Master Thesis
Student:
Student ID:
Supervisor:
2nd examiner:
Date:
Linus Wilhelm Schumacher
s1012223
Dr. Joost Luyckx Prof. Ayse Saka-Helmhout12.08.2019
Keywords: legitimacy struggle, social media, discursive strategy, automotive industry, discursive antagonismHow do organizations in the automotive industry make use of discursive
strategies in the arena of social media to retain legitimacy in times of
crisis?
Abstract
In recent times the automotive industry has become the centre of attention through various scandals across several brands around the world. The wide reaching debate and criticisms about the companies’ actions have left a struggle for preserving their legitimacy. The public scrutiny, especially done by the media has left the companies to search for viable options of reaching out to the public in an attempt for re-legitimation. With the emergence of the Internet and the social media, new possibilities of connecting to the public in a more direct manner have been established. Henceforth the aim of this research project is the investigation on which discursive strategies the automotive companies actually use in the new arena of social media in an attempt to regain their legitimacy. The analysis of the collected data has shown that besides the various angles and influences of discourse on legitimacy, one particular strategy appeared to stand out in the arena of social media. The discursive antagonism, as identified by Luyckx & Janssens (2016), is the strategy where the actor aims to portray a positive self-image (purification) and undermines the credibility of the opposing actor (polluting). Previous studies in this field of research have taken into account the traditional media, where the information flow is a one-way street and an active interaction between the company and the public is impossible. However, this thesis researches how the use of social media has overcome this hurdle and allows for an interaction, where the discursive antagonism can be used as a powerful tool for (re)legitimation.Acknowledgement
I would like to express my gratefulness to everyone from the Masters of Business Administration program at Radboud University, who guided and supported me throughout the process of completing this research project. My deepest gratitude goes to my supervising tutor Dr. Joost Luyckx who has constantly supported and encouraged me during the process of conducting this research project. He generously dedicated much time to our one-to-one meetings throughout the entire year, providing me with great assistance. Further, I would also like to acknowledge Prof. Ayse Saka-Helmhout as the second reader of this master thesis. I am gratefully indebted to her for her very valuable comments on this research project. Additionally I would like to thank my family and friends for their continuous encouragement and support throughout the journey of researching and writing this master thesis.
Table of content
1. INTRODUCTION
1
1.1 LEGITIMACY STRUGGLES OVER CONTESTED CORPORATE UNDERTAKINGS 1 1.2 RESEARCH QUESTION 22. THEORY
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2.1 LEGITIMACY 4 2.2 LEGITIMACY FROM A PROCESSUAL PERSPECTIVE 5 2.3 DISCURSIVE PERSPECTIVE ON LEGITIMACY 7 2.4 LEGITIMACY STRUGGLE AND SOCIAL MEDIA 93. METHODOLOGY
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3.1 CASE SETTING 12 3.2 INITIAL COLLECTION 14 3.3 DATA OVERVIEW 16 3.4 CODING 174. FINDINGS
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4.1 CRITICISMS BY NEWSPAPER 19 4.2 DEADLY AUTOPILOT-ACCIDENT 21 4.3 DELIVERY ISSUES 23 4.4 DISPUTE WITH JOURNALISTS 255. DISCUSSION
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5.1 LIMITATIONS OF RESEARCH PROJECT 31 5.2 RECOMMENDATIONS FOR FUTURE RESEARCH 316. CONCLUSION
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7. REFERENCES
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8. APPENDIX
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APPENDIX I. TWITTER FOLLOWER DISTRIBUTION WITHOUT ELON MUSK 39 APPENDIX II. TWITTER FOLLOWER DISTRIBUTION WITH ELON MUSK 39 APPENDIX III. CRISIS A 40 APPENDIX IV. CRISIS B 43 APPENDIX V. CRISIS C 45 APPENDIX VI. CRISIS D 49 APPENDIX VII. CODING PATHWAY 541. Introduction
On a global scale, the automotive industry has recovered itself from the economic crisis (Mohr et al., 2013). More so, post-crisis in 2012 industry profits were significantly higher (EUR 54 billion) than in the pre-crisis year (EUR 41billion), with future prognosis indicating further increase by EUR 25 billion (Mohr et al., 2013). Despite these bright looking profit figures, the automotive industry has experienced over the past decades severe set backs and scandals, often publically denunciated by the media, which left the companies with severe harm to their legitimacy. To encounter damage to their legitimacy, the companies continuously seek for new ways of connecting with their customers and with the emergence of the Internet and the introduction of social media, new opportunities have arisen for the companies in the automotive industry. The aim of this research therefore is to investigate what discursive strategy is being used by the organizations in these new forms of social media, in order to restore and strengthen their legitimacy, especially after a scandal or crisis. Empirical studies on both, social media and legitimacy from a scientific research perspective are apparent to be limited. This can be reasoned with the fact that large social media platforms, like Twitter (2006), have been around for no more than a decade (Gerbaudo, 2018). Yet, it must be acknowledged that some empirical studies have been carried out in the field of corporate legitimacy.1.1 Legitimacy struggles over contested corporate undertakings
The majority of studies focusing on legitimacy struggles over corporate actions and practices have studied processes of (de)legitimation in the arena of traditional media. Henceforth it is indispensible to acknowledge the existing research that has been carried out prior to this research project, as it allows constructing a knowledge foundation. The study of Joutsenvirta and Vaara (2009) was conceded in an attempt to shed some light into this unexplored area of research. The study outlines that a central part of building legitimacy for such controversial corporate actions is achieved through argumentation. Hence, they argue that people do not use language only to make accurate representations of certain objects, but rather to accomplish things (e.g., Alvesson &Kärreman,2000; Potter & Wetherell,1987). Therefore, the criticism, which is the act of de-legitimation and self-protective reactions to the critique, the act of (re)legitimation, are to a large extent discursive and therefore must be looked at under detailed discursive analysis (Rojo & Van Dijk, 1997). Suddaby & Greenwood (2005) thus argue that by applying a discursive approach it is possible to see legitimacy being constructed mainly through discursive resources, i.e., “through linguistic means used to construct some aspect of reality from a particular perspective” (Suddaby & Greenwood, 2005). Henceforth instead of attempting to understand through which policies and actions firms try to establish or maintain their legitimacy, the researchers claim that it is necessary to investigate through which discursive strategies various actors construct (il)legitimacy (Vaara et al., 2006). Complemented was the study by Leca et al. (2009) who argue in their report that legitimacy can be seen as a process (Leca et al., 2009), implicating that it is not a stagnated or fixed social perception, but much rather a constant negotiation (Tamm et al., 2010) between the public and the company. Hence, ‘persuasion/translation /narration’ are seen to be key processes for discursive legitimation to be achieved in regard to process orientated research. When taking a discursive perspective, it is possible to define legitimation as a process when resources used by agents create a sense of legitimacy when focusing on particular discourses (Vaara & Tienari, 2008). The new communicational room created through social media opens possibility for an organization’s legitimacy to be formed or questioned (Glozer et al., 2018). Social tolerability is a fundamental component for a company’s legitimacy (Suchman, 1995), where nowadays social media has the strategic potential to achieve it through the use of a discursive approach (Schultz et al., 2013).
1.2 Research question
The main objective of this thesis is to conduct research that contributes mainly to the importance of social media for organizational legitimacy. Previous studies with similar focus have already been carried out. The study of Etter et al. (2018) was conducted with the aim to investigate how social media data can be used for the measurement of social legitimacy. Conclusively they do not favour the social media approach over the traditional data method, however see the distinctive merit in both of them. Glozer et al.(2018) researched how to better comprehend the processes of organizational legitimation in social media communications. By examining two organization-led social media settings, they were able to find the process of legitimation, which is commonly treated as separate and distinct constructs to be interrelated and overlapping. The last study to be acknowledged is the research of Barros (2014) who found that through social media blogs, companies are able to encounter their discursive struggle by influencing the legitimacy not only as a company but also as a respected voice. This means that rather than just accepting media scrutiny, companies can use social media platforms to generate their own discourse. As previously mentioned in more recent times, studies on both the use of social media and legitimacy have been conducted. Yet, there has no research been carried out with the intent to investigate how this particular industry incorporates discursive strategies in the arena of social media, in order to restore its legitimacy. With the outcomes of this research it is expected to further contribute to the study of legitimacy, which has only been under proper scholarly research since the study of Suchman (1995). This research project will use empirical literature that contributes to organizational legitimacy and the discursive strategies used, as well as other pertinent literature that has been carried out in this scientific area, by applying it to the case of the automobile manufacturer Tesla and its CEO Elon Musk, who extensively use the social media platform Twitter as a medium to connect to their audience. Henceforth the data used in this thesis will draw from the Twitter accounts of @Tesla, @Elonmusk and the respondents who interact on these accounts. The analysis done in this research project will be of qualitative nature. This type of analysis is more convenient, as according to Verschuren at al. (2010) qualitative research is best used for a study that searches areas which has not yet extensively been investigated. Based on the study design, this thesis will address the following question: How do organizations in the automotive industry make use of discursive strategies in the arena of social media to retain legitimacy in times of crisis? The structure of this thesis is as follows: The first section presents the empirical literature that has been conducted on the different views of legitimacy and the use of discursive strategies by organizations in social media. This is followed by the methods section, which will describe the case setting, as well as the data, and the method used for
the analysis. Thereafter the findings of the data will be reviewed in alignment to the empirical knowledge. The outcomes of the findings and henceforth the contribution to science will be appraised in the discussion section, alongside some suggestions for further research contributions in this field of study. Lastly a conclusion will summarize the findings of this research study.
2. Theory
2.1 Legitimacy
The term legitimacy is seen by many as a confusing concept in management theory. This is a result of the term’s use in a widespread of applications throughout numerous studies in regards to distinctive contexts and empirical researches. As a consequence the construct ‘legitimacy’ now consist of various layers, which can be used or misused, in several ways. However, to grasp the concept of legitimacy the definition of Suchman (1995) described legitimacy as the “generalized perception or assumption that the actions of an entity are desirable, proper or appropriate within some socially constructed system of norms, values, beliefs and definitions”, in other words it describes an entities rightfulness or worthiness of being recognized. This has been used by many successive studies as a reference point for further research into organizational studies (i.e. Zimmerman & Zeitz, 2002; Langley, 2007; Vaara and Tienari, 2011). The study of Suddaby et al. (2017) was conducted to get a profounder understanding of the previously made definition. Thus they made use of three basic questions, namely, what is legitimacy, where does it occur and how does it occur, in order to outline the different research traditions on the construct. These three questions were used on three different angles of legitimacy, to broaden the scope of research, which are namely legitimacy as a property, as a process and as a perception. Further, three questions are utilized to examine the three ontological-epistemological perspectives on legitimacy in the organizational literature. These perspectives tend to be theorized upon by researchers, that legitimacy can be seen as a property, as a process and as a perception. Thus, when looking at legitimacy from a property perspective, it is presumed that it occurs in forms of mechanisms of eventualities amongst the legitimacy object and the peripheral environment. This conceptualizes legitimacy to be a thing, in form of an asset,capacity or trait, which is owned or possessed by an organization. Hence, the legitimacy can be either lost or gained, depending on the fit between the organization’s material manifestations and the expectations of the outer environment. However, when looking at the legitimacy as a perception it is perceived to be a consequence of judgements and evaluations, based upon the appropriateness carried out by the assessor on the distinctive layers of analysis. Hence, the legitimacy occurs through actions and judgements of individuals under the influence of institutionalized judgements on a more collective level. Lastly when looking at legitimacy as a process, it is believed to be an outcome of an interactive process between multiple participants in a social field seeking or opposing change. This particular angle of legitimacy research is especially important to this study and henceforth further elaborated in the flowing section (Suddaby et al., 2017). After introducing the three ontological-epistemological perspectives on legitimacy in the organizational literature it became evident that for this particular research project the focus must be put on the processual perspective. As the objective of this this research is to study the discursive aspect of legitimacy in the arena of social media used as a communication tool, the empirical knowledge of the processual perspective will be supportive to this research study.
2.2 Legitimacy from a processual perspective
„The major focus of social constructionism is to uncover the ways in which individuals and groups participate in the creation of their perceived social reality. This social construction perspective proposes that meaning emerges from the shared interaction of individuals within society“ (Sremac, 2010). Further, the processual perspective assumes that senses of legitimacy or illegitimacy emerge from interactions of social actors in the public debate. Of particular interest for this precise study is the view that derived from the study of Suddaby et al. (2017) perspective on legitimacy being a process. This perspective on legitimacy as being a process draws from notions of social construction, which sees reality as an on-going process of social negotiation involving multiple participants (Berger & Luckmann, 1966). It needs to be clarified that legitimacy is not a form of an unwavering condition but more a dynamically and on-going compromise between the involved parties. Hence, it can besaid that legitimacy is a result of a steadily moving process of public negotiation rather than a fixed institutional agreement. A fitting characterization for legitimacy as a process is that it ‘must be repeatedly created, recreated and conquered’ (Tamm et al., 2010) Deriving from this characterization is the assumption that the attention is on the process itself instead of the outcome of the process. Furthermore for legitimacy to be existent it is necessary that a series of interaction between different actors occur that demonstrate a high level of capacity to act individually. (Suddaby et al., 2017) Empirical studies suggest that legitimacy as a process is based on a social perception, which is constantly re-valuated by society and henceforth does not possess any fixed or permanent traits. This on-going arbitration is not fixed to any parameters but is much rather open for any type of negotiation, taking into account all the fundamental elements to the argument. For legitimacy as a process there are two streams of theorisation been identified. The first stream under review is that legitimacy can be unipolar. An example of this can be seen in the study of Zimmerman & Zeitz (2002) who illustrate that legitimacy can have an offspring in time and be constructed as an on-going process. Throughout this period of growth there will be an inception that allows for legitimacy to be established. However it has been identified by researchers such as Hiatt et al. (2009) that there is not just the construct of gaining legitimacy, but also the possibility of de-legitimation, or the occurrence of illegitimacy, which can be described as a “bipolar” construct. Suddaby et al. (2017) describe this occurrence in a way that industries or companies, who used to possess unchallenged and undisputed legitimacy, subsequently lose their public acceptance due to several occurrences. More so, the process of loosing legitimacy has caused social unacceptability and therefore flourishing illegitimacy in several cases. Legitimacy studies that are undertaken with the emphasis on the process perspective on organizational practices are focused on the variation of dynamics. Therefore the empirical studies in this particular field, such done by Langley (2007) suggest that the analysis on legitimation as a process should be done in terms of movement, undertakings, actions, alteration and advancing development. Hence it can be said that the range of evaluation is rather broad and has been described as a “multi-level process” (Nielsen & Rao, 1987).
2.3 Discursive perspective on Legitimacy
In recent times literature has increasingly focused on the discursive aspects of legitimacy and how the process of reaching it can be seen as a result of permanent social and discursive dispute (Suddaby & Greenwood,2005; Vaara & Tienari, 2008). Various researchers came in their studies to the assumption that language is a key tool to enhance collective meaning making (Zilber, 2006; Czarniawski & Jorges, 1996; Suddaby, 2010) and further came to the same conclusion that this mentioned meaning is actively negotiated. Vaara and Tienari (2011) therefore argue that the usage of discursive legitimization is a process where agents make use of their resources in order to create a mind set or legitimacy towards particular discourses. To do this Vaara, Tienari and Laurila (2006) debate in their study that legitimacy is “a discursively created sense of acceptance in specific discourses or orders of discourse”. In this respect the study of Joutsenvirta & Vaara (2009) indicates that people actively use discourse to achieve things. Hence, they argue that from a specific discursive perspective corporate actions can be either justified or questioned which can than be seen as ‘situations of (de)legitimation’. Hence, both the criticism (delegitimizing action) and the response to the criticism ((re)legitimizing action) are achieved through discourse. This aligns with the view of Suddaby et al. (2017) who agree, “that communication is a key element of legitimation, but argue that the process of meaning-making is strategic”. In this case the scholars use the expressions “rhetoric” (Suddaby & Greenwood, 2005) and “framing” (Benford & Snow, 2000) instead of the term ‘discursive’, to highlight the usage of agency by using specific language to actively construct legitimacy. The processual perspective on legitimacy, as well as the discursive perspective on legitimacy can be seen as an interrelated phenomenon in some cases. The study by Kaime (2014) states that the discursive perspective of legitimacy, by creating a sense of acceptance and meaning-making, stands in close relation to the processual perspective on legitimacy. In this case legitimacy can be secured not just through cautious bargaining, but through an evolving process of careful negotiations in which the interests in focus are examined and questioned in respects to their validity.The research of Luyckx & Janssens (2016) took the overlapping occurrences of legitimation processes, which where up to that point generally treated as being separate,
under closer review and introduced a construct in their study how several discursive strategies might be interrelated.
A part of this construct is called discursive antagonism, which this research advocates to occur through explicit dispute, confrontation, and refutation of criticism, in order to preserve ones legitimacy (Luyckx & Janssens, 2016). In this respect it is argued that in the process of protecting legitimacy, the initial response involves denial of the critique and an intent to discredit the corresponding criticism. This becomes more apparent in the case setting of the respective study, which indicated that discursive antagonism involves counter-narratives with the objective to portray a favourable image of the controversial actor, whereas at the same time intents to produce a negative image of the opposing site with the intension to destabilize their credibility (Luyckx & Janssens, 2016). The above-mentioned researchers identified in their framework a connection to sociological work on civil discourse, where the respective counter-narratives of discursive antagonism intent to ‘purify’ the criticized actor and to ‘pollute’ the criticizing actor (Jacobs, 1996). A further elaboration on the term ‘purifying’ has been done by the researcher stating that the actor intents to establish a self image which is ‘heroic’, rational and controlled in their motivations, open and trusting in their relationships, and regulated by impersonal rules in their organizational activities’ (Jacobs, 1996, pp. 1244– 1245). The study of Luyckx & Janssens (2016) indicates that the adverse actor image resulting from more traditional discourse strategies, namely authorization, rationalization and moral evaluation were seen to be compatible for their claim, contradicting to the foregoing studies on discursive legitimation strategies (Joutsenvirta, 2013; Vaara & Tienari, 2008), which considered those to be profoundly distinctive ways to form legitimacy. As previously mentioned another characteristic of discursive antagonism is the pollution of the criticized actors’ opponent. Luyckx & Janssens (2016) discuss that the discreditation of the criticizing actor can be achieved by building an opponents image, which displays them to be “irrational and uncontrolled in their motivations, secretive and deceitful in their relationships, and arbitrary and factionalized in their organizational activities” (Jacobs, 1996, p. 1245). Henceforth a pollution of the criticizing actors’ image can be achieved through a discursive strategy of predication and the rhetorical strategy of refutation by wit (Wodak, 2001; Corbett & Connors, 1999). In terms of the predication strategy the researchers Luyckx & Janssens (2016) suggest
that assigning negative traits such as being ‘self-interested, unreliable, narrow- minded, unreasonable and naïve’ occurs to be a fitting way to pollute the opponent. Besides labelling the criticizing actor to be antagonists, assigning such negative characteristics causes a loss of their authority and identity (Vaara, 2013) which results in the criticizing actors to be seen morally low and henceforth undermine their original criticism which they have expressed towards the criticized actor. As to be seen above, the researchers Luyckx & Janssens (2016) proposed another form of polluting ones opponent, which is done through refutation by wit. It is an effective rhetorical tool that can be used to encounter a certain argument. Therefore parody, sarcasm and irony can be used to pollute the criticizing actors image as this technique manages to convert a stated argument into absurdity (Corbett & Connors, 1999).
2.4 Legitimacy struggle and social media
Before reviewing the literature on the use of social media in respect to the discursive legitimacy it is necessary to take a step back, in order to grasp an understanding of what this term actually stands for. Obar & Wildman (2015) argue in their study that is not possible to determine an all-fitting definition for social media, as it is seen to be a continuously evolving medium on the Internet. However, in other studies the term has been defined in a way that, “social media are computer-mediated tools that allow people to create, share or exchange information, career interests, ideas and pictures/videos in virtual communities and networks” (Buettner, 2015). Despite the fact that the studies of Obar & Wildman and Buettner contradict on the way of defining social media, both studies agree on the fact that social media is a construct that provides a platform for online communication through different channels (Buettner, 2015; Obar & Wildman, 2015). In a more organizational context, social media can be seen as a newly emerged tool and strategy used for communication with customers (Mangold & Faulds, 2009). Supporting of this view is the study of Blackshaw & Nazzaro (2006) who state that the term social media, or in an organizational term consumer generated media “describes a variety of new sources of online information that are created, initiated, circulated and used by consumers, focused on educating each other about products, brands, services, personalities, and issues’’ (Blackshaw & Nazzaro, 2006). There is a wide variety of forums included under the covering term social media, including chatrooms, blogs,company sponsored discussions, consumer product or service rating websites and many more (Mangold & Faulds, 2009). More so during recent times there has been a real outburst in online messaging transmissions through these kinds of media. It is said that, “they have become a major factor in influencing various aspects of consumer behaviour including awareness, information acquisition, opinions, attitudes, purchase behaviour, and post-purchase communication and evaluation”(Mangold & Faulds, 2009). According to Glozer et al. (2018) there is growing evidence, which suggests that social media offers new communicational room in which an organization’s legitimacy can be formed or challenged. As previously mentioned, the conformity of an organization is dependant on the social acceptability, assembled through a variety of means (Suchman, 1995). Further, Schultz et al. (2013) argue that besides strategic potential, social media also comprise the possibility to conflicting interest, counter discourses and opposing views. Each one of these responses has the ability to transform or at least alter the way we understand the legitimation process (Schultz et al., 2013). Whelan et al. (2013) argue that with the introduction of social media, ordinary citizens obtained the ability to create autonomous public arenas, which are used to continuously discuss and evaluate organizational activities. Whereas in contrast to this, through conventional media only selected citizens are provided with platform to express their opinions (Lee & Carroll, 2011). Therefore, social media can now be seen as a tool to get around this “gate keeping function” (Papacharissi, 2009) of traditional news media. The study of Castelló et al. (2016) was determined to find out whether corporations can develop legitimacy when addressing stakeholders’ multiple and often conflicting agendas. To do so, the researchers analysed stakeholders’ social media messages (Twitter) about organizations, to be able to measure the results of distinctive communication strategies. The study incorporated the investigation of the internal formulation, launching and consolidation of a stakeholder engagement initiative achieved through the use of social media. The result of this study showed that the use of this new form of stakeholder engagement platform, in combination with strategic use of discourse by the managers, both the understanding and implementation of the firms’ legitimation processes could be influenced. Castelló et al. (2016) conclude in their study that „in the context of social media, legitimacy gains are more likely when firms are able to reduce the control over the engagements while re-defining terms and networks of
engagement“ (Castelló et al., 2016). With this they explain a movement away from the traditional view of gaining legitimacy through strictly emphasizing on the efficacy of stakeholder engagement, efforts to enforce standards and norms or on the desirable institutional circumstances. It is suggested that social media opens up new possibilities for a different level of engagement, where companies and audience are able to form a participatory relationship. Complementing to the findings of the Castelló et al. (2016) study is the research of Barros (2014). The study implies that rather than just accepting ‘media scrutiny’, corporations can make use of the new social media tools as a platform in order to construct their own discourse. This possibility becomes more significant when the content creator has the capacity to use the social media platform effectively in the struggle for discursive legitimacy. The creation of a discourse on social media platforms is seen to be a very powerful new tool for organizations. Similarly to the study of Castelló et al. (2016), Etter et al. (2018) argue that the systematic and direct access to social media platforms, can aid to grasp the construction of legitimacy in a “normative context that becomes transnationalized, fragmented, pluralized, more complex and less understandable” (Palazzo & Scherer, 2006). The researchers have demonstrated in their work, how conventional quantitative methods are used to measure organizational legitimacy in respect to judgements made by the audience on social media. It becomes evident from the research that any member of society with access to social media has the ability to evaluate a company publically. Henceforth where conversations can be held in a transnational network of audience, anybody has the opportunity to add to the (de)legitimation of an organization.
3. Methodology
The main interest behind this research is to investigate the discursive strategies utilized by the automotive industry through social media, in order to repair their legitimacy. More so, this study is focused on the way the automotive industry intentionally generates and manages this legitimacy by trying to influence the public perception.Therefore this research will carry out a discursive analysis to be investigating the use and impact of the social media to encounter the delegitimation. Phillips et al. (2004) argues that for discourse analysis both quantitative and qualitative research methods are acceptable. For this research however a qualitative design has been chosen. Rendering to Verschuren at al. (2010) qualitative research is a common strategy for research that explores territory, which has been little investigated in. A study can be seen as more exploratory when the turf that is being investigated is not expected to have a single/clear outcome (Yin,2009).
3.1 Case setting
A case study will be used as a design for this research. Case studies, as described by Rowley (2002), have the advantage of offering insight, which may not be attained by using other methods. This more exploratory approach has been defined as a, “particularly well suited to new research areas or research areas for which existing theory seems inadequate. This type of work is highly complementary to incremental theory building from normal science research. The former is useful in early stages of research on a topic or when a fresh perspective is needed, whilst the latter is useful in later stages of knowledge” (Eisenhardt,1989 pp.548-549). Therefore it has been stated by Yin (2009) that this type of study in particular is preferred over all else, when it addresses contemporary events and when the researcher has little to no control over them. The automotive industry has been facing legitimacy problems for several years, resulting from severe set backs and scandals such as the “Toyota acceleration problems” (WashingtonPost, 2014), Takata Airbags 2004 (New York Times, 2014) and most recently with the Volkswagen ‘dieselgate’ scandal of 2015 (EPA, 2015). Ever since many questions have been raised by the public, if the manufacturers act responsibly. As a result innovation and adaptation have become an indispensable trait of the automotive industry, in order to meet the high expectations of the customers. Therefore clever solutions are searched for to tackle the present problems. This is especially apparent with the shift in focus of the customers who no longer desire cars that are fast and aesthetic but much rather concentrate on the sustainable aspect and support theenvironment through low emissions and little fuel consumption. Likewise, the car manufacturers experience increasing pressure from outside stakeholders who have the intension to challenge the automotive industry by examination the companies every action. This creates increasing difficult times for the automotive industry with the result that its reputation is being questioned on regular basis. Interestingly though, not only traditional car manufacturers are being incorporated into this debate of legitimacy, but also A-typical manufacturers who have much smaller production sizes and do not produce engine cars powered by fuel. Hence, the A-typical company chosen for this research project is the American multinational corporation Tesla, Inc. Even though the company is specialized in electronic vehicles, energy storage and solar panel manufacturing, this research will only be focusing on the automotive segment of the company. As claimed by Tesla (2018) the company was found in 2003 by a group of engineers who had the vision to prove that all electric driving is the better alternative to gasoline cars. The believe of Tesla is that the quicker everyone stops to hold on to fossil fuels, the better the future will be in regards to a zero-emission goal. A key figure and the driving force behind the company is co-founder, co-owner and CEO Elon Musk. Although the company is created with the best intensions, trying to shake up the established automotive industry, who traditionally manufactures gasoline powered cars, the company is facing much resistance by various stakeholders. The criticism, caused by distinct events has a direct impact on the legitimacy of the company. Most established companies would make use of traditional media in an effort to encounter the de-legitimation, however by being such a modern company, Tesla has incorporated the use of social media early on to communicate messages that have the potential to affect the legitimacy of the organization. Henceforth it is the aim of this research study to investigate what discursive strategy the automotive industry, represented by Tesla, makes use of in the arena of social media. The reason for choosing a single case study instead of a comparative case study, where studying and comparing social media behaviour of various automotive companies can be argued by the focus and aim of this research project. As stated in the research question, the purpose of this thesis is to investigate the use of discursive strategies in the arena of social media to retain legitimacy in times of crisis. Henceforth it is not the intension to compare how different automotive companies make use of social media to
retain their legitimacy, but much rather which strategies are actually being used. This focus aligns with the view of Dyer & Wilkins (1991), which says that the use of a single case study, as in comparison to multiple case studies is more likely to produce better theory. More so, the researchers argue that by using a single case, old theoretical relationships can be questioned and new ones can be made more carefully. This enables the researcher to gain a more profound understanding of the matter. Further, the choice for using a single case study and to look at Tesla in particular, instead of making a comparative case to the social media use of other car manufacturers, is explained by the context (Dyer & Wilkins, 1991) of Tesla itself. This company is of particular interest for this thesis, as it has already experienced several crises since its first car delivery to their customers in 2008, but regardless keeps growing rapidly in popularity and sales figures (Bloomberg, 2019). Yet, what makes this particular case even more indispensible for this thesis is that the focus does not merely lie on the activity of the @Tesla account, but also on the interaction of the @Elonmusk (CEO of Tesla) account with the customers and the brand. Tesla does not strongly dominate social media, on the micro blog Twitter, by having a large amount of followers, in comparison to other car manufactures (Appendix I), but Elon Musk does and in connection with Tesla, both accounts together (Appendix II) dominate their rivals on Twitter strongly.
3.2 Initial collection
Data will be collected from sources available on the Internet. The main source used for data collection is Twitter. The reason for selecting this source of data is that the company itself publishes those text messages instantly, in contrast to news articles and other third party documents, which might be altered through a bias of the authors and therefore might not be fit for the purpose of this study. This form of information diffusion is seen to be an effective influencer towards the way consumers obtain and respond to information (Ramsey, 2006; Singh, Veron-Jackson, & Cullinane, 2008). The data collected from Twitter will include tweets and messages, from different moments of crisis. Twitter can be used to access data, published on this micro-blog, by the respective companies or accounts that are of interest and relevance to this study. The data that can be found on Twitter is available to anyone who accesses this particular blog, by eitheraccessing the user account directly or through the Application Programming Interface (API) platform of the website. In short, the API allows developers and researchers to access the Twitter data, by creating tools, which assist to browse through the data. However there are different levels of API, which limit the availability of data to the third party programs. One to be mentioned is the limit of only the last 3,200 tweets that can be accessed by the developed search tools. Using some of these tools that access the API can bring many advantages, as it allows the researcher to search for very specific data within the large data set available, such as specific words or hashtags. To make use of the resources available, it was first intended to also use one of these softwares to harvest the data from the twitter platform. However, official programs such as NVivo 12 and MAXQDA2018 (which in many instances cost several hundred or up to thousands of Euros) were tried through a ‘free trial’ account in order to assess their relevance to the study. Yet, despite the efforts it was to be noted that none of the tried programs were suitable for this study, as they are not capable of capturing the data from the specific time spans, which are of relevance to this study. This can be explained by the previously described API blockage, set by Twitter. Consequently it deemed necessary to collect all the relevant data manually by carefully selecting all the relevant tweets (as seen in Appendix), which have been posted throughout the various times of crisis identified by the study. The only possible way to access the relevant data for this research was by searching through the accounts manually, as in comparison to use an assisting software, because this is the only possibility to scroll all the way to the first tweet of the account. The accounts chosen for this research were the following: @Tesla and @Elonmusk. The @Tesla (3.86 million followers) account has been chosen, as it provides valuable data regarding the discourses used directly by the company. The tweets and its respective retweets sent on the account enable a thorough analysis of the discourse used to capture the attention of the audience. The @Elonmusk (27 million followers) account is equally as relevant to the study as the @Tesla account for a number of reasons. First and foremost Elon Musk is co-founder, co-owner and CEO of Tesla. As previously mentioned, he is the driving force behind the company and his passion and ambition is, what makes this company strive. The entrepreneur uses this social media platform to engage with the audience about the companies’ affairs. Henceforth his activity on the Social Media is directly linked to the
ones of Tesla, also because the official @Tesla website retweets nearly all the messages he sends on this particular blog.
3.3 Data overview
To identify and extract the relevant data to the case it was first necessary to recognize the past crises faced by Tesla. It was essential to search through various platforms and article records for passed events that can be seen as a crisis in the company. Doing so was very important, in order to choose the appropriate crises for this research. Therefore it was essential to look at websites like Wikipedia and Businessinsider for detailed overview of the past crises in the company. As a result four significant events were identified that will be used for further analysis to this case. The first crisis identified (hereinafter referred to as crisis A) is regarding the criticising tests results of the New York Times about the Model S car, which caused the Tesla stock price to decline by 3% (CNN, 2013). The data consists of 15 Tweets that have been sent directly about this matter (seen in Appendix III). Likewise there are 1,169 retweets shared from the accounts by the audience. Further, the research will take into account the 1,904 comments that have been made on the statements, directly at the Twitter accounts. These are particularly important, because Tesla and Elon Musk actively engage in conversations with the audience. The second crisis, which will be considered in this study (hereinafter referred to as crisis B) is regarding the deadly accident of a passenger using Teslas’ autopilot. The collected data entails 37 direct Tweets that address the second crisis (seen in Appendix IV). More so 59,000 retweets have been done by the audience. Also this case is supported by a total of 18,900 comments that have been made, as Elon Musk engages into a variety of arguments on the social media platform. Analysing this is expected to contribute much to this study. The third crisis that has been identified is regarding the bottleneck in the delivery of the new Model 3 (hereinafter referred to as crisis C). It involves 9 relevant tweets sent out by Tesla and Elon Musk (seen in Appendix V). Henceforth the collected data for this case,including the 16,100 retweets and 21,300 comments are expected to contribute strongly through the analysis towards the research objective of this study. The fourth crisis that is of relevance to analyse the discourses used by Tesla (hereinafter referred to as crisis D) is regarding the dispute Elon Musk has with several media agencies. It features 15 direct Tweets sent by Tesla and Elon Musk (seen in Appendix VI). Further, the disagreement and public defence of the company has mobilized much participation by the audience, which resulted in 5,060 retweets and 1,523 comments on this matter. The numerous public arguments, in which the company has also participated, is expected to provide much insight, through analysis, what discourses are used in order to engage into the debate.
3.4 Coding
The coding strategies between the existing qualitative coding procedures and the twitter coding for this particular dataset does not differ vastly, yet the slight differences need to be addressed. A reason for this is the dissimilarity between these types of datasets. While the coding in articles and transcripts is done to identify various relating text passages across different datasets within the documents, the coding for the Twitter data is done to identify patterns whilst considering every tweet as a whole. This can be argued by the fact that in comparison to all other mediums, Twitter only allows for a maximum of 140 characters per tweet, which clearly limits the author in the composition of the tweet, as he must incorporate all the desired information within this small textbox. Further, to date it was not possible to find an empirical academic study, which has used a type of text coding for a similar set of Twitter data. Henceforth the strategy developed in this research paper shall contribute to quantitative data coding in the new field of social media study. In an attempt to code the data, which has been collected from the Twitter accounts, it was first necessary to collect all the tweets that have been posted during the time periods in which the crisis under review have been taking place. This has been done disregarding, whether the tweets or comments seemed of relevance to the research study. It prevented any relevant data from being overlooked or unrecognized in theanalysis. Succeeding the extensive data collection it was crucial to get familiar with the collected data on the four cases and to proceed with an initial coding. In this step it was essential to draft a rough picture of what every case looked like and what magnitude of data each case contained. This included deleting any data that was instantly considered to be irrelevant to the case, researched in this thesis. The initial coding of the total data only allowed drawing a rough outline for every single crisis in the case, yet it still did not express the content of the crises meaningfully. Therefore it was required to code every single tweet from the collected data, even if there was no certainty, if all of it would be relevant at a later stage. This allowed a more detailed coding of the content within the data and a superior understanding of the connection between the data sets. Coding all the data resulted in a collection of a disordered accumulation of codes. In order to classify and arrange all the collected data, similar codes of the same category had to be put together. The categorization allowed to identify reliable and predominant classifications for the data to fit into. The classifications, which have now come from the original data into an order of specific data categories, are the ones that will tell the story about the findings in this research project. As to be seen in the graph (Appendix VII) the identified categories have proven to fit into the empirical context of discursive antagonism, where the coding has shown that purifying and polluting make up a considerable part of the data in this case. However, purification and pollution are supported by several sub-strategies, in which the data shows that especially authorisation (van Leeuwen, 2007) accounts for a larger part of the strategies used. Additionally, the coding has unveiled another sub-strategy, which has not been studied in empirical literature yet and is concentrated on the redirection of the audience’s attention, which is hereinafter labelled as ‘attention shift’.
4. Findings
The collected data displays a complex discourse, which must be thoroughly decomposed in the four previously introduced crises, to be able to identify the strategies and sub-strategies used by Tesla and Elon Musk to restore the companies’ legitimacy. The observations show that crises are confronted through a network of different strategies, depending on specific situations. Namely the discursive strategies used are discursive antagonism (Luyckx & Janssens, 2016) where both pollution and purification appear inaltered versions to cases from previous literature, authorisation (van Leeuwen, 2007) and a new strategy labelled “attention shift”, which has not yet been addressed in previous literature.
4.1 Criticisms by newspaper
Crisis A was a published story by the renowned newspaper The New York Times (NYT). The journalists were to report on the “future advancements in our Supercharger technology” Tesla, 2013) as stated by Tesla on their internal blog. However instead of positively reporting about the driving experience in colder regions, the NYT published an article massively criticizing the new Tesla Model S. As a result to the published story, the Tesla stock dipped by 3% (CNN, 2013). Hereupon the Tesla owner and CEO Elon Musk responded in a series of Twitter messages to the ‘false accusations’. The first to be pointed out is a purifying defensive strategy, which is being undertaken by the @Tesla account, as a response to the negative and criticizing news article published by the New York Times. This form of purifying is exemplified in the Appendix III, where the tweet explicitly thanks the customers coming from colder regions, who share their positive experience with the car in these climate conditions, emphasising it by giving it the special hashtag #teslaments. This form of legitimation strategy is referring to testimonials of customers with the intention of purification, as they claim that the car is of great quality. This strategy can be labelled as authorization, where Vaara et al. (2006) defined this as legitimation by reference to the authority of people who are bestowed with some sort of institutional authority. In this case external endorsements are used as authorities to legitimize. Tweet @Tesla: We're receiving wonderful #teslaments from our cold-climate customers! Keep them coming! photos@teslamotors.com http://on.fb.me/ViXXWo (comments:7 retweets: 22 likes:8) However a somewhat reversed reasoning may be observed in this case, as Tesla and Elon Musk seem to be using Social Media in a way to convince people that no viable alternative exists. A good example is given by the tweet posted by Tesla, quoting a CNBC reporter, who got totally convinced by the electric car. Tweet @Tesla: Thanks @CNBC and @Lebeaucarnews: “The Model S delivered what @elonmusk promised. A ride to make you re-think going electric.” (comments:1 retweets:31 likes:13)Or Tweet @Elonusk: Yes, because Tesla has the most advanced battery manufacturing technology in the world & products that haven’t been unveiled yet. (comments:110 retweets:188 likes:3.2k) Further, the findings in the data also align with the result of Castelló (2016) who claims in the outcomes of her study that the stakeholder engagement platform, in combination with the strategic uses of discourse by the managers ’influences both the understanding and implementation of the firms’ legitimation processes. Further she explains in her study that „in the context of social media, legitimacy gains are more likely when firms are able to reduce the control over the engagements while re-defining terms and networks of engagement” (Castelló, 2016). Based on this definition the data allows to confirm, that Elon Musk desired to reduce control over the traditional engagement with the audience and sees the merit in the new possibilities for a different level of engagement, where companies and the audience are able to form a participatory relationship. Likewise both accounts tweeted and retweeted further messages and news written by CNN and CNBC with a contradictory result to the same test, which has been carried out by the journalist of the NYT. The accounts did not confront the accusations made by the NYT article, however given the context they are clear indications for using rivalry sides (opposing NYT) in an attempt to purify the image of Tesla, using credible outside sources. In this context the recurring legitimation strategy of authorization can be observed once again. However, instead of using customer testimonials Tesla is backing itself with tweets sent by news channels. Tweet @Tesla: "I made it -- and it wasn't that hard." CNN retests the DC to Boston route! @peterdrives @AbigailBassett @CNNMoney http://money.cnn.com/m/#!/2013/02/15/autos/tesla-model-s.json?category=Latest (comments:4 retweets:74 likes:10) Tweet @Tesla: CNN retests the route! RT @PeterDrives:"Um... Not that hard. At Milford SuperCharger. Been leadfootin' last 20 miles " (comments:14 retweets:189 likes:51) Tweet @Elonmusk: Thanks @CNBC! “@Lebeaucarnews: The Model S delivered what @elonmusk promised. A ride to make you re-think going electric.” (comments:1 retweets:31 likes:13) On the contrary Tesla and especially Elon Musk also react in an active and sometimes even aggressive manner, in order to respond to the accusations made. This can be seen as the pollution of the opponents’ image. The pollution of the opponent is being done by undermining the credibility of the speaker. Corbett & Connors (1999) called this
strategy refutation by appeal to ethics. It is based on the idea in classical rhetoric from Aristotle that a persuasive speech act might be endorsed by emphasizing the credibility of the speaker. In case of Tesla and Elson Musk, the company seek to self-portrait a positive image though discourse by gaining credit from the audience though undermining the integrity of the opponents. Tweet @Elonmusk: NYTimes article about Tesla range in cold is fake. Vehicle logs tell true story that he didn't actually charge to max & took a long detour. comments: 144 retweets:1.0k likes: 232) Tweet @Elonmusk: Tesla data logging is only turned on with explicit written permission from customers, but after Top Gear BS, we always keep it on for media. (comments:78 retweets:388 likes:176) In the last example it can be seen that Elon Musk does also react very impulsive and not within a more professional discourse compared to the @Tesla account. The ‘BS’ is an abbreviation for ‘bullshit’, which is a colloquialism for describing something to be ‘nonsense’.
4.2 Deadly autopilot-accident
Crisis B is related to the first deadly accident of a Tesla driver (Model S) in May 2016. It was claimed shortly after that the driver was using the car’s autopilot feature and that the car was set to this particular mode at the moment of the incident. Holding on to official statements until 5 weeks after the incident, Tesla as well as Elon Musk became active again on the social media platform Twitter about this matter. The discourses in the various tweets that are in relation to this case vary strongly and can (similarly to crisis A) be categorized into different sets of language used. For this particular case an article shared by Elon Musk, takes a central position in the debate of Teslas’ software. Tweet @Elonmusk: Misunderstanding of what "beta" means to Tesla for Autopilot: any system w less than 1B miles of real world driving Title of article: German Authority Would Not Have Approved Beta-Phase Tesla Autopilot (comments:216 retweets:750 likes:2.3k)
Musk uses the tweet to encounter the accusations, which have been made that the software was not fit for the purpose. He does this in an effort of purification, but this time not though emotional discourse, but by making a short and clear statement,
pointing out that there must have been a misinterpretation of what the word “beta” means. This tweet becomes a showground, where Elon Musk actively engages into debates with audiences from both sides, sharing his view, as well as contradicting the CEOs’ opinions. The initial message sent by Elon Musk is written in a neutral and informative style, however the debates differ vastly in language, as Elon Musk becomes more personal and emotional about the responses that are given to him. This is an instance where Elon Musk intends to act in a purifying manner, rather than in an attempt to pollute. However it must be noted that he is arguing with somebody from the public and not with a member of the media. This might be a determining factor for his choice in discourse style used. Tweet @SwiftOnSecurity: this is a bad tweet (comments:3 retweets:9 likes:67) Tweet @Elonmusk:why? (comments:11 retweets:7 likes:155) Tweet @SwiftOnSecurity: it sounds like you're retroactively changing the meaning of a term with an arbitrary cutoff point that removes human judgement (comments:7 retweets:7 likes:79) Tweet @SwiftOnSecurity: Humans should be highlighted as judging fitness for safety-critical designs, not an odometer reading. It looks bad to public. (comments:6 retweets:6 likes:83) Tweet @Elonmusk: With less than 1B miles, there simply isn't enough data. 1B is a necessary but not necessarily sufficient condition. (comments:9 retweets:26 likes:220) Tweet @SwiftOnSecurity: I think you should emphasize "we'll finalize it when we're satisfied" rather than the number involved in making you satisfied. (comments:8 retweets:8 likes:94) Tweet @SwiftOnSecurity: This is a critique of the messaging inka the language, not the product. (comments:5 retweets:4 likes:96) Tweet @Elonmusk: Tricky in 140 chars, but: 1B needed for min statistical sample size. More software mods and data may be needed beyond that. (comments:8 retweets:26 likes:216) Tweet @SwiftOnSecurity:Perhaps Twitter isn't a functional medium to critique societal views on data-driven decisions. Have a nice day! I like ur stuff.(comments:6 retweets:12 likes:182) Besides the aggressive defensive style in this instance he also tweets in a more emotional fashion, which seems to be of purpose to motivate him and to display his personal interest as well as the one of the company in the continuing debates about the companies legitimacy. This can be seen to be an altered form of purification, where the actor does not intent to display the goodness of the company, but to show an emotional
openness. This emotional touch might even be a stronger factor to gain a form of legitimation by the public. Tweet @Elonmusk: We don't mind taking the heat for customer safety. It is the right thing to do. From @RoadandTrack Title of article: Leave Tesla Alone The carmaker is far from perfect, but we should be amazed at what it has managed to accomplish instead of scrutinizing it over every misstep. (comments:338 retweets:1.7k likes:5.1k)
4.3 Delivery issues
Crisis C is touching on the issue with the delivery of the new Model 3, which was experiencing strong delays in the distribution to the customers due to production bottlenecks. Bloomberg (2018) even reported that the Tesla shares dropped as much as 5.1 %. In a response Tesla and Elon Musk posted on the social media platform Twitter a series of tweets that would show deliveries of the Model 3 cars and experiences of satisfied customers. However both accounts would not address the issue at hand directly, but much rather attempt to redirect the public’s attention from the criticism with positive messages about the car. This legitimation strategy has not been labelled before in the context of discursive legitimation. Henceforth for the purpose of this research and further contribution to science, this strategy will be labelled as ‘attention shift’. Interestingly, this attempt of purifying the image of Tesla was not done by addressing the issue at hand and portraying a contradictive image to the one shown in the media, but was much rather an attempt to purify by redirecting the focus of the audience. Henceforth it becomes apparent, when analyzing the data in this crisis, that one way of redirecting the publics’ attention was by Elon Musk baiting the customers by promising Easter eggs (little hidden surprises in the software) twice within a short period of days. Tweet @Elonmusk: We’re going to include some fun games as hidden Easter eggs in Tesla S, X & 3. What do you think would be most fun in a car using the center touch screen? (comments:15k retweets:2.9k likes:43k) Or Tweet @Elonmusk: Most people don’t know there’s a whole box of Easter eggs with every Tesla. Just tap logo on center screen & wait. Easy access to most of discovered ones. More coming … (comments:1.2k retweets:2.5k likes:32k)Doing so seemed to be an effective strategy, as nearly nobody mentioned the delays of the Model 3 in the comments and much rather responded with excitement about the extras introduced by the company. Further redirection was undertaken by Teslas account by tweeting and retweeting a series of messages written by satisfied customers who expressed themselves highly enthusiastic about the car in dispute. The extensive retweeting done by both accounts @Tesla and @Elonmusk can be seen as a form of authorization, which has been defined by van Leeuwen (2007), to be referring to the authority of actors and individuals in whom institutional authority of some kind is vested. Therefore in this instance the authority are the customers with their messages, which are reposted by the company’s accounts. They are the authority, because they voice their own opinions and believes about the company and its actions, without being influenced by the company. Strikingly, Tesla makes use of a combination of both strategies, authorization and attention shift. The collected data shows that the retweets done by @Tesla and @Elonmusk can be seen as the ultimate form of authorization, because it demonstrates credibility beyond the discourses used by the company. Retweet of @tslajms: @elonmusk @Tesla Thank you so much for this life changing car. The wife an I flew to Vegas to pickup our #Model3 and drove it 2500 miles cross country back home to Kentucky. We saw 10 National Parks and it is only the first of many road trips we will be taking in our Tesla. (comments:234 retweets:164 likes:13k) Tweet @Tesla: Lots of Model 3 deliveries today in Toronto and more tomorrow. Vancouver next Title of the article: A swarm of electric vehicles arrive in GTA (comments:278 retweets:901 likes:9.2k) Additionally, Elon Musk uses the circumstance to publish statements that accentuate the quality of the new Model 3. This is further emphasized upon by news articles that report about various tests, which have been done with the car. Tweet @Tesla: @JRGarage1 breaks the quarter-mile record for Model 3 in 13.330 seconds (comments:49 retweets:304 likes:2.4k) Tweet @Elonmusk: Tesla dual motor, all-wheel drive performance Model 3: 3.5 sec 0-60mph 155 mph Top Speed 310 mile Range (comments:1.2k retweets:5.2k likes:42k) Tweet @Elonmusk: Cost of all options, wheels, paint, etc is included (apart from Autopilot). Cost is $78k. About same as BMW M3, but 15% quicker & with better handling. Will beat anything in its class on the track. (comments:1.2k retweets:2.7k likes:42k) Retweet of @BGR.com: Tesla Model 3 receives a ‘superior’ safety rating for front crash avoidance http://bgr.co/YnWOAec (comments:36 retweets:410 likes:2.8k)
This crisis is to be seen as a less active-aggressive strategic use of discourse, but much rather a shrewd move to once again make use of the legitimation strategy of attention shifting. The affirmative tweets about the outstanding features of the car are conveying the attention from the negative reporting.
4.4 Dispute with journalists
Crisis D is discussing the strong disagreements Tesla and Elon Musk have with various newspapers (platforms) and journalists, who report very critically about the company. Over the years of using Twitter, it becomes apparent that Elon Musk and henceforth Tesla have been under much focus, by being a revolutionary company in this industry. Therefore the media coverage is extensive and an on-going process. However the CEO of Tesla gradually disapproves of many of the journalists and news agencies that continuously report about the company’s undertakings, in a way, which he believes to be false and reputation damaging. Henceforth there are various tweets and responses sent regarding this topic in the end of May 2018 between the company, journalists and the public. An example from the collected data is the public disagreement Elon Musk had with a journalist. It is to be observed that in comparison to case A where Elon Musk had a disagreement with another Twitter user, using a purifying discourse, he engages in this instance with a journalist with a much more aggressive and therefore polluting discourse. Tweet @Elonmusk: The holier-than-thou hypocrisy of big media companies who lay claim to the truth, but publish only enough to sugarcoat the lie, is why the public no longer respects them Article Title: Tesla (TSLA) could rally as media negativity is ‘increasingly immaterial’, says Baird (comments:2.0k retweets:12k likes:50k) Tweet @jaspar: blaming the messenger is the hot new thing everyone's doing (comments:32 retweets:16 likes:220) Tweet @Elonmusk: Oh hey another sanctimonious media person who thinks he’s above criticism. Try being truthful & the public will believe you again. (comments:158 retweets:507 likes:5.2k) Compared to the previous disagreements Tesla has had with the media, Elon Musk proposed to take the confrontation to the next stage by proposing to introduce a website or medium (not properly disclosed what it will be at this stage), which will aid to rate media articles, to separate reliable journalism from ‘fake.’Tweet @Elonmusk: Something needs to be done to reward consistent, high quality journalism. Some in media are absurdly indignant before even seeing the product. Odd … (comments:120 retweets:138 likes:2.2k) Tweet @Elonmusk: Going to create a site where the public can rate the core truth of any article & track the credibility score over time of each journalist, editor & publication. Thinking of calling it Pravda … (comments:18k retweets:53k likes:252k) Tweet @Elonmusk: Even if some of the public doesn’t care about the credibility score, the journalists, editors & publications will. It is how they define themselves. (comments:1.7k retweets:5k likes:50k) Tweet @Elonmusk: Exactly. The point of such a site would be to help restore the credibility of the media. They don’t realize how little credibility they actually have with the public. (comments:59 retweets:69 likes:788) The purpose of this was to undermine the credibility of the journalists, mitigating their original critique they have expressed towards the company. Hence, responses to be collected regarding the radical proposal made by Musk, ranged between total contradictions to strong support of launching a medium that would enforce the journalist rating. Tweet @RitNagar: If your news channels and articles are so true why do you need to fear something that rates your credibility lmao. Ironically they are saying “He can’t handle criticism” while burning on Elon making a joke. (comments:32 retweets:98 likes:1,5k) Tweet @Elonmusk: Well said. NYT journo is outraged that “dumb” public wd dare critique him while attacking me for being sensitive to criticism. Uhh... (comments:537 retweets:1.5k likes:13k) Tweet @Elonmusk: Exactly. And NYT could have anyone post an Op Ed. Why, of all people, are they choosing to publish this “non-journalist” who is also pro gasoline cars? Is this just published as counterpoint? I assume NYT does believe in climate change? (comments:18 retweets:23 likes:456) This aggressive reaction of Elon Musk towards the journalists and media may seem bold and random to the public. However when analyzing closer what is being proposed by him exactly, it can be seen that his statements actually strengthen a discursive strategy, which aims to undermine the opponents’ legitimacy itself. More so, the better description for this discourse used is extreme discursive antagonism, because it goes beyond the definition given by the researchers Luyckx & Janssens (2016) of shaming and polluting. It is an extreme measure to completely undermine the credibility of the media and once again try to give the authorization to the public, in an attempt to act in Teslas favor.
More so there is an evolution in the use of discursive antagonism to be observed between case A (set in 2013) and case D (set in 2018). Parallels in behavior can be observed in the use of social media between Elon Musk and Donald Trump, who became President of the United Stated in 2017. Even though Musk and Trump act in different environments both behave like populists, which is reflecting in their use of social media. Trump and Musk communicate their messages on the Twitter platform in a fashion, which leads to the believe that they speak on the behalf of the common people. Donald Trump is infamous for his emotional and aggressive use of Twitter as his favorite form of communicating with the public. Particularly interesting is the shared ideology in regards to the handling of the media. In 2013, when Elon Musk had his first fall out with the NYT, it was unthinkable to do any more than strongly criticizing the journalistic work. However, the powerful social media actions of President Trump have re-written the rules in this fairly new arena and allow both to express themselves more freely. Henceforth Musk can now publically attack and pollute the media in an attempt to undermine their credibility, because the intent is not as radical anymore. It becomes evident how several such powerful voices (Trump 53,3 million and Musk 27 million Twitter follower) on social media can have a tremendous impact on the establishments that intent to delegitimize institutions and turn it into a tool to strengthen ones legitimacy. Overall, when analyzing the collected data it was possible to observe that both accounts @Tesla and @Elonmusk make strong use of the discursive antagonism strategy in order to counter the deligitimation which is resulting from the various criticisms, impacting the company. Further it can be taken from the data that both accounts take different characteristics, in the way they make use of the discursive antagonism. The @Tesla account uses a more professional style of discourse, emphasizing on the purification of the company’s image. In this respect, observations were made that Tesla only retweeted a specific type of customer messages, which were clearly seen to be purifying messages. By selecting only retweets with a powerful message, which is likely to be very appealing to the public, Tesla creates strong authorization, gaining a form of legitimation by letting somebody else speak on their behalf. On the other side the @Elonmusk account engages much more into conversation with the different critics on his blog, where he lets emotions get involved into the dialogues,
