Evaluating Image Repair Strategies of CRU Scientists and IPCC After the Climategate and Glaciergate Crises

• In Event: ICA Plenary Interactive Paper/Poster Session II
  In Interactive Paper Session: Environmental Communication Interactive Poster Session

Abstract

In November 2009, more than 1000 emails between prominent climate scientists at Climatic Research Unit (CRU) were leaked days before the COP 15 summit in Copenhagen, where the world leaders congregated to act on global warming. The resulting public controversy, dubbed 'climategate', cast doubt on the credibility of the scientists, the CRU, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and on the science supporting anthropogenic climate change. This paper uses the Image Repair Theory (Benoit, 1997) to examine the communication strategies of the parties involved. Nine investigations, press releases, newspaper articles, and blogs were analyzed to identify image repair strategies of the scientists, the CRU and IPCC. Analysis suggests that denial, attacking the skeptics, and bolstering were prominently used by the three parties, in different measures with relative success. This paper suggests the potential for, and the need to investigate inter-organizational crisis communication to assist in reputation management, as crisis often engulfs multiple rhetors.

Author

• Jagadish J Thaker, Massey University