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A study of the employment of denial during a complex and unstable crisis involving multiple actors

Lookup NU author(s): Dr Simon Parry

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0).

Abstract

We review the employment of denial through a complex and unstable crisis: the Deepwater Horizon Gulf of Mexico tragedy. Denial is typically viewed as a binary response – ‘we did not do this’ – with a binary intended outcome – ‘and therefore we are not to blame’. We argue that this interpretation is overly simplistic. We found that Transocean and Halliburton executed a strategy consisting of distancing and (counter-)attack to shift blame, whereas BP pursued a strategy dominated by compassion and ingratiation intermixed with carefully employed denial to share blame. This form of blame-sharing is a hybrid of denial and acceptance. BP accepted responsibility but argued that others were responsible too. Our analysis also showed that deny response options were restricted or relaxed dependent upon situational and intertextual context. We found that the tone of the involved parties’ releases became significantly more aggressive as the situation developed towards its legal conclusion and as they responded to each other’s progressively more hostile releases.

Publication metadata

Author(s): Bamber M, Parry SN

Publication type: Article

Publication status: Published

Journal: Journal of Business Communication

Year: 2016

Volume: 53

Issue: 3

Pages: 343-366

Print publication date: 01/07/2016

Online publication date: 30/04/2014

Acceptance date: 01/01/1900

Date deposited: 24/03/2015

ISSN (print): 0021-9436

ISSN (electronic): 1552-4582

Publisher: Sage Publications, Inc.

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/2329488414525454

DOI: 10.1177/2329488414525454

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