Research On Liu Xiang's Image Restoration Strategy And Effect In Crisis Communication

In recent years,athletes frequently suffer crisis events,which damage the athletes`images to varying degrees.Therefore,how to restore the image in such a situation has become an issue that athletes and their crisis public relations teams should pay high attention to.The American scholar William Benoit proposed the "image restoration theory" in 1995,and applied this theory to the study of the crisis propagation field of the U.S.government,corporations,individuals,etc.They confirmed that the theory played a very important role in the restoration and reshaping of the image after the crisis.This study,based on Benoit's image restoration theory,takes Liu Xiang`s two withdrawals from competition as examples to study the image restoration strategies and effects used by Liu Xiang and his crisis public relations team.It provides reference for our athletes and their crisis public relations team to successfully implement image restoration strategies in crisis communication.Content analysis and text analysis are used in this article.Firstly,through the content analysis method,the image restoration strategies used by Liu Xiang and his crisis public relations team are analyzed.The content analysis is based on the relevant text material of the image restoration measures after Liu Xiang's withdrawals from competition in the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games and the 2012 London Olympic Games.In data statistics,according to Benoit's image restoration theory,the image restoration strategy is divided into the main strategy and the sub-strategy,in which the main strategy is: 1.Denial;2.Evading responsibility;3.Reducing offensiveness;4.Corrective action;5.Mortification.Secondly,by text analysis and content analysis,the effects of the image restoration strategies are analyzed.The research object is the media's reports on the press conference of Liu Xiang after the competition withdrawals and the netizens` commentary on Liu Xiang's apology letter.According to the wording,context,and tone of the report and commentary,the results are divided into three tendencies: 1.Positive;2.Negative;3.Neutral.The study found that: 1)The two withdrawals caused a serious negative impact on Liu Xiang's image,causing him to fall into a crisis situation;2)In the image restoration of the two withdrawals,Liu Xiang and his crisis public relations team used the main strategy ofreducing offensiveness and evading responsibility;3)The image restoration after Liu Xiang's first withdrawal was a successful crisis public relations.The effect of the second image restoration was not obvious;4)In the case of the two withdrawals,the effect of image restoration differs due to differences in crisis situations and strategies.The following suggestions are made: 1)When encountering crisis events,athletes should pay attention to the timing and respond to the crisis in a timely manner;2)In terms of strategy use,major strategies like mortification,reducing offensiveness,evading responsibility should mainly be used.At the same time,sub-strategies such bolstering,defeasibility and accident should also be used;3)When confirming that their actions have a negative impact on the audience,athletes and their crisis public relations team must first apologize and be sincere;4)Athletes and their teams should not be inconsistent before and after image restoration;5)Athletes and their teams should be cautious about simple denial when performing image restoration.