“I’m very sorry to say that I’ve behaved badly” Image repair, public apologies and non- apologies during the Weinstein scandal. Ville Kuusilehto Bachelor’s thesis 682285A Bachelor’s Seminar and Thesis English Philology Faculty of Humanities University of Oulu 26.03.2018 Table of Contents 1.Abstract ................................................................................................................................. 2 In English............................................................................................................................... 2 In Finnish .............................................................................................................................. 2 2.Introduction .......................................................................................................................... 3 3.Theoretical framework ......................................................................................................... 4 3.1 Benoit’s image repair theory .......................................................................................... 5 3.1.1 Denial ....................................................................................................................... 6 3.1.2 Evading responsibility .............................................................................................. 6 3.1.3 Reducing offensiveness ........................................................................................... 7 3.1.4 Corrective action ...................................................................................................... 8 3.1.5 Mortification ............................................................................................................ 8 3.2 Apology research ............................................................................................................ 8 4.Data ..................................................................................................................................... 11 5.Analysis and discussion ....................................................................................................... 13 5.1 Overall distribution of strategies.................................................................................. 13 5.2 Analysis of individual statements ................................................................................. 22 6.Conclusion ........................................................................................................................... 27 7.Works Cited ......................................................................................................................... 29 1 1. Abstract In English In late 2017 and early 2018, there was a surge of sexual misconduct allegations directed at hundreds public figures, mostly in The United States. This became commonly known as the so- called Weinstein scandal. This paper provides analysis of some of the public apology statements issued by the people who faced accusations during that scandal. The purpose of the research is to learn what strategies were used in the statements, and how prevalent non-apologies were among them. All in all, 35 statements are analyzed. The analysis reveals that, while expressing remorse and apologizing was the most frequent strategy due to the choice of statements, reducing the apparent offensiveness of the act, reducing the accused person’s apparent responsibility for the act, and offering a corrective action were the next most common strategies that were used. 33 statements contained an apology in some form and 30 of those apologies contained at least one of the eight characteristics of a non-apology. The three most frequent characteristics were a vague or incomplete acknowledgement of the offense, minimizing the offense, and questioning the harm that befell the victim. In Finnish Vuoden 2017 loppu- ja vuoden 2018 alkupuolella satoja julkisuuden henkilöitä syytettiin seksuaalisesta häirinnästä, pääosin Yhdysvalloissa. Tämä ilmiö tunnetaan nykyään nimellä Weinstein-skandaali. Tämän tutkielman tarkoitus on tarkastella tuona aikana syytettyjen henkilöiden julkaisemia julkisia anteeksipyyntöjä ja lausuntoja syytöksiinsä liittyen. Analyysi kattaa yhteensä 35 lausuntoa. Analyysi paljasti, että vaikka katumuksen ilmaisu ja anteeksipyyntö olivat yleisimmät strategiat johtuen lausuntojen luonteesta, kolme strategiaa olivat yleisiä: Teon ilmeisen vääryyden tai loukkaavuuden minimointi, syytetyn henkilön vastuullisuuden minimointi ja korvaavan, tai ongelman uusiutumisen estävän teon tai toiminnan tarjoaminen. 33 lausuntoa sisälsi anteeksipyynnön jossain muodossa, ja niistä 30 sisälsi vähintään yhden kahdeksasta pseudoanteeksipyynnön piirteistä. Kolme useimmin ilmenevää piirrettä olivat vajavainen tai epämääräinen kuvaus loukkaavasta teosta, teon loukkaavuuden minimointi ja uhrin kokeman haitan kyseenalaistaminen. 2 2. Introduction Towards the end of 2017, Hollywood was hit with a tidal wave of sexual misconduct allegations, with hundreds of people coming forward with their stories of being sexually harassed or abused. It all started when The New York Times reported that Harvey Weinstein, co-founder of Miramax and The Weinstein Company, had allegedly sexually harassed and abused multiple women during his reign as the top producer in the film industry (Kantor & Twohey, 2017). The publication of these allegations opened the floodgates to many more women coming forward with sexual harassment allegations against celebrities, politicians, and journalists. The media uproar around Weinstein’s allegations is commonly (and in this paper) referred to as the Weinstein Scandal. As the situation progressed, the hashtag #metoo started trending on social media platforms, as men and women turned to the internet to publish their own accounts of being sexually harassed or abused in the workplace. The #metoo hashtag is part of the “me too.” movement, that was founded in 2006 to help the victims of sexual violence1. The purpose of this paper if to analyze the public apologies issued by the accused people, using Benoit’s image repair theory (Benoit, 2014), supplementing it with other apology research (Arendt, LaFleche, & Limperopulos, 2017; Eisinger, 2011; Meier, 1998). Image repair is an act in which a person or organization attempts to repair or prevent a negative effect on their reputation or image (Benoit, 2014, p. 20). Benoit (2014) divides image repair strategies into two supercategories, according to the shouldering of responsibility: Either the actor argues that they are not responsible for the action, therefore attempting to maintain a favorable impression of themselves, or the actor accepts responsibility for the action and uses strategies to improve their reputation in other ways (p. 21-29). With this in mind, the statements from the accused will hopefully give an indication of the shouldering of responsibility for the alleged actions, and the ways in which that is reflected in the language, if at all. In other words, this paper should answer the following questions: 1. What image repair and apology strategies are used in the statements? 2. How prevalent are non-apologies among the apology statements? 1 See https://metoomvmt.org/ 3 Due to the limited scope of this research, only the statements that fully or partially accepted responsibility were analyzed. The materials used for analysis will be further detailed in section 3. Image repair and apologies have been extensively studied in the past few decades (See Arendt et al., 2017; Eisinger, 2011; Meier, 1998), but with the recent ubiquity of social media, public apologies have become a very common, yet relatively little studied area of apology research (Ancarno, 2015; Bentley, 2015). It can be argued that public apologies and apologies between two individuals can have different motivations: There is often little financial gain to be had in a private individual apologizing to another person for an offensive act, but in the case of a public figure or a company, public image can be an important part of business (Benoit, 2014, p. 21). In this case, most celebrities can be thought of as having similar motivations as a business, because negative publicity can affect their career in negative ways. This can be observed in the media coverage of the Weinstein scandal, where many celebrities lost business due to the negative publicity2. Furthermore, public apology and image repair research has focused heavily on corporations (Arendt et al., 2017, p. 1) so additional research of celebrities’ image repair strategies is warranted. In terms of motivations for image repair, an argument can be made that celebrities fall somewhere between a corporation and a private individual: Corporations’ sole motivation for maintaining a good reputation is financial gain, but celebrities may have a desire to maintain a favorable reputation not only from a financial standpoint, but also from that of a private individual whose personal relationships are affected by their reputation. Therefore, analysis of the language used by celebrities in their public discourse, especially when responding to a threat to their reputation (and possibly whole career) can be useful for further study in a wide array of fields, such as public relations, linguistics and sociology. 3. Theoretical framework Apologies and image repair–also called image restoration in earlier research (see Benoit, 2014)– have been the subject of a vast amount of studies in the past few decades. Furthermore, there is quite a bit of overlap between the different branches of image repair and apology research. Some researchers situate their studies in crisis communication, some in image repair, and others in 2See: https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2017/nov/04/netflix-fires-kevin-spacey-from-house-of-cards and https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/10/arts/television/louis-ck-statement 4 apology research (which is further divided into various different sub-fields), and there is extensive interplay between them (Arendt et al., 2017; Meier, 1998). Benoit’s 2015 revision of his image repair theory takes many other theories into account and shares quite a bit of similarity with some of them (ch. 2). It can be seen as a kind of amalgamation of the theories that came before it. Due to the amount of different theories and fields of research, and the limited scope of this paper, mainly Benoit’s theory was used in this paper, with some parallel research used to supplement the analysis. However, many of the different theories are quite similar in many ways, which will also be touched upon in the following paragraphs. 3.1 Benoit’s image repair theory In their meta-analysis of apology, image repair, and crisis communication research, Arendt, LaFleche, and Limperopulos (2017) state, that "apologetic rhetoric consists of messages designed to repair and restore the image, credibility, and legitimacy of a person or an organization.” (p. 517) They also state that in apologetic rhetoric, an apology is considered a defense, instead of carrying the usual meaning of “I am sorry” (Arendt et al. 2017, p. 517). However, in Benoit’s (2014) image repair theory, all image repair strategies (including apologizing) are considered as ways of repairing a damaged reputation or maintaining an already favorable image (p. 13). In fact, he bases his theory on the assumptions that “communication is a goal directed activity”, and that one of the central goals is to maintain a positive reputation (Benoit, 2014, p. 14). Therefore, it can be argued that in the context of this theory, all image repair strategies are defensive in nature, as their purpose is to prevent a negative impact on the user’s reputation. Arendt et al. (2017) describe Ware and Linkugel’s four common strategies in apologetic rhetoric, which are denial, bolstering, differentiation, and transcendence (p. 518). Conversely, in Benoit’s (2014, ch. 2) theory, there are five strategies:  Denial  Evade responsibility  Reduce offensiveness  Corrective action  Mortification 5 In Benoit’s (2014) theory bolstering, differentiation, and transcendence are listed as variations of the reducing offensiveness strategy (p. 30). The following sections will outline the different strategies and provide examples of each strategy from the data when clarification is needed. 3.1.1 Denial Benoit (2014) divides denial into two subcategories: Simple denial and shifting blame. Simple denial is when the accused denies performing the action they are accused of performing, or that the action did not occur at all. This strategy absolves the accused of responsibility, and if believed by the audience restores their image (p. 22-23). Shifting blame entails that the accused admits that the act happened, but that somebody else performed the act, therefore absolving them from responsibility. Benoit (2014) argues that this strategy may be the more effective of the two, because it may shift the bad feelings of the audience toward another target and provides them with a possible perpetrator for the act (p. 22). Denial can be used in tandem with other strategies, so a person can take responsibility for certain actions, or parts of actions, but deny the rest. This will be further discussed in the analysis section, chapter 4. 3.1.2 Evading responsibility Evading responsibility is a set of strategies where the accused does not deny doing the offensive act but attempts to reduce or completely evade the apparent responsibility for the act (Benoit, 2014, p. 23). In Benoit’s (2014) theory, evading responsibility can be achieved in four ways: Provocation, defeasibility, accident, good intentions (p. 23). Provocation is a strategy where the accused person claims that the offensive act was performed in response to another wrongful act, thereby justifying the act they are being accused of (Benoit, 2014, p. 23). Defeasibility means “pleading lack of information about or control over important factors in the situation” (Benoit, 2014, p. 23). Again, the accused does not deny performing the offensive act, but rather refers to a lack of information, lack of intent, or lack of ability to act otherwise. If successful, this strategy reduces the accused person’s apparent responsibility for the offensive act. The accident strategy means that the accused person claims that the act was performed due to a lack of control over the circumstances, or random 6 unperceivable factors that led to the act (Benoit, 2014, p. 23). This differs from defeasibility in that there is an external force or variable, which the actor cannot reasonably perceive, which leads to the action. The fourth and final strategy for evading responsibility, is good intentions. It means that the accused attempts to justify the action based on intentions (Benoit, 2014, p. 23). According to Benoit (2014), “People who do bad while trying to do good are usually not blamed as much as those who intend to do bad” (p. 24). This strategy is very similar to the defeasibility strategy, in that, they both can refer to a lack of volition for performing the offensive act. Additionally, a statement like, “it was not my intention,” may be considered to constitute the good intentions strategy, but it also fulfills the criteria for defeasibility. 3.1.3 Reducing offensiveness In general, reducing offensiveness entails that the accused admits to performing the offensive act, but attempts to “reduce the degree of ill feeling experienced by the audience” (Benoit, 2014, p. 24). This can be achieved by engaging in one or more of the six variations of this strategy, which Benoit (2014) outlined (p. 24-26): bolstering, minimization, differentiation, transcendence, attacking the accuser, and compensation. Bolstering, which can also be found in Ware and Linkugel’s theory (qtd. in Arendt et al. 2017, p. 518) means that the accused attempts to make the audience see the actor of the offense in a more positive light by, for example presenting the audience with some positive characteristics the actor possesses, or positive deeds the actor has performed in the past. According to Benoit (2014), self-deprecation is also a form of bolstering (p. 24). Ideally this results in a net positive effect on the accused person’s reputation, despite the negative effect of the offensive act. Minimization means that the accused convinces the audience that the offensive act is not as offensive as it seems, therefore reducing the negative effect on the accused person’s reputation. Differentiation is a strategy where the accused admits to performing the action, but distinguishes the action from other similar, but less desirable actions. This makes the actions seem less bad in comparison to the other actions they are being compared to. Transcendence is a strategy where the accused person attempts to shift the action into a broader context, or to make the audience look at the action from a different frame of reference. Attacking the accuser is a strategy where the accused attempts to either lessen the credibility of the accuser or divert attention away from the initial accusation. Additionally, if the accuser and the victim are the same person, the accused may try to argue that the victim deserved to be the target of the offensive act. Compensation is a 7 strategy where the accused offers the victim compensation in the form of money, goods or services. If the accuser accepts this compensation, the negative impact of the offensive act is potentially lessened. This strategy was not used in any of the statements. 3.1.4 Corrective action This is a strategy where the accused makes a promise of fixing the problem or preventing it from happening again (Benoit, 2014, p. 26). This is different from the compensation strategy because corrective action addresses the source of the offense or injury in order to prevent the recurrence of the offense, while “compensation consists of a gift designed to counterbalance, rather than correct, the injury” (Benoit, 2014, p. 26). 3.1.5 Mortification According to Benoit (2014), mortification can “include an explicit acceptance of blame, expression of regret or remorse, or a request for forgiveness” (p. 26-27) Essentially, apologizing for, or admitting to, an offensive act, or expressing regret for having performed such an act, constitutes mortification. However, mortification is a troublesome strategy because of the ambiguity of the phrase “I’m sorry.” This issue will be further explained in the next section. 3.2 Apology research Apologetic rhetoric and the image repair strategies detailed in the previous section are notably different to what A. J. Meier (1998) lists as apology strategies in her review of the past 25 years of apology research (p. 216). Therefore, it is important to keep in mind that apologetic rhetoric and apology strategies are two different fields with different terminologies and research goals. However, both fall under apology studies whose goals are, according to Meier (1998), to “describe apology strategies and identify contextual factors (severity of offense, interlocutor relationship) that inform their choice” (p. 25-216). Again, there is evidently quite a bit of overlap between the numerous theories and fields, and this section will attempt to form a coherent theoretical whole from a few of them. In of this paper, much of the data contains apologies that could easily be filed under the mortification section of Benoit’s (2014) theory. However, as Benoit points out, saying “I’m sorry” "can reflect an admission of guilt, as in “I’m sorry I hurt you,” or it can be an expression of 8 sympathy, as in “I’m sorry you have been hurt” (implicitly by someone else),” (p. 26) and his theory does not differentiate between these forms. Therefore, it is useful to refer to other research specifically about apologies. Meier (1998) states, that the most frequently used apology strategy is an expression that contains the word apologize, sorry, forgive, excuse, pardon, of which “an expression containing sorry is the overwhelming favorite” (p. 216). Robert Eisinger (2011), lists the required components of an apology, according to Goffman and Tavuchis (qtd. in Eisinger 2011, p. 136), and both state that there needs to be an acknowledgement of the wrongful act, and a display of remorse or regret. The most frequent way of apologizing is with just the word “sorry” or with “sorry that,” or “sorry about.” British data shows that the most frequently used intensifiers with “sorry,” are “terribly” and “awfully” while in American English, “really” is used the most (Meier, 1998, p. 217). Meier (1998) also puts forward the claim, that in formal and written contexts, “apologize” is used more frequently than “sorry” (p. 217). Theoretically, the data set for this paper should contain more expressions containing “apologize” than “sorry” due to the formal and mediated nature, and the text format of the statements. This will be further discussed in the analysis. Eisinger (2011) outlines the characteristics of what he calls the non-apology (also called a pseudo-apology), which technically falls under the mortification section of Benoit’s (2014) theory, but actually does not facilitate any shouldering of responsibility (p. 137). A non-apology is an apology that contains an offer of apology, as described above, but “diffuses blame” using various other strategies. Eisinger (2011) uses Aaron Lazare’s (qtd. in Eisinger, 2011, p. 137) list of characteristics of a pseudo-apology, which are:  Offer of a vague or incomplete acknowledgement of the offense  Use of passive voice  Phrasing the offense as conditional  Questioning the harm that befell the victim  Minimizing the offense  Using an empathic offer of apology (as in “I’m sorry that you were hurt”)  Apology to the wrong party  Apology for the wrong offense 9