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When Product Loss Minimizes Product Harm: The Reframed Narrative of Blue Bell Creameries' 2015 Listeriosis Crisis
Meisner, Colten
Meisner, Colten
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2017
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2017-05-19
Abstract
This study examined the public narrative of Blue Bell Creameries' 2015 listeriosis crisis as it was constructed by news media. Treating media coverage as public narrative (Boje, 2001), this intertextual narrative analysis advances the notion that public support of a corporation in crisis is part of an intertextual process of news production, distribution, and consumption that privileges companies whose products have cultural ties. This study analyzed news coverage from local and national sources (N = 1,316) to understand how local outlets shaped the positively framed public narrative of Blue Bell Creameries and how national media, in warning consumers of health risks associated with this crisis, became the antenarrative. The results of this study underscore the ability of local media to reframe a crisis event in terms of product loss instead of product harm. Further, producers in an intertextual system of news coverage employed Aristotle's tragic form in this crisis event to achieve greater resolution amongst consumers, suggesting theoretical and practical implications in crisis communication.
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Communication Studies