How spokespeople help or hurt business through crisis messaging: Experiments testing the roles of narratives, non-narratives, and counterargument

David Clementson & Page, T. G. (in press). “How spokespeople help or hurt business through crisis messaging: Experiments testing the roles of narratives, non-narratives, and counterargument.” Corporate Communications: An International Journal. doi:10.1108/CCIJ-10-2022-0133

Abstract:  When an audience mentally counterargues a spokesperson, the message is backfiring. In such cases, audience members are practically persuading themselves to take the opposite position advocated by the spokesperson. Yet spokespeople who are professional persuaders serving corporations often seem to instill counterargument. This paper examines the role of counterargument as the conduit through which a spokesperson’s different message types affect a company during a crisis. We explore the paradox of spokespeople’s (in)effectiveness by testing divides in research drawn from normative crisis communication theory, narrative persuasion theory, and the theory of reporting bias. Two controlled, randomized experiments are reported. Participants (total N = 828) watch video clips of media interviews of a company spokesperson fielding questions about a scandal. Reducing counterargument matters in the context of non-narrative persuasion, and non-narratives can perform at least as well as narratives in crisis communication.