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Behind the scenes: A critical discourse analysis of Botswana government power plays on Facebook during two post-millennial state-owned organizational crises
,
Sian Rees ,
Richard Thomas
Public Relations Inquiry, Volume: 12, Issue: 3, Pages: 321 - 341
Swansea University Authors:
Chedza Simon , Sian Rees , Richard Thomas
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DOI (Published version): 10.1177/2046147x231200891
Abstract
This article examines Facebook posts in Botswana to determine how government public relations (PR) practitioners used language to help protect the reputation of two state-owned agencies during times of crisis. For insufficiently prepared PR practitioners, crises can quickly become complex owing to t...
| Published in: | Public Relations Inquiry |
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| ISSN: | 2046-147X 2046-1488 |
| Published: |
SAGE Publications
2023
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| Online Access: |
Check full text
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| URI: | https://cronfa.swan.ac.uk/Record/cronfa64475 |
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| Abstract: |
This article examines Facebook posts in Botswana to determine how government public relations (PR) practitioners used language to help protect the reputation of two state-owned agencies during times of crisis. For insufficiently prepared PR practitioners, crises can quickly become complex owing to the proliferation of social media which has dramatically reshaped crisis communication in non-Western, multicultural contexts. While crisis communication has drawn more scholarly interest, the way the Botswana Government use language to maintain power and legitimacy during emergencies represents a fresh case study. We use Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) in our scrutiny of the Botswana Development Corporation (BDC) crisis of 2011, and the Botswana Railways (BR) crisis of 2019. The analysis reveals a corporate ideology of economic development used as an underlying manipulative and propagandistic form of organized persuasive communication (OPC) strategy aimed at establishing and maintaining power. The article also demonstrates how, via this strategy, the government uses state power to galvanize support and mobilize audiences to rally behind state-owned organizations. |
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| Keywords: |
Crisis communication, ideology, framing, crisis response strategies, Botswana, critical discourse analysis, state-owned enterprises |
| College: |
Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences |
| Funders: |
This work was supported by the Commonwealth Scholarship Commission in the UK. |
| Issue: |
3 |
| Start Page: |
321 |
| End Page: |
341 |