Det är dags att få ordning på torpet : En kvalitativ fallstudie om retorik och kriskommunikation på Transportstyrelsen

Sammanfattning: The study is based on the IT scandal at the Transport Agency, which began in 2015. The agency decided to outsource parts of its operations to the international IT company IBM, which in turn used several subcontractors based in other European countries. The Transport Agency's register contains information about virtually all Swedish citizens, and these data may now be available at foreign intelligence services. The scandal became widely known in 2017 and had consequences at the highest political level. In addition, the former Director-General was convicted of negligence with confidentiality. When the IT leak became known to the public, trust in the authority was seriously affected. The Transport Agency then made several attempts to minimize the damage that occurred. The purpose of this study is to investigate how the Transport Agency used rhetoric to rebuild confidence in the authority in connection with the IT scandal. Within the study there are three questions. 1. How did the Transport Agency work with rhetoric to rebuild the trust of the organization's stakeholders in the IT scandal? 2. How did the Transport Agency act on social media and how does the actions differ depending on the channel used? 3. How well has the Transport Agency's actions been consistent with what Coombs (2014) theories say about crisis communication? The first question relates to the purpose and addresses the rhetorical resources used in the rebuilding of trust in the authority. Research recommends social media as an effective tool to alleviate the consequences of a crisis, the study's ambition was to investigate how this opportunity was used by the Transport Agency. Timothy Coombs is the largest authority in crisis communication research, therefore the study chose to investigate how well the Transport Agency's actions are consistent with his theories. The theoretical framework is divided into rhetoric, crisis communication and social media. The rhetoric section rests largely on Brigitte Mral's research, while Timothy Coomb's research forms the basis for the theoretical framework within the crisis communication section. Research on social media in crisis communication is a relatively new focus. In this section, the study has been assisted by several researchers who argue both the pros and cons of using these media in times of crisis. The study has used a rhetorical text analysis to investigate the material consisting of four newspaper articles, a press conference and a longer text produced by the Transport Agency. The 4 methodological approach consists of Karlberg and Mrals (1998) model for rhetorical text analysis that includes six steps, context, disposition, convincing argument, argumentation analysis, style and formulation of analytical results. The study presents a result that the Transport Agency, in many cases represented by Director General Jonas Bjelfvenstam, has acted on both the rhetoric research and the crisis communication research guidelines. The most remarkable result of the study is that the Transport Agency has not used its social media to alleviate the effects of the crisis. Something that is contrary to the research recommendations. The study is at the same time pointing out that the results presented consist of interpretations and may be influenced by our own pre- understanding. For future research, it is recommended to continue research in rhetoric to create an even broader knowledge base in the area, but also to study how social media have impacted on other organizations crisis management.