企业在社交平台危机公关回应的批评性话语分析_英语论文

A Critical Discourse Analysis on Corporate Crisis Response Strategy in Social Media

摘要

在当前的商业社会，企业的公关危机越来越普遍，大众的排放丑闻、麦当劳和肯德基的食物争议以及苹果的劳工问题都是较突出的例子。这些品牌的公关危机对企业形象的影响不容忽视。然而，正如危机在中文可以拆分为“危险”和“机遇”，公关危机的出现，并不总是单方面的负面事件。如果企业能够把握好危机中的影响因素，结合社交媒体的突出特点，危机公关也可以打造为一次与消费者之间的有效交流。

本研究基于自建以40篇中外企业发布在社交媒体平台（微博、微信、twitter和Facebook）的危机公关回应文本实例构筑语料库，采用批评性话语分析视角，以 Fairclough 的话语三维概念模式为分析框架，结合James Paul Gee的话语分析模型对文本进行了分析和总结。 

本研究旨在达到三个主要的研究目的：首先，基于自建语料库，从批评性话语分析角度，发掘企业危机公关回应中有意义的话题。第二，分析语料库结果，揭示企业在危机公关回应文本中所建构的权力关系及隐含的意识形态，并对模型中的典型特例进行比较分析。最后基于前面两点的分析，为企业的危机公关回应提供一定的策略性借鉴。

关键词：批判性话语分析；企业公关；公关回应策略；社交媒体

Abstract

Corporate crises are becoming increasingly prevalent in today’s marketplace. Some notable examples include Volkswagen’s emissions scandal, McDonald and KFC’s food scandal, labor violation of Apple’s suppliers in developing countries. Such brand crises can be extremely devastating for the involved brands. Considering the tremendous negative impact of brand crises, it is imperative to understand what brand crisis is and how to manage it in order to save the valuable yet fragile asset.

However, when written in Chinese the word "crisis" is composed of two characters - one represents danger and the other represents opportunity. If we can leverage all the relevant factor of crisis response, and follow the trend of new media evolution, it can also be a chance for the communications between corporate and consumer.

This thesis is trying to view corporate crisis response in new media platform from the perspective of CDA based on the corpus data selected from Weibo, WeChat, Twitter and Facebook. With the methodology of Halliday’s systemic functional grammar, Fairclough’s three-dimentional model and James Paul Gee’s seven discourse models, this thesis aims to accomplish mainly three objectives. Firstly, to identify a series of interesting topics, thereby furthering researches on crisis response from a CDA perspective. Secondly, to reveal the hidden power relationships and ideologies underlying crisis response. Finally, to discusses both the practical and theoretical implications of this research.

Keywords: CDA, Corporate Public Relation, Crisis Respond Strategy, Social Media

Contents

摘 要 III

Abstract IV

Acknowledgements V

Contents VI

Chapter One Introduction 1

1.1 Research background 1

1.2 Research objectives 2

1.3 Organization of the thesis 3

Chapter Two Literature Review 4

2.1 Critical approaches to discourse analysis. 4

2.1.1 Discourse, Power and Ideology 4

2.1.2 Methodological Profile of Critical Discourse Analysis 5

2.1.3 Limitations of previous CDA approaches 6

2.2 Studies on corporate crisis response communication 7

2.2.1 General study on Corporate Crisis Response 7

2.2.2 Textual Analysis of Corporate Crisis Response 8

Chapter Three  Theoretical Framework and Research Methodology 10

3.1 Halliday’s systemic functional grammar 10

3.2 Fairclough’s three-dimensional model 10

3.2.1 Description 11

3.2.2 Interpretation 13

3.2.3 Explanation 14

3.3 James Paul Gee’s seven discourse models 15

Chapter Four Corpus Results and Critical Discourse Analysis. 18

4.1 The source of the corpus 18

4.2 Result analysis 18

4.2.1 Elements and dimensions of key parties involved in crisis events 18

4.2.2 Classification of crisis incidents 19

4.2.3 Typical example analysis 20

4.2.4 Two response communication model 24

The linear crisis response communication model 24

The spiral crisis response communication model 25

Chapter Five Conclusion 28

5.1 Major Findings. 28

5.1.1 Key factors to be considered on crisis response 28

5.1.2 Recommended strategies for corporate 28

5.2 Limitations and Suggestions 32

References 34