Kris och Narrativ: En kvalitativ studie av buffers användning i Manchester Uniteds kriskommunikation

In organized sports, Buffers play a bigger role within crisis communications than other industries. These buffers can relieve or intensify a crisis depending on the welfare of the organization's reputation. This paper looks at Manchester United's recent crisis regarding their player Mason Greenwood to identify usage of buffers in their crisis communication. With the help of Coombs, Koerber & Zabaras definitions of buffers paired with Sellnows proposal of dominant narratives the paper's theoretical framework was established. The organization's statements regarding the crisis, as well as their Twitter and Facebook pages were processed with the help of narrative analysis. Through the processing of the material implicit usage of buffers was identified both in their statements and social media. This paper will explore the implicit nature of buffer usage which hopefully will lead to a greater understanding of the topic for academics and organizations.