A Critical Public Relations Approach to Crisis Communication and Management: A Case Study of Malaysia Airlines Flight Mh370 Disappearance

CHAPTER 1

MH370 AS A NATIONAL PR CASE: CONTROVERSY AND CHALLENGES

1.1 Introduction

1.2 Background of Malaysia Airlines flight 370 disappearance

1.3 Outline of the incident: Critical moments of the MH370 crisis

1.4 Malaysia’s government image, patronage politics, and airline governance

1.5 Initial media representations: A cooperative yet nonprofessional or inefficient searcher

1.6 MH370 controversy over the incident: Professionalism, transparency, and diplomacy

1.7 Influence of MH370 controversy: Malaysia in PR challenges

1.9 Research aims and research questions

1.10 Outline of the research

CHAPTER 2

PR RESEARCH ON NATIONAL CRISES: NATIONAL IMAGE AND CRISIS RESPONSE

2.1 Introduction

2.2 (Political) public relations, key stakeholders and social agents

2.3 An overview of national image

2.3.1 Definition of national image

2.3.2 Fundamental aspects of national image

2.3.3 Notions of and differences between image, reputation and identity

2.4 PR issues for a nation: National crisis, image and recovery

2.4.1 Crisis and national crisis in the PR context

2.4.2 National image as one crucial PR concept

2.4.3 Crisis happening, image rebuilding and national recovery

2.4.3.1 Introduction to 3Rs: Resolving, responding and recovering

2.4.3.2 Crisis response on the negative side: ＂blame game

2.4.3.3 Crisis response on the positive side: ＂leadership image

2.4.3.4 Crisis resolution towards national recovery

2.5 Previous studies of airline incidents as (national) crises

2.5.1 Contemporary politics: Conspiracy theories as instances of disaster response

2.5.2 Journalism practice: News report as a reflection of media and national differences

2.5.3 Image repair: PR strategies in (national) airline crisis communication

2.6 MH370 (and Malaysia) as a case of crisis communication and management

2.7 MH370 and PR perspective: Crisis response and image repair as material action

2.7.1 Crisis recognition and response as part of communication process

2.7.2 National image repair and situational crisis communication

2.8.1 Introduction to Critical Discourse Studies

2.8.2 CDS research on national image and crisis representation

2.8.3 Fairclough’s three-dimensional model for discourse and social change

2.9 An integrated approach to analysing MH370 crisis response and image rebuilding

2.9.1 A historical review of critical investigation into PR research

2.9.2 Integrating PR and CDS I: Framing national crisis through media discourse

2.9.3 Integrating PR and CDS II: Negotiating response strategies in institutional discourse

2.9.4 In

Dr. Huabin Wang is currently a postdoctoral researcher from School of International Studies, Sun Yat-sen University. He obtained his Ph.D. degree from the Department of English, City University of Hong Kong. His research interests include critical discourse studies, crisis communication, and public relations in general. As a critical discourse analyst, Dr. Wang will spare no effort to promote a critical public relations approach to political and corporate communication studies during his lifelong academic career.