Authoritative sensemaking in a public inquiry report (original) (raw)
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Taking off the Heat: Narrative Sensemaking in Post-crisis Inquiry Reports
Organization Studies, 2009
Crises represent moments when sensemaking fails. Official reports of post-crisis analyses re-establish patterns of sensemaking. Whereas scholars agree on the narrative basis of post-crisis sensemaking, the means by which meaning is recreated about the confusing events have not been fully investigated. To fill this gap, empirical data are drawn from the series of investigations that took place after the sudden and deadly heat wave that occurred in France during the summer of 2003. Introducing tools from narratology, this article analyses how these reports restore meaning by addressing the following questions: What happened? Was it foreseeable? and Who is responsible? The key narrative choices implied are mapped. A typology of crisis plots is proposed. Building on this typology, the article demonstrates that successive reports progressively built a focused, simplified story about the crisis. Methodological and practical implications for scholars and practitioners using inquiry reports...
This paper explores the construction of organizational crisis through the discourse of media. Using a critical sensemaking framework, the authors conclude that the media serve as a disproportionate influence in the creation of plausible organizational narrative after crisis. They implicate the practices of journalistic work and the relationships between news workers and those holding power in organizations. They use the 1992 explosion at the Westray mine in Nova Scotia, Canada, where 26 men died, to illustrate these contentions. They find that among available and plausible early narratives of this event, enactment of a discourse of natural disaster and tragedy has prevailed over those that incorporated human agency and organizational culpability.
Making sense of inquiry sensemaking
Journal of Management Studies, 2000
The citation for the published version is: Brown, A.D. 2000. Making sense of inquiry sensemaking. Journal of Management Studies, 37 (1) 45-75. The University of Bath Opus website (http://opus.bath.ac.uk/) provides information on usage policies. Please scroll down to view the document. 1 MAKING SENSE OF INQUIRY SENSEMAKING Brown, A.D. 2000. Making sense of inquiry sensemaking. Journal of Management Studies, 37 (1) 45-75.
Making Sense of Bad News: The Media, Sensemaking, and Organizational Crisis
Canadian Journal of Communication
This paper explores the construction of organizational crisis through the discourse of media. Using a critical sensemaking framework, the authors conclude that the media serve as a disproportionate influence in the creation of plausible organizational narrative after crisis. They implicate the practices of journalistic work and the relationships between news workers and those holding power in organizations. They use the 1992 explosion at the Westray coal mine in Nova Scotia, Canada, where 26 men died, to illustrate these contentions. They find that among available and plausible early narratives of this event, enactment of a discourse of natural disaster and tragedy has prevailed over those that incorporated human agency and organizational culpability. Résumé : Cet article explore la construction de crises organisationnelles faite par le discours médiatique. Utilisant un cadre critique pour interpréter les faits, les auteurs concluent que les médias ont une influence disproportionnée dans la création d'une narration organisationnelle plausible après une crise. Pour expliquer cette influence, les auteurs impliquent les pratiques du travail journalistique ainsi que les relations entre les travailleurs des médias et les détenteurs du pouvoir dans les organisations. Ils illustrent ces affirmations en se rapportant à l'explosion de 1992 dans la mine Westray en Nouvelle-Écosse, Canada, où 26 hommes sont morts. Ils trouvent que, parmi les premières narrations disponibles et plausibles de cet événement, la promulgation d'un discours de désastre naturel et de tragédie l'a emporté sur les discours incorporant l'action humaine et la culpabilité organisationnelle.
Sequestering of Suffering: Critical Discourse Analysis of Natural Disaster Media Coverage
Journal of health …, 2008
This article is a critical discourse analysis of the local print-news media coverage of the recovery process in two rural communities following a devastating forest fire. Two hundred and fifty fire-related articles from the North Thompson Star Journal were analyzed. Results revealed a neoliberal discursive framing of recovery, emphasizing the economicmaterial aspects of the process and a reliance on experts. A sequestering of suffering discourse promoted psychological functionalism and focused attention on a return to normalcy through the compartmentalization of distress. The dominant 'voice' was male, authoritative, and institutionalized. Implications for disaster recovery and potential health consequences are discussed.
Routledge Handbook of Public Diplomacy
How can strategic narratives shape audience perceptions of state legitimacy and control in the immediate aftermath of a crisis? This case study takes a look, examining the media-fueled public discourse and key leader messaging in the wake of the mass shootings in San Bernardino, California on December 2, 2015. The study tracks the emergence of top-line narratives about the events and its aftermath and how they play out in official statements. The study then looks at counter-narratives as they emerged in on-line reporting and editorials featured in Al Jazeera America. The comparison of these message sets (and their embedded values) yields insights about the use of strategic narratives to project state power, legitimacy and values in the face of an abrupt challenge to national security interests. Additionally the study provides lessons learned about the management of strategic narratives in complex media environments, characterized by multiple audiences with competing priorities, interests and belief systems
Examining Question Form and Function in the Disaster Press Conference
This study uses a structural functional perspective in examining the form and function of questions in a presidential disaster press conference on May 27, 2010 about the Deepwater BP Oil Spill. Clayman and Heritage (2002) proposed a framework to examine the questions and responses in a press conference while Fisher (1991) offered a method to study media function. These were both applied to the disaster press conference. Findings were used to develop recommendations for public officials and PIOs in working with the media. Despite the fact that this case suggests an adversarial relationship between public officials and the media, public officials need to focus on public information needs in meeting with the press. In addition to questions about the reasons and impact of the disaster, public officials need to be prepared to respond to questions about accountability and responsibility for disasters. Reference: Fisher, J.R. (2013). The disaster press conference: Form and function. Business Research Yearbook, Vol. 20, Number 2, pp. 476-483.
Interagency babble: Institutional logics and information flow in catastrophic disasters
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Recent catastrophic disasters have highlighted the enormous human, economic, and material costs of information flow breakdown. This study explores how significant information flow problems in catastrophic disaster response arise from fundamental, but critical, differences in institutional logics among the collection of organizations that are involved. Documents will be analyzed using qualitative methodology to identify salient features of two of the institutional logics seen in disaster response and develop a framework relating the outcomes of the first responders' actions to the logic employed. This study identified the existing gaps in the publically-available accessible information about previous disaster response efforts and considers how this information can potentially be used to better understand the problems the United States faces in terms of effective disaster response. This study has the potential to inform policy makers and organizations within disaster response in crafting better ways of utilizing information to minimize loss of life and property.
Editorial: Talking about disasters
Australian Journal of Communication, 2013
The collection of papers brought together in this issue of the journal started as an idea about methodology in humanities research, and about how we tell stories. Methodology is of particular interest to the three of us, and we have had many discussions about what we might learn if we shone a light on one topic from different disciplinary and methodological perspectives. At the time of discussion, Queensland was in 'recovery mode' from the 2011 flood disaster, and the telling and retelling of stories in relation to that particular event prompted us to consider 'disaster' as the topic on which we would focus our attention.
SAGE Case Studies, 2018
This case study explores a social science approach to qualitative textual analysis. It introduces readers to textual analysis, discourse analysis, data collection, coding, analysis, and presentation of findings for publication. The case study of U.S. news media coverage of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster in 2011 is an entry point for a conversation about textual analysis conducted within the parameters of the social sciences. It demonstrates the technique of analytic induction for analyzing texts and a corresponding interpretive practice related to poststructural discourse analysis for tethering textual analyses to broader cultural discourses.