Wrestling with crisis communication: WWE's scandals and public relations strategies in 201

This project examines an intersection of organizational rhetoric, professional wrestling and social media. Professional wrestling, like many other sports, is rich with scandal. Steiner makes a scholarly inquiry into how World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) and in particular Seth Rollins, Bill DeMott, and Hulk Hogan handled their respective scandals. These scandals rocked the fans of this popular sport and challenged the popularity of some of the sport's highest earning wrestlers.;Computer mediated communication plays an important role in sports figure apologies and their aftermath. Steiner applies organizational rhetoric concepts such as apologia, image repair discourse, and corporate social responsibility to analyze the use of internet technology and social media by the WWE and individual wrestlers to restore their images.;When Seth Rollins' Instagram account was hacked and nude photos were released to all of his followers, the fallout demanded the use of image repair and rhetorical strategies. A coding scheme was developed to further analyze Rollins' Twitter discourse. WWE's and Rollins' successful use of computer mediated communication effectively repaired any damage the scandal had caused and prevented any further fallout. When the hashtags "#FireDeMott" and "FireBillDeMott" started trending on Twitter, Bill DeMott felt a need to take his image repair campaign online. The WWE was able to successfully defend its image after DeMott's scandal presented a major threat. DeMott's image, however, remains tarnished. After Hulk Hogan's sex tape and racist rant videos were leaked online, Hogan's Twitter activity increased. Hogan saw Twitter as a venue to interact with fans and comment on his upcoming trial. WWE has been able to successfully distance itself from Hogan's scandal, but it remains to be seen whether Hogan will ever repair his personal image.;After analyzing the public relations strategies by the company and its individual wrestlers in three of the major WWE-related scandals of 2015, Steiner offers suggestions for how the image repair campaigns could be improved in each respective case. Steiner then offers a brief list of recommendations for the WWE broadly to improve their future scandal management.