Metanarration's Role in Restructuring Perceptions of Crisis: NHTSA's Failure in the Ford-Firestone Crisis

Abstract

This study explores the process by which organizations involved in crisis seek to manage and influence the public narratives surrounding the event. Specifically, organizational messages are divided into the stages of primary narrative and secondary narrative as the organiza tions seek to reconstruct the crisis event for their stakeholders. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's (NHTSA) multiple responses to accusations that it failed to properly respond to the Ford/Firestone case are analyzed as an illustration of the metanarra tion model. We demonstrate the function of metanarration by show ing that NHTSA effectively reconstructed the narrative associated with its failure by creating an exigency for enhancing, rather than punish ing, the organization.