Government Communication in Times of Crisis
An Analysis of Egyptian Government Actors’ Responses to Terrorism and Protests (2011-2019)
Yasmine Ahmed Hassan Hassanain Student ID: 12906190
Master’s Thesis
Graduate School of Communication Master’s program Communication Science
Erasmus Mundus Journalism
Supervisor: dr. mr. J.H.P. (Joost) van Spanje Date of submission: 29/05/2020
Abstract
The necessity of effective communication in the aftermath of a crisis has been established in literature and in practice. However, governmental responses to nationwide crises are still greatly neglected in this field of research, calling for better attention to how such critical events are communicated to the public. Accordingly, this study aims to extend existing crisis
communication literature in two ways. Firstly, it seeks to extrapolate corporate-rooted theories, which dominate the field, into the arena of government communication. Secondly, it adds a contextual perspective by tapping into the nuances of contemporary Egypt. A quantitative content analysis of 1,390 governmental statements, in response to a selection of terrorism and protests events between 2011 and 2019, was conducted. Findings reveal that the Egyptian government’s discourse included two components of strategic crisis communication: information-giving strategies that emphasize public well-being, and reputation-management strategies that focus on offsetting negative perceptions and affects about the government. Moreover, the government’s strategic approach was found to deviate from best practice advice in theory, especially regarding the selection of reputation-repair strategies. Findings are discussed in terms of their theoretical and practical implications for crisis communication researchers and government communicators. Keywords: Crisis Communication; Crisis Response Strategies; Egypt; Crisis in Egypt; Protests, Terrorism
Introduction
Terrorist attacks. Earthquakes. Epidemics. Demonstrations… Governments often encounter undesired and unexpected ‘crises’, where public safety and/or their own political survival are at high risk. At such critical moments, everyone looks to the leaders who are expected to deal with the immediate threats and are pressured to contain their citizens’
dissatisfaction (Boin, McConnell, & ‘t Hart, 2008; Boin, ‘t Hart, Stern, & Sundelius, 2005; Liu & Levenshus, 2012). Accordingly, political crisis communication research constitutes a rapidly growing field that aims to understand and inform governments’ crisis response efforts (Auer, 2016). In that light, this study zooms in on two types of crisis that impose significant pressure on governments worldwide, seeking to answer the following research question: What crisis
communication strategies do governmental actors employ in response to domestic terrorist attacks and anti-regime protests, and to what extent does the type of crisis inform the selection of strategies?
In particular, the study examines how Egyptian government actors responded to eight terror attacks and two nationwide protests between 2011 and 2019. A quantitative content
analysis of governmental statements was conducted, applying two mainstream paradigms in crisis response literature: The Model of Crisis Communication Content (Sturges, 1994) and The
Situational Crisis Communication Theory (SCCT) (Coombs, 2007, 2010).
This paper seeks to advance crisis communication literature in two ways. Firstly, political and governmental crises still constitute a “blind spot” (Auer, 2016, p.118) in this research field that has almost exclusively focused on the private sector. Most established theories are corporate-centered (Liu & Horsley, 2007; Olsson, 2014); and few studies examined their applicability in governmental contexts (Adkins, 2010; Chua & Pang, 2012; Clements, 2016; Jin, Pang, &
Cameron, 2006; Peijuan, Ting, & Pang, 2009; Zhang & Benoit, 2004). The present study follows in the latter’s footsteps by applying two well-established corporate crisis communication theories to nationwide crises. In doing so, it sheds light on some unique attributes of governments’
strategic goals, and offers a replicable operationalization of relevant crisis response strategies in the language of public officials. Secondly, tapping into the nuances of the Egyptian context, this research adds to a growing interest to contextualize crisis communication theories outside the liberal democratic settings where they are originated (Kim, 2014; Kimotho & Nyarang’o, 2019; Pang & Hu, 2018; Wu, Huang, & Kao, 2016). For instance, Wu et al. (2016, p.65) called for revising Western theories to account for China’s “hierarchical authoritarianism and relation-centered values”. In similar vein, this study addresses the extent to which crisis response
paradigms hold up in yet another setting, where values of democracy and accountability manifest very differently than in the West. Few studies examined crisis communication in Egypt (Alharbi, 2012; Anagondahalli, 2013; Koa, 2018), of which none addressed government-level discourse.
More practically, crisis communication research provides useful tools to crisis managers and the lay public (Ulmer, Sellnow, & Seeger, 2017). Crisis response theories seek to establish systematic frameworks for the most “appropriate strategic communication approaches and techniques” (Jin et al., p.83). Furthermore, unveiling the strategic aspects of crisis
communication is believed to contribute to the public’s awareness and autonomy as political consumers (Koa, 2018; Spiller & Bergner, 2011). Not only is political education essential for modern democracies to survive (Gutmann & Ben-Porath, 2014), but it also plays a key role in democratic transitions as in the Egyptian context (Liu, 2015). Accordingly, the findings of this study could offer sensible insights for government communicators and their audience of citizens.
Conceptual Framework
Political Crisis
The definition of a ‘crisis’ has been subject to a long debate in academic literature. Hermann (1963, p.64) identified it as an event that “(1) threatens high-priority values of the organization, (2) presents a restricted amount of time in which a response can be made, and (3) is unexpected or unanticipated by the organization”. Auer (2016) later offered a more specified conceptualization of a ‘political crisis’, arguing that the political dimension had remained “ambiguous” (p.119) due to the focus on the private sector. She defines ‘political crisis’ as:
“A situation in which a political entity perceives a higher than normal threat to one or more of its core values and finite time for response triggered by the behavioral change of another entity and that is characterized by disruptive interaction between the opposing entities” (Auer, 2016, p.123).
Adopting Auer’s definition, ‘terrorist attacks’ and ‘protests’ are addressed in this study as two types of political crises. Both impose high threats to the government by obstructing national security and stability, require quick response, and involve disruptive actions by protestors or terrorists. According to Lerbinger (1997, 2012)’s seven-categories crisis typology, ‘terrorism’ exemplifies a crisis of ‘malevolence’ when “opponents or miscreant individuals” (Lerbinger, 2012, p.185) use criminal actions to express hostility or seek gains from a company or country. Meanwhile, ‘protests’ are an example of ‘confrontational crisis’ where discontented people fight a company or government to satisfy certain demands.
Terrorism has attracted growing interest in crisis communication research following 9/11 attacks (An & Cheng, 2010; Boin et al., 2005; Boin et al., 2008; Canel & Sanders, 2010;
Clements, 2016; Kimotho & Nyarang’o, 2019). National protests are also identified in literature as ‘crisis situations’ (Bostan-Ünsal, 2013; Kavanaugh, Yang, Sheetz, Li, & Fox, 2011). Yet, few studies addressed protests from a communication perspective (Alharbi, 2012; Anagondahalli, 2013).
Crisis Communicators
According to Auer (2016), the political ‘entity’ or ‘actor’ involved in crisis
communication can be an individual (politician, diplomat), a political organization (government, military), or the whole state/territory (referring to public diplomacy). These categories reflect a micro, meso and macro level of reference to crisis communicators. Most empirical studies have focused on individual politicians, including Presidents (Alharbi, 2012; Anagondahalli, 2013; Benoit, 1982, 1999, 2006; Benoit & Henson, 2009; Benoit, Gullifor, & Panici, 1991) and international leaders (Edwards, 2008). Fewer studies addressed government discourse, often underlining public diplomacy in crises where international reputation is jeopardized (Chua & Pang, 2012; Zhang & Benoit, 2004). In this research, the political entity is conceptualized on the meso-level, addressing the ‘government’ as one encompassing organization managing domestic crises (Jin et al., 2006).
‘Government communication’ is defined by Canel and Sanders (2012, p.86) as a type of communication carried out by “executive politicians and officials in public institutions in the service of a political rationale”. To identify these officials, Walter (2017)’s operationalization of ‘government actors’ in EU countries was adopted. It covers national executives (e.g., heads of states, ministers), legislative actors, political administrations (e.g., civil servants, diplomats) and judiciary actors. Equally, the crisis communicators addressed in this study include the incumbent
president, cabinet members, civil servants (e.g., police), judiciary members, diplomats, and parliament members (excluding opposition parties1).
Crisis Communication: A Strategic Approach
Having identified the crisis and the speakers, the main focus of this study is on “the messages and meaning construction process” (Sellnow & Seeger, 2013, p.2) at times of crisis, which falls under a broad field of ‘crisis communication’ research. However, ‘crisis
communication’ lacks a consensual definition that is directly applicable in this study. One of the most comprehensive and heavily cited definitions is provided by Coombs (2010, p.20), as “the collection, processing, and dissemination of information required to address a crisis situation,” throughout three phases of crisis development: pre-crisis, crisis and post-crisis. A more focused definition by Fearn-Banks (2009) emphasizes “the dialog between the organization and its public prior to, during, and after the negative occurrence” (p. 7), including “strategies and tactics
designed to minimize damage to the image of the organization”. Underlining the ‘strategic’ and ‘rhetorical’ aspects of crisis communication, Fearn-Banks’ conceptualization is closer to how the concept is targeted in the present study. However, a more precise definition was needed to fit with the scope of the research inquiry.
Building on an extensive body of research that emphasizes “the strategic use of crisis responses” (Coombs, 2010, p.29) to achieve specific outcomes, this study only focuses on the content of the messages in the response phase of the crisis (Coombs, 2009). Moreover, although ‘protecting the image of the organization’ is a main focus in corporate literature where Fearn-Banks’ work is grounded, it does not fully reflect all strategic objectives in political contexts
1 Opposition parliament members are expected to represent their affiliated parties rather than the government’s
(Auer, 2016; Liu & Levenshus, 2012; Park, 2016). Accordingly, crisis communication is defined in this study as: the messages disseminated by a political organization or its representatives in response to a crisis, incorporating information and strategies targeting specific
objectives.
Theoretical Framework
The strategic approach to crisis communication dominates most academic interest in this field, translating the content and goals of crisis response messages into observable strategies (Allen & Caillouet, 1994; Benoit, 1995, 1997; Coombs, 1995, 1998, 2007; Sturges, 1994; Ware & Linkugel, 1973). This study draws on two mainstream paradigms in crisis communication literature. The Model of Crisis Communication Content (Sturges, 1994) is applied to examine the presence and sequence of three primary strategic functions in government crisis response. Additionally, the Situational Crisis Communication Theory (SCCT) (Coombs, 2007, 2010) is used to identify a variety of reputation-management strategies and how/whether they correlate with crisis types.
Model of Crisis Communication Content
Sturges (1994) developed a useful model that includes three categories of crisis response content, reflecting three sequential types of communication strategies (Cheng, 2018; Coombs, 2015). ‘Instructing information’ satisfies a public need for “immediate behavior responses” (Sturges, 1994, p.309), by notifying people how to physically cope with the crisis (Coombs, 2015). ‘Adjusting information’ helps people cope psychologically with the crisis by reducing uncertainties and stress (Sturges, 1994). It includes facts about the circumstances of the
public that the crisis is being managed (Holladay, 2010). Lastly, ‘Internalizing information’ provides what “people will use to formulate an image about the organization” (Sturges, 1994, p.308), targeting reputation management.
Sturges’ (1994, p.308) model suggests that “communication content to the public should be customized at each stage [of the crisis] to maximize its effectiveness”. First responses should offer ‘Instructing information,’ followed by ‘Adjusting information’ (Coombs, 2015). These two information-giving strategies show that the organization is in control and that it is concerned with people’s needs “to understand and cope with the crisis” (Holladay, 2010, p.164). Subsequently, when the crisis eases, ‘Internalizing information’ can be communicated (Sturges, 1994).
Information-giving strategies are, however, greatly neglected in literature (Coombs, 2015; Holladay, 2010), which almost exclusively focuses on reputation-repair. Moreover, based on an analysis of over 18 years of crisis communication research, Kim, Avery and Lariscy (2011) note that image-repair has been the primary goal of corporates, individuals and governments in their crisis responses. This study responds to Holladay (2010)’s call to warrant information-giving strategies greater academic attention.
Although the above model primarily targeted corporate crises, Liu and Levenshus (2012) mapped the same information categories against governments’ strategic goals when dealing with crises. They note that governments’ first goal is to ‘resolve the crisis’, which is fulfilled through ‘Instructing’ and ‘Adjusting’ information. Then, they shift to mitigating reputational and
relational damage, using reputation-management strategies.
Accordingly, drawing on the Model of Crisis Communication Content, four hypotheses were posited:
H1: Government actors respond to terrorism and protests using information-giving strategies, including H1a) Instructing information and H1b) Adjusting information.
H2: Government actors respond to terrorism and protests using reputation-repair strategies. H3: Government actors’ first responses only include information-giving strategies.
H4: Government actors start using reputation-repair strategies in later phases of the crisis.
Situational Crisis Communication Theory (SCCT)
The SCCT provides a framework to determine which reputation-repair options should be used once the two initial obligations —of ‘Instructing’ and ‘Adjusting’ information — are
fulfilled (Cheng, 2018; Coombs, 2007, 2010; Coombs & Holladay, 2002). It posits that “the crisis manager should select a crisis response strategy that is appropriate for the amount of potential reputational damage a crisis may inflict” (Coombs & Holladay, 2002, p. 168). The latter is shaped by three factors: “(1) initial crisis responsibility, (2) crisis history and (3) prior relational reputation” (Coombs, 2007, p.166).
The theory suggests that crisis managers should first determine the type of crisis, out of three clusters that induce different levels of (1) crisis responsibility (Coombs, 2007). The ‘victim cluster’ generates weak attributions of crisis responsibility and minimal reputational threat (e.g., natural disasters). The accidental cluster induces minimal responsibility attributions and moderate reputational threat (e.g., technical-error accidents). And the intentional/preventable cluster elicits strong attributions of responsibility and severe reputational threat (e.g., organizational misdeed). Subsequently, the other two elements should be considered as potential intensifying factors (e.g., victim crises coupled with history of similar events generate similar reputational threat as
accident crises) (Coombs, 2007). Once the assessment is done, the appropriate strategies are selected based on the anticipated levels of reputational damage.
Accordingly, a list of reputation-repair strategies is provided in the theory, “built around the perceived acceptance of responsibility for a crisis embodied in the response” (Coombs, 2007,
p.170). It comprises ten strategies under four categories that target different reputation-repair objectives, including accountability for the crisis and public perceptions of the organization:
1- Deny Strategies eliminate responsibility by claiming the crisis is non-existent or someone else is responsible for it. They include ‘Denial’, ‘Scapegoat’ and ‘Attacking accusers’. 2- Diminish Strategies reduce responsibility by claiming lack of control or intention, and/or
minimizing the seriousness of the event. They include ‘Excuse’ and ‘Justification’. 3- Rebuild Strategies offer material aid or an apology to the victims, to offset negative
perceptions and affects generated by the crisis. They include ‘Compensation’ and ‘Apology’.
4- Reinforce strategies capitalize on prior positive relations with the public and/or seek their sympathy, to counterbalance negative perceptions evoked by the crisis. They include ‘Reminder’, ‘Ingratiation’ and ‘Victimage2’. These strategies are considered a secondary option with minimal reputational assets, and are recommended to only be used to
supplement the above categories (Coombs, 2007). Table 1. outlines the SCCT’s guidelines (Coombs, 2007).
Table 1.
SCCT crisis response guidelines
2 Spelled as in theory
Crisis situation Recommendations
Victim crisis (without intensifying factors) Information-giving strategies can be enough
Victim crisis (acts of malevolence, rumors) ‘Victimage’ strategy can be useful as part of the response.
Few studies examined the SCCT in political contexts, and to an even lesser extent on government-level (Adkins, 2010; Jin et al., 2006; Kimotho & Nyarang’o, 2019). Of particular relevance to this paper, Lee (2009) compared the Korean government’s responses to different crises types, concluding that it used the appropriate strategies as per the SCCT’s
recommendations. Similarly, Clements (2016) analyzed the UK government’s responses to foreign terror attacks, which were also mostly found to conform with theoretical prescriptions. In contrast, Alharbi (2012) noted that the Egyptian and Tunisian presidents’ responses to the Arab Spring protests sometimes deviated from Coombs’ (1995) recommendations. He concluded that both presidents dominantly used strategies that seek to modify impressions about the government more than targeting crisis attributions.
In this paper, the SCCT was applied to predict responses to terrorism and protests, exemplifying two types of governmental crises. The former is classified in the theory as a victim crisis (Coombs, 2006); and given the recurrent terrorist threat in Egypt, a history of similar crises is valid as an intensifying factor. Meanwhile, protests are examined as ‘preventable’ crises (Alharbi, 2012), fitting as acts of “organization misdeed” (Coombs, 2007, p.168) under the SCCT’s third cluster.
Drawing on the guidelines in Table 1., two hypotheses were tested:
H5: Government actors respond to terrorist attacks using H5a) ‘Diminish’ strategies and H5b)
Victim crisis (coupled with intensifying factors) Accident crisis (Without intensifying factors)
Diminish strategies
Accident crisis (coupled with intensifying factors) Preventable crises
the Victimage strategy more than other reputation repair options.
H6: Government actors respond to protests using ‘Rebuild’ strategies more than other reputation-repair options.
Crisis Communication Strategies: Operationalization
To examine the research hypotheses, 15 crisis communication strategies derived from the above theories and further literature were operationalized.
Information-giving Strategies
‘Instructing’ and ‘Adjusting’ information have been difficult to differentiate in empirical research (Holladay, 2010). Moreover, Kim and Liu (2012) suggest that one reason why these strategies are neglected in literature is the lack of adequate operationalization. Accordingly, based on their original definitions and former applications (Holladay, 2010; Liu, 2010; Maresh & Williams, 2010; Sturges, 1994), the two strategies are operationalized in this study as follows: ‘Instructing information’ (S1) is limited to advice/instructions to the public for physical
protection (e.g., ‘people are advised to stay home’). Distinctively, ‘Adjusting information’ (S2) comprises sharing sympathy, reassurance, and facts about the event (e.g., ‘Our hearts are with the victims’, ‘We are tracking the terrorists’).
Reputation-repair Strategies
Reputation-repair strategies are operationalized as a collection of 13 options presented in Table 2. In addition to the SCCT’s ten strategies, three others were added3 for their expected relevance in the targeted contexts. ‘Provocation’ (Benoit, 1997) was added to ‘Diminish’
3 Amalgamating different lists is a common approach when extending the SCCT to political settings (Clements,
strategies; and ‘Rectification/corrective action4’ (Benoit, 1997) and ‘Transcendence’ (Coombs, 1995; Ware & Linkugel, 1973) to ‘Rebuild’ strategies (Liu, 2010; Liu & Levenshus, 2012).
The SCCT’s denotations were the main reference in defining the strategies (Coombs, 2007, 2010), in addition to further elaborations in overlapping theories (Benoit, 1997; Ware & Linkugel, 1973), Coombs’ earlier work (1995), and limited applications in contexts of terrorism (Kimotho & Nyarang’o, 2019), protests (Alharbi, 2012; Anagondahalli, 2013), and government communication in general (Liu & Levenshus, 2012).
Table 2.
Reputation-repair strategies
Category Strategy Definition Examples
Deny Denial (S3) Claims the crisis and/or
action(s) repelled by the public did not happen.
“There is no evidence of terrorist attack.”
“We didn’t shoot protestors.”
Attacking accusers (S4)
Threatens/confronts those claiming a crisis or government wrongdoing, to reduce their credibility.
“The lying media claims…”
“Violent protestors are destroying the country and will be jailed.”
Scapegoat/Shif ting blame (S5)
Blames someone else for the crisis or accused wrongdoing (another government actor or external force).
“The responsible official was laid off.”
“This is the work of foreign conspirers.”
4 Coombs (2007)’s SCCT lists Corrective action as a sub-component of Adjusting information. However, it is
included in this study as a reputation-repair strategy following other academic conventions (Benoit, 1997; Coombs, 1995).
Diminish Provocation (S6)
Claims the accused acts were a necessary reaction to someone else’s offensive act.
“Police used tear gas to contain violent protests.”
Excuse (S7) Limits responsibility for the crisis by claiming good intentions and/or lack of control.
“We did not mean to…” “Terrorism is an international threat.”
Justification (S8)
Minimizes the perceived damage of the crisis or its seriousness.
“The protests are not as large as media claims.”
“This attack hurt us but didn’t break us.”
Rebuild Compensation (S9)
Offers aid/gifts to the victims. “Martyrs’ families will receive LE3000.”
“The state will cover the victims’ medical expenses.”
Apology (S10) Acknowledges responsibility and asks for forgiveness.
“I apologize…”
Rectification/C orrective Action (S11)
Announces actions/system changes to avoid similar crises, or promises better
performance.
“We’ve tightened security around churches.”
Transcendence (S12)
Redirects attention away from the crisis to a broader (more favorable) context; or establishes positive
identification with the public.
“Let’s put the country first.” “The attack will not stop our courageous war against terrorism.”
“Let’s stand behind the government.”
Reinforce Reminder (S13)
Mentions past good deeds of the government or individual official.
“We caught numerous terrorists.” “Our economy is doing better than ever.”
Ingratiation (S14)
Praises crisis stakeholders (e.g., individuals who started the protests, martyrs) or the general public.
“The victims are martyrs.”
“Protesting is a democratic right.” “The great Egyptian people…”
Victimage (S15)
Frames the government as a suffering victim.
“Terrorism targets our
development/stability/growth.” “Soldiers/policemen were killed.” “Protestors destroyed government buildings.”
Methodology
Case(s) Selection
Governments worldwide have faced crisis events of different shapes and forms for centuries, of which terrorism and protests make a considerable share. This study focuses on
Egypt, as an example of an under-researched environment in crisis communication literature in specific (Anagondahalli, 2013) and government communication literature in general (Canel & Sanders, 2012). More importantly, contemporary Egypt provides rich material to study anti-regime protests and terrorist attacks, which were narrowed down to ten key events.
Concerning protests, the study focuses on the only two uprisings that managed to overthrow the ruling regime in modern Egyptian history. In January 2011, 15 to 20 million
Egyptians took the streets to remove President Hosny Mubarak (Gunning & Baron, 2014). And in 2013, 14 to 30 million protestors demonstrated against the Muslim Brotherhood President
Muhamed Morsi (Ketchley, 2017).
Regarding terrorist attacks, the range of possibilities is much wider. Out of thousands of events, eight were selected between 2011 and 2019. The year 2011 marks the beginning of exceptionally increasing rates of terrorist attacks in Egypt and the surrounding region (Institute for Economics and Peace, 2017); and at the moment, 2019 marks the most recent attack. Within this period, it was decided to include attacks against different targets, to provide a representative collection of ‘terrorism’ in the Egyptian context. Accordingly, the analyzed events include attacks against churches, soldiers, a mosque, a plane, and one bombing that had unidentified targets. Moreover, number of victims (>20) was set as a threshold to narrow down multiple churches and soldiers’ attacks within the timeframe. Hence, out of four churches attacks, three were included. And among multiple soldiers’ attacks within the threshold, two notable ones were selected. One is the first major attack on Egyptian military since 2011 (Chilton & Nada, 2020), marking a turning point in this context (Idris, 2017). The second is one of the deadliest events in recent years, which attracted public attention for its special circumstances — 28 military guards were ‘massacred’ while fasting in Ramadan, targeted by a former soldier-turned militant (Middle East Monitor, 2020) —.
Altogether, responses to ten events were analyzed. Qidiseen Church bombing (2011), 2011 protests, Rafah soldiers attack (2012), 2013 Protests, New-Valley border guards attack (2014), Metrojet flight 9268 downing (2015), Saints Peter & Paul Cathedrals bombing (2016), Palm Sunday churches bombing (2017), Sinai Mosque attack (2017), and Cairo bombing (2019) (Appendix A provides an overview for each event). It is worth noting that the events are
distributed across three regimes: two under Mubarak (1981-2011); two under Morsi (2012-2013); and six under current President Abdel-fattah al Sisi (2014-Present).
Research method
The study adopted a quantitative content analysis approach, which is commonly used in crisis communication research when intended to focus on the messages invoked by crisis
managers (e.g., media reports, social media posts) (Coombs, 2010). Quantitative studies are also recommended in this field to extend beyond qualitative designs that come short of providing generalizable results (Kimotho & Nyarang'o, 2019). However, the purposeful selection of the events and the inherent limitations of single-country research still restrict this study’s external validity. Moreover, one disadvantage of doing quantitative studies in under-researched contexts is that hidden meanings and explanations might be overlooked (Rahman, 2017). This was addressed by incorporating some characteristics of the Egyptian environment in the operationalization of the strategies, to allow for educated inferences. Additionally, findings are discussed in reference to the region’s political culture (Kazemi & Norton, 2006).
Data collection
The data was collected from the news website Ahram Gate (Bawabet Al Ahram),
has over 15 publications, of which Ahram Gate is the only Arabic-language website currently available. Examining crisis communication through media texts is a common research method (Jin et al., 2006; Peijuan et al., 2009). According to Martinelli and Briggs (1998), it provides a fuller reflection of crisis responses than other data sources like press releases. Moreover, relying on a prestigious pro-establishment outlet is believed to provide “a fair representation of the government's efforts, intentions, stances and strategies” (Jin et al., 2006) in crises times.
Founded in 1875, Al Ahram has the highest circulation in Egypt and the Arab world, distributing over one million daily copies (El-Bendary, 2010). It is also considered the official mouthpiece of the government. According to ‘Reporters Without Borders’ (“Al Ahram,” n.d.), Al Ahram “is the sole source of many news, decisions and plans of the government, and its
employees have relations that allow them access to information and executive officials in the state”. Hence, it provides rich material for this research.
The unit of data analysis in the study is the ‘statements’ of government actors, during Al Ahram’s coverage of the selected events. Due to the inadequacy of the website’s search engine, a JavaScript code was used to collect all articles published within a sampling period decided for each event. In ‘terrorism’ crises, this was set to 21 days from the occurrence of the attack (Comfort & Sungu, 2001). Regarding 2011 protests, it was set to 18 days, which is the
acknowledged duration of the uprisings in the media (Blair & Nakhoul, 2011; Knell, 2012) and in literature (Almaskati, 2012). It starts on the day the protests erupted in Tahrir Square (Jan. 25), to the day the President stepped down (Feb. 11). However, five days were missing from the website (Jan. 28 – Feb. 1). The 2013 protests are harder to pin down because they went on and off for months. A 21-days timeframe was followed for the purpose of consistency, ending on the day the President was overthrown (July 3). A keyword(s) search was then applied to the headlines,
content and tags of all collected articles5. Few irrelevant articles that emerged from the search were excluded, by determining whether they addressed the event(s) of interest. Lastly, the remaining articles were screened to sort out responses by government actors, including quotes, paraphrased statements (Martinelli & Briggs, 1998), speech excerpts and press releases.
Drawing on Walter (2017)’s operationalization of government actors, the collected statements included those of the president, parliament/parliament members (excluding
opposition), ministers/ministries, diplomats, governors, judicial sources and civil servants. The latter were limited to representatives of national institutions like the Council of Women and Dar Al Iftaa (Egyptian government center for Islamic legal research), state-appointed Imams, police, and military. Few more relevant actors emerged in some events and were coded as ‘other’6. Statements by resigning and former officials were not included. Moreover, a few duplicated statements were eliminated in the final sample, vetted by date and time.
The resulting sample includes 1,390 statements: 1,043 responses to terrorism and 347 responses to protests. The former addressed the attack, and/or accusations of insufficient measures to prevent it. The latter addressed the uprisings, how they were managed, and
accusations that sparked them. These rhetoric lines were treated as sub-dimensions of each crisis, covering several offensive/repelled acts (Benoit, 1997; War & Linkugel, 1973) addressed in the communication.
Reliability
In each statement, the aforementioned strategies were coded as present/absent. The codebook (See Appendix B) was first tested on a small sample, then adjusted with more
5 Keywords: ‘protestor(s)’ in protests events, and the targets of the attacks (e.g., name of mosque, church, plane,
location) in terrorism crises. See all keywords in Appendix A
6 ‘Other’ actors included airport officials during the plane downing crisis, ambulance chiefs, and special investigation
examples to reflect the context of the events. After coding all statements, an Inter-Coder Reliability test was conducted on a randomly selected 10.1% of the overall sample (n = 140). Using Krippendorf’s Alpha as a measure of reliability (Hayes & Krippendorff, 2007), all coefficients were within accepted limits, ranging between .67 and 1.0, with an average of .85 (See full scores in Appendix C.1).
Findings
The analysis depended on measured frequencies of the 15 strategies, and chi-square tests of statistical significance if required7. In each event, 85.91% to 97.96% of collected statements reflected at least one strategy. The remaining statements did not fit under any of the codes, including international endorsements and general remarks. Notably, ministerial statements were the most frequent (n = 433, 31.15%), followed by local governors (n = 188, 13.53%) (See Appendix C.2). Moreover, the three regimes between 2011 and 2019 made up 19.06%, 22.66% and 58.27% of the sample, in line with the disproportional ruling periods within the timeframe. Number of collected statements also varied among the events. Table 3. presents an overview of the data; and a detailed breakdown is provided in Appendix C.38.
Table 3. Data overview Terrorism (N = 1,043) Protests (N = 347) Statements Qidiseen Church Rafah attack New-Valley attack Metrojet flight Cathedr als bombing Palm Sunday Mosque attack Cairo bombing 2011 protests 2013 protests Total statements 134 (100%) 98 (100%) 49 (100%) 149 (100%) 132 (100%) 213 (100%) 237 (100%) 30 (100%) 131 (100%) 217 (100%) Statements reflecting strategies 128 (95.52%) 94 (95.91%) 48 (97.96%) 128 (85.91%) 115 (87.12%) 201 (94.37%) 223 (94.09%) 27 (90%) 125 (95.42%) 190 (87.56%)
7Analysis was done using SPSS and Python
Hypothesis 1 proposed that government actors would respond to all events using information-giving strategies, including H1a) ‘Instructing information’ and H1b) ‘Adjusting
information’. Findings show that ‘Instructing information’ was absent in terrorism responses (n = 0) and appeared 3 times during protests communication (n = 3, 0.9%). Hence, H1a was rejected in the first crisis type, and barely supported in the second. In contrast, ‘Adjusting information’ was prominent in all events, reflected in 41.98% to 80% of responses to each crisis. Overall, it appeared in 61.6% (n = 643) of terrorism responses and 50.4% (n = 175) of protests responses. Hence, H1b was supported. Tables 4.1 and 4.2 present the frequencies of information-giving strategies in each crisis type.
Table 4.1
Information-giving strategies in terrorism crises (N =1,043)
Table 4.2
Information-giving strategies in protests crises (N = 347) Strategy n % of total Qidiseen Church Rafah attack New-Valley attack Metrojet flight Cathedr als bombing Palm Sunday Mosque attack Cairo bomb ing Total Instructing Information n % 0 0% 0 0% 0 0% 0 0% 0 0% 0 0% 0 0% 0 0% 0 0% Adjusting Information n % 76 56.72% 69 70.40% 38 77.55% 94 63.09% 82 62.12% 132 61.97% 128 54% 24 80% 643 61.6% Strategy n
% of total 2011 Protests 2013 Protests Total
Instructing Information n % 2 1.53% 1 0.46% 3 0.9% Adjusting Information n % 55 41.98% 120 55.3% 175 50.4%
Hypothesis 2 predicted that responses to each crisis would also include reputation-repair strategies. To test this hypothesis, the latter were computed as one dichotomous variable, reported as (1) if the statement included any of the 13 strategies in Table 2. and (0) if none were used. Reputation-repair strategies were used in each event, ranging between 39.6% and 80.59% of total responses. Overall, they were reflected in 69.7% of terrorism responses (n = 727) and 64.3% of protests responses (n = 223) (See Tables 5.1 and 5.2). Hence, H2 was supported.
Table 5.1
Reputation-repair strategies in terrorism crises (N = 1,043)
Table 5.2
Reputation-repair strategies in protests crises (N = 347)
Strategy n
% of total
2011 Protests 2013 Protests Total
Reputation-repair strategies n % 102 77.86% 122 56.22% 223 64.3%
Hypotheses 3 and 4 examined the sequence of crisis communication strategies
throughout each crisis. H3 predicted that first responses would only include information-giving strategies. H4 proposed that reputation-repair strategies would be used in later phases of the crisis. To test these hypotheses, the combined variables of ‘Information-giving’ and ‘Reputation-repair’ strategies were plotted to illustrate their development in each event (Clements, 2016). Figure 1 shows no difference in the trends of employment of the two strategic components, which Strategy n % of total Qidiseen Church Rafah attack New-Valley attack Metrojet flight Cathedr als bombing Palm Sunday Mosque attack Cairo bombing Total Reputation-repair strategies n % 92 68.66% 78 79.59% 44 89.8% 59 39.6% 93 70.45% 156 73.24% 191 80.59% 13 43.33% 727 69.7%
were used interchangeably from the first day. Hence, H3 and H4 were rejected based on empirical evidence, requiring no additional statistical measures.
Figure 1
Development trends in the employment of information-giving and reputation-repair strategies in the 10 analyzed events 0 10 20 30 1 18 n DAY 2011 Protests 0 10 20 30 1 21 n DAY 2013 Protests 0 10 20 30 40 1 21 n DAY Metrojet Flight 0 10 20 30 1 21 n DAY Qidiseen Church 0 10 20 30 1 21 n DAY Rafah Attack 0 10 20 30 1 21 n DAY New-Valley Attack
Note. x-axis = crisis days, y-axis = frequencies of the strategies in the event sub-sample.
The second set of hypotheses examined the SCCT’s four reputation-repair categories and their sub-variants, in association with crisis types. To compute each category out of the individual strategies, four dichotomous variables were created, reported as (1) if the statement included any of the sub-variant strategies and (0) if none were used. The hypotheses were first tested for each type, treating all terror/protests events as one group. Then, exceptional events were considered.
Before testing the hypotheses, a chi-square test of independence was performed, examining the relation between crisis types and the four categories. The relation was found statistically significant for the ‘Rebuild’, ‘Deny’ and ‘Reinforce’ categories (p < .05), but not for the ‘Diminish’ category (p = .175). This supports the prediction that crisis type influences the selected strategies.
Hypothesis 5 expected that a) ‘Diminish’ strategies and b) ‘Victimage’ strategy would be the most frequent reputation-repair options in terrorism responses. To test H5a, the ‘Diminish’
0 30 60 90 1 21 n DAY Palm Sunday 0 10 20 30 1 21 n DAY Cairo Bombing 0 10 20 30 40 50 1 21 n DAY Cathedral Bombing 0 20 40 60 80 1 21 n DAY Mosque Attack
category was computed as one variable, including ‘Provocation’, ‘Excuse’ and ‘Justification’. In contrast to the hypothesis, this category was the least prominent in terrorism responses (n = 73, 7%). Table 6.1 lists the four categories in descending order, where ‘Diminish’ strategies ranked fourth. Table 6.2 also shows that none of the latter’s sub-variant strategies topped terrorism responses. Individual events showed no remarkable exceptions. Hence, H5a was rejected.
Concerning H5b, as seen in Table 6.2, ‘Victimage’ strategy was the third most frequent within terrorism responses (n = 252, 24.16%). This finding does not support the hypothesis. Nevertheless, in the two events involving attacks on soldiers, ‘Victimage’ ranked first, recording 46 counts (46.94%) within responses to Rafah attack and 31 counts (63.26%) within responses to New-Valley attack (See Table 6.3). To examine the statistical significance of this finding, a chi-square test was conducted, comparing the frequency of the ‘Victimage’ strategy to each of the
Table 6.1
Reputation-repair categories in terrorism crises in descending order (N = 1,043)
Table 6.2
Reputation-repair strategies in terrorism crises in descending order (N = 1,043)
Reputation-repair categories n % of total Reputation-repair Strategies n % of total
Rebuild Strategies 508 48.71% Transcendence 360 34.52%
Reinforce Strategies 451 43.24% Ingratiation 307 29.43%
Deny Strategies 179 17.16% Victimage 252 24.16%
Diminish Strategies 73 7% Corrective Action 140 13.42%
Scapegoat 122 11.7% Compensation 73 7.0% Excuse 69 6.62% Reminder 53 5.08% Denial 45 4.31% Attacking accuser 27 2.59% Justification 12 1.15% Provocation 0 0% Apology 0 0%
other strategies9 in these events. The test indicated no statistically significant difference between ‘Victimage’ and ‘Corrective Action’ (p = .518) or ‘Ingratiation’ (p = .222) in the first event. Similarly, in the second event, there was no statistically significant difference between
‘Victimage’ and ‘Ingratiation’ (p = .898). Hence, H5b was rejected for all terrorism crises, and on event-level.
Table 6.3.
Reputation-repair strategies in Rafah and New-Valley attacks in descending order
Rafah Attack (N = 98) New-Valley Attack (N = 49) Reputation-repair
Strategies n % of total Reputation-repair Strategies n % of total
Victimage 46 46.94% Victimage 31 63.26%
Corrective Action 40 40.82% Ingratiation 30 61.22%
Ingratiation 35 35.71% Transcendence 18 36.73%
Transcendence 12 12.24% Corrective Action 11 22.45%
Scapegoat 12 12.24% Scapegoat 6 12.24%
Compensation 5 5.1% Reminder 5 10.2%
Reminder 2 2.04% Compensation 4 8.16%
Denial 1 1.02% Excuse 3 6.12%
Excuse 1 1.02% Justification 3 6.12%
Attacking accusers 0 0% Denial 0 0%
Justification 0 0% Attacking accusers 0 0%
Provocation 0 0% Provocation 0 0%
Apology 0 0% Apology 0 0%
Hypothesis 6 proposed that government actors would respond to protests using ‘Rebuild’ strategies more than other reputation-repair options. To test this hypothesis, the ‘Rebuild’
9Chi-Square goodness of fit test measures the significance of univariate distributions. H0 = Both
category was computed as one variable, including ‘Compensation’, ‘Apology’, ‘Corrective Action’ and ‘Transcendence’. Within responses to protests (N = 347), Rebuild strategies appeared in 114 statements (32.85%), ranking second (See Table 7.1). None of the sub-variants of this category also topped the list (See Table 7.2). Nevertheless, findings on the events-level were again inconsistent. During 2011 protests, ‘Rebuild’ strategies were the most prominent (n = 57, 43.51%), followed by ‘Reinforce’ (n = 54, 41.22%), ‘Deny’ (n = 43, 32.82%) and ‘Diminish’ (n = 17, 12.98%). To test the significance of this finding, another chi-square test was conducted, revealing no statistically significant difference between ‘Rebuild’ and ‘Reinforce’ category (p = 0.776) or ‘Deny ‘category (p = 0.162) in the event’s responses. Hence, H6 was rejected for all protests and on event-level.
Table 7.1
Reputation-repair categories in protests crises (N = 347)
Table 7.2
Reputation-repair strategies in protests crises (N = 347) Reputation-repair category n % of total Reputation-repair Strategies n % of total
Reinforce Strategies 122 35.16% Ingratiation 71 20.46%
Rebuild Strategies 114 32.85% Victimage 70 20.17%
Deny Strategies 107 30.84% Corrective Action 68 19.6%
Diminish Strategies 32 9.22% Transcendence 61 17.58%
Attacking accusers 49 14.12% Denial 47 13.54% Scapegoat 41 11.82% Reminder 19 5.48% Justification 15 4.32% Excuse 13 3.75% Provocation 9 2.59% Compensation 5 1.44% Apology 3 0.86%
Discussion and Conclusion
The study unpacked Egyptian government actors’ communications strategies in response to terrorism and protests, representing two crisis types. In doing so, it provides insights to extend and contextualize mainstream crisis communication theories, and to inform governments’ communication efforts.
Findings show that across all events, government actors’ responses included two strategic components: 1) information-giving strategies that address the public’s physical and psychological needs, and 2) reputation-repair strategies. This twofold approach upholds the main strategic functions of crisis communication as suggested in theory (Coombs, 2010; Sturges, 1994), and conforms with what are believed to be governments’ primary goals in crisis times (Liu & Levenshus, 2012).
As information-giving strategies are neglected in literature (Holladay, 2010), this study confirms that they warrant greater attention by underlining their frequency in government
communication. Nevertheless, it is worth noting that ‘Instructing Information’ was almost absent in the sample, whereas —the more psychological— ‘Adjusting Information’ was prominent. This is not entirely odd, since ‘Adjusting information’ is required in all crisis types (Liu & Levenshus, 2012), while ‘Instructing Information’ is only needed in crises “where physical threats are likely” (p. 114). Hence, in terrorism responses, the lack of ‘Instructing Information’ is understandable because physical threats are over by the time the communication starts. However, during protests where threats remain high, it suggests insufficient regard for public needs (Coombs, 2015).
Interestingly, ‘Information-giving’ and ‘Reputation-repair’ strategies were used
simultaneously throughout each crisis. This again contradicts with what is suggested in theory to ensure the efficacy of crisis communication. Sturges (1994, p.309) states that during crisis
breakout, reputation-repair tactics “should be reduced or eliminated entirely because of the possible negative reaction of the audience”. On the one hand, the unexpected pattern in the data can be interpreted as a function of the complexity of political crises, since governments need to respond to both the immediate damage and public dissatisfaction in timely manner (Boin et al., 2005). On the other hand, it could be another sign of inadequacy in the government’s approach, calling for better attention to public needs at different crisis stages (Sturges, 1994).
The study then examined the SCCT’s prescriptive guidelines, matching crisis situations with reputation-repair options. Findings mostly support scholarly assumptions that different crisis types evoke different strategies (Coombs, 2007). However, the results again deviated from theoretical guidelines. Contrary to the SCCT’s recommendations, ‘Diminish’ strategies were the least prominent in terrorism responses, and ‘Victimage’ strategy only ranked third. Interestingly, the most frequent in response to terrorism were ‘Rebuild’ strategies, which were predicted to dominate protests responses. Meanwhile, the most prominent during protests were ‘Reinforce’ strategies that are believed to offer “minimal opportunity to develop reputational assets” (Coombs, 2007, p.172).
Accordingly, the SCCT failed to explain the Egyptian government’s strategic approach, which can be interpreted as a function of a cultural gap in the Western-rooted theory (Kimotho & Nyarang’o, 2019). For instance, the SCCT’s assumptions are based on notions of ‘Responsibility’ and ‘Accountability’ (Coombs, 2007), which are valued differently in Egypt than in Western democracies. Kazemi and Norton (2006, p.201) note that within Middle Eastern polities, “rulers are more likely to change as a result of actuarial realities than a withdraw of public confidence”. This might explain why ‘Deny’ and ‘Diminish’ strategies that seek to reduce crisis responsibility were rare in all crisis responses, whereas ‘Reinforce’ and ‘Rebuild’ strategies that target general perceptions were prominent. Alharbi (2012) came to a similar conclusion regarding the Tunisian
and Egyptian presidents’ responses to the Arab Spring, noting that they did not prioritize crisis attribution strategies. Equally, however, the gaps between theory and practice could be due to inadequate planning from the government’s side (Kim, 2014).
Another notable finding is that individual events within each crisis type revealed
inconsistencies. For instance, when soldiers were attacked, government actors tended to victimize themselves more than during attacks against churches or mosques10. Although this finding was not statistically significant within the scope of the hypotheses, it calls into question the validity of crisis typology as a primary determinant of the selection of strategies (Coombs, 2007). In fact, an additional chi-square test of independence revealed a statistically significant difference across terror events, regarding the use of ‘Deny’, ‘Rebuild’ and ‘Reinforce’ strategies (p < 0.001). Similar differences were also spotted between protests (See Appendix C.3). These internal variations were beyond the scope of the study. Yet, they present promising avenues for future research, which should measure how much the targets of terrorism, the ruling regimes, and other nuances influence the selection of crisis response strategies.
In sum, findings show that Egyptian government actors’ crisis communication strategies emphasized the public’s psychological needs through sympathy and reassurance, and sought to mitigate reputational damage. The latter slightly differed between crisis types, but mostly addressed public perceptions and affects about the government. Moreover, although the applied paradigms were proven useful in analyzing governmental responses, they did not entirely accommodate the examined context.
In light of the latter, this study has valuable theoretical implications. As noted, it is likely that the political and cultural dynamics in Egypt moderated the theories’ assumptions —such as the
notion of ‘crisis responsibility’ having less value than expected in the SCCT (Coombs, 2007)—. This conforms with Wu et al. (2016) and Kimotho and Nyarang’o (2019)’s criticism of a
Westernized bias in crisis communication literature, underlining that it does not fully
accommodate other cultural values. Moreover, two strategies appended to the SCCT’s corporate-based list were prominent in government discourse (‘Transcendence’, ‘Corrective action’), in addition to other threads that emerged frequently in the data (e.g., endorsements). This suggests a need to extend the theory, in order to fully reflect the nuances of ‘government’ crisis
communication. Accordingly, the present study contributes to extrapolating the applied theories outside their typical Western and corporate contexts, by highlighting entryways to accommodate the political dynamics in under-researched environments.
Another asset of this paper is the contextual operationalization of corporate-rooted strategies to fit with political crises in Middle Eastern/Arab settings. The synthesized definitions and accompanied examples were proven useful in detecting the targeted strategies. An especially notable addition was incorporating the notion of ‘martyrdom’ into the ‘Ingratiation’ strategy, which was indeed a common ‘praising’ expression in government discourse. That said, subsequent research should break down the sub-dimensions of ‘Adjusting Information’ (facts, reassurance, sympathy), given the abundance of this multifarious strategy in government discourse.
The study also has practical implications for crisis managers and lay citizens. It offers clues for more efficient communication by highlighting potential inadequacies in government
discourse. For instance, the frequent use of the — relatively weak — ‘Reinforce’ strategies (Coombs, 2007) might explain why the regimes could not speak their way out of the protests that overthrew their rule. Additionally, uncovering hidden strategies in government rhetoric raises citizens’ awareness towards the disseminated messages in similar situations.
Nonetheless, the study’s limitations must be acknowledged. First, in a context where data access is exceptionally challenging, the sampling process was complex and lengthy. This relatively limits the study’s reliability, which was minimized by clearly reporting all steps. Second, as noted by Rose, Spinks and Canhoto (2015), content analysis cannot provide
explanations for unexpected findings. Accordingly, despite the above contributions in terms of underlining theoretical inconsistencies, all interpretations are speculative (Bryman, 2012). To adequately explain the revealed gaps between theory and practice, experimental studies (Coombs & Holladay, 1996) should measure the impact of different strategies on citizens’ perceptions, as they represent the decisive actors for the effectiveness of crisis communication. A third limitation relates to the challenge of coding ‘strategies’ in textual content, especially given the complexity of the Arabic language. To avoid the risk of biased interpretations (Rose et al., 2015), it was decided to only code manifest elements as prescribed in the codebook. Nevertheless, this
approach led to disregarding all uncertain/indirect reflections of the strategies, which could have enriched the findings. Mixing quantitative research with more in-depth qualitative analysis could unpack more nuances in government discourse.
To conclude, this study offers an overview of a complex phenomenon, hoping to pave the way for more elaborate investigations of government crisis communication. Given the similar political dynamics among Middle Eastern governments (Kazemi & Norton, 2006), the results are expected to be valid in other countries of the region where “accountability to the public is
generally weak” (p. 201). However, as noted, the findings’ generalizability should be regarded with caution given the limited scope of the study. It can be verified by incorporating other countries’ responses to similar crises, and analyzing more events within the Egyptian context.
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