culture: A case study in Taiwan. Asian Journal of Communication, 13(2), 50–64. https://doi.org/10.1080/01292980309364838

Zeng, L., Zhou, L., Pan, P.-L., & Fowler, G. (2018). Coping with the milk scandal: A staged approach to crisis communication strategies during China's largest food safety crisis. Journal of Communication Management, 22(4), 432–450. https://doi.org/10.1108/JCOM-11-2017-0133

Zeng, Li, Zhou, L., Pan, P. L., & Fowler, G. (2018). Coping with the milk scandal: A staged approach to crisis communication strategies during China's largest food safety crisis. Journal of Communication Management, 22(4), 432–450. https://doi.org/10.1108/JCOM-11-2017-0133