Tijdschrift voor Communicatiewetenschap - Volume 43, Issue 3, 2015

Beste lezer,

The impact of emotional communication on perceived sincerity and reputation of organizations in crisis

This paper examines the impact of emotional communication of an organizational spokesperson in times of crisis on consumers’ perceptions of the spokesperson (i.e. sincerity) and the organization (i.e. reputation) by two experimental studies. The results of study one using a 2 (crisis timing strategy: thunder vs. stealing thunder) × 2 (rational vs. sad message) between-subjects experimental design illustrates that emotional crisis communication leads to less reputational damage than rational crisis communication (N = 168), but only if the organization self-discloses the incrementing information. In study two, the discrete emotions were manipulated in a self-disclosing setting to be sadness or anger (N = 60). The results of study two show that a company is perceived to take more responsibility for the crisis when the spokesperson expresses sadness instead of anger. The sincerity of the spokesperson/organization mediates these effects. Both studies stress the importance of emotional communication by spokespersons for organizations in crisis.

Web 2.0 and social media for strengthening the support for development aid: opportunities, challenges and state of the art

This article reflects upon the question how web 2.0 and social media can be used to strengthen the public support for development aid. Based on a literature review, desk research and a survey administered among 26 NGO’s that are active in the North, the article discusses (1) the opportunities and challenges of web 2.0 and social media and (2) the use of these media by Belgian development aid organizations.

Rhythm and blues in speeches. Speechwriters about musicality in Dutch governmental speeches

Politicians are not only concerned with whát they want to say but also hów something to say to persuade their audience. Classical orators (like Aristotle) stressed the importance of rhythm, volume and word stress in the actio, the fifth task of the orator (Formarier, 2011). In contemporary rhetorical handbooks like Atkinson (1984, 2004) are many advices about musical factors like intonation, accent and melody, but aren’t called as ‘being musical’ factors. To make ‘musical techniques’ more explicit, we determined the conceptions of speechwriters about musicality. The method to reach this aim was to interview ten speechwriters from different departments of the Dutch government about musical aspects. After these interviews the gathered visions are compared with each other and with the advices from the classical and modern books. The results of this qualitative research will lead to a better insight in the rhetorical use of musicality in governmental speeches.

Government behaviour change policy: a case study to explore how social psychological influences may mediate effects

Government behaviour change policies often build on the assumption that citizens make decisions rationally. In practice however many social psychological processes subconsciously influence behaviour. These subconscious influences, which in this study are referred to as ‘intermediary factors’, may mediate the effects of behaviour change policies. A policy and behaviour change framework is introduced, based on which is explored to what extent government behaviour change policies take into account such subconscious influences. Document research and interviews were conducted to identify how policy instruments were used to tackle three specific societal problems (concerning respectively health, mobility and finances), and to gain insight in the way intermediary factors could have affected effectiveness. Two types of such effects were identified: (1) subconscious influences (e.g. social norms) may undermine government practices to change behaviour and (2) government practices to change behaviour themselves may indirectly bring about undesirable subconscious processes (e.g. resistance) that affect behaviour.

Consumers’ responses to product recalls with language errors

Product recall notices not only warn consumers for faulty products, they also limit the damage which may be caused to the company. But what happens when the product recall notice itself contains errors? This study investigated the effects of three different types of language errors: typographical errors, verb errors and sentence errors. Four versions of a product recall were created. The control condition contained no errors. The other three versions contained either five typos, five grammatical conjugation errors or five poorly formed sentences. Participants (N = 710) were randomly assigned to one of the four conditions. Results indicate that participants who detected the errors, had lower attitudes towards the advertisement and the company than participants in the control condition and participants who failed to detect the errors. Poorly formed sentences also had a negative impact on consumers’ brand evaluations and their future product purchase intentions. Hence, language errors in product recall notices can have negative consequences for companies.