The purpose of building credibility is to have the upper hand in persuasive strategies and

may also, “choose to increase the audience’s ‘conscious control’ and thus give them back a

measure of freedom to respond and thus satisfy its needs” (Cline, 83). Aristotle introduced this

means to persuasion called “ethos” in 4 BC. Ethos focuses mainly on the idea that credibility is

one of the primary factors used in persuasive techniques.

On March 8, 2014, Malaysian Airline’s flight MH 370 went missing somewhere over the

Indian Ocean. The purpose of this study is to examine how Malaysian Airlines attempted to

reestablish credibility following the tragic event of flight MH 370. By examining public

statements given by the airline for a year, it is clear that their attempts to formulate credibility

may have rendered them an opposing view and reputation. From March of 2014 until March of

2015, Malaysian Airlines demonstrates different contradictions in their statements. This study

will help to come to a consensus about the effectiveness of the attempts by Malaysian Airline to

reestablish their credibility.

Disappearance of Malaysian Airlines Flight MH370

Malaysia Airline’s Flight MH370 is a flight that was in the recent past a common feature

in the media because it went missing on March 8, 2014 (Tilley, 2014). At the time of its

disappearance, it was traveling from Kuala Lumpur International Airport to the Beijing Capital

International Airport. The flight last lost contact with the traffic control tower and the current

operational air traffic control at 01:19 MYT somewhere over the Southern China sea. However,

the debris of the aircraft is yet to be discovered and for that reason there have been a number of

conspiracy theories that have generated in reaction to the disappearance of Flight MH370 (Tilley,

2014).

The possible causes of the disappearance of the flight are varied in terms of speculation.

There is no exact number of speculative insight into the accident with development of new

theories and elimination of old ones. Some of the arising issues include passenger involvement in

which case some on board the flight were suspected to have changed the navigation because they

boarded with fake passports. Similarly, suspicions for crew involvement also developed, some

cargos were confirmed to be potentially flammable, and the management system had faulty

issues (AFP, 2014).

A detailed analysis of Malaysia Airlines has a series of related issues after cases that were

viewed as mismanagement of the process of response to the MH370 crisis. The incident has

resulted to the provision of the Malaysia Airlines communication operation and a series of

unprecedented challenges (Denyer, 2014). The management at Malaysia Airlines has been

faulted for mishandling of operations and effective information holding, hence, a lack of

preparedness for disaster management shows weaknesses on the part of Malaysian Airlines

(Jusoff, 2008). Consequently, Malaysia Airlines needs to have employed unique

strategies as a means to reestablish its ethos in its public statements.

The situation, which entirely involved the airline in searching for a missing flight, has

gone to the extent of involving 26 countries across the world (Madanoglu, Chang, & Chu, 2004).

The plane is yet to be located, indicating a strange element when it comes to the surveillance

systems and accounting for the specific trajectory that is followed from the time of take off to the

time of arrival.

A major challenge is directed to the family members of the people who were aboard the

plane. There is nothing to do besides wait for more information. As they wait, a series of

emotional distress is directed to the family members of the people who were in the plane at the

time it disappeared (Murdoch & Wen, 2014). According to information provided by Robert

Jensen, the CEO of the Kenyon International Emergency Services, the major challenge involved

with the overlying crisis of communication is not to make it worse than it already is, because

there are no ways of making it better.

Various statements were used by the airline at the time of disappearance on 8 March in an

effort to display the initial response mechanisms. The first statement made was at 7:24 am which

marked approximately 5 hours after the contact was lost with the plane. The occurrence of the

disappearance of the plane generated a series of issues including the reactivation of the “dark

site” which is considered as a dormant website mainly created to be the direct channel of

different forms of communication (Murdoch & Wen, 2014). Various updates were also made

after via the social media to alert the entire world of the situation so that information could be

channeled in all ends.

[Ethos]

Burns claims that “long before Aristotle theorized that ethos was constructed from all the

available means of persuasion, ethos meant life itself” (Burns, 2005).

Ethos is one of Aristotle’s classic means of persuasion, coming from the Greek word meaning

“character”. “persuasion is achieved by the speaker’s personal character when the speech is so

spoken as to make us think him credible”. Credibility is everything; without this it is hard to

convince an audience to follow what you are saying.

Three main qualities are necessary to create this ethos of confidence in his character, the speaker

must demonstrate good sense, good moral character, and goodwill. Without these qualities in can

be very difficult to trust the speaker or the message he/she is trying to convey. Specifically,

incorporating these qualities in ones’ message “will inspire trust in the speaker and there­fore in

the message” (Griffin, 2009).

The purpose of ethos can be seen from the persuader as well as from the audience member. Gary

Cronkhite and Jo Liska say that, “Credibility is not a set of scales or factors, it is the capability of

a source to produce changes in receivers’ opinions, policies, and overt behaviors” (Cronkhite &

Liska, 104). As a persuader, ethos is used to show to the audience that you are someone that is

trustworthy and knowledgeable about the subject. Research has supported this statement; it is

difficult to follow someone who you don’t trust. A means for credibility would be “affinity” or

as Ann Bainbridge Frymier and Catherine Thompson state in their article “Perceived Teacher

Affinity­Seeking in Relation to Perceived Teacher Credibility” in reference to

McCroskey and Wheeless, “a positive attitude toward another person” (Frymier & Thompson,

388). This idea of building strong ethos has been around forever and many people from different

walks of life try to build it. An example of this would be from Paul Minifee’s article titled

“Converting Slaves to Citizens: Prophetic Ethos in Sermons of Bishop James W. Hood”, Minifee

shows how a preacher attempts to build ethos. He states that, “‘through sharing his or her

personality in a manner that connects with the audience, a strategy that actively engages

audience members to addressing their concerns on multiple levels’” (Minifee, 110). Minifee

shows that like most persuaders, preachers try to focus on peoples’ needs and how to help them

to show that they care to build ethos. Someone with poor credibility is not seen as someone to be

taken seriously. From the audience’s point of view, we use our judgment of the speaker’s

credibility to decide whether or not they are to be trusted. Another example of how religious

leaders can attempt to build ethos comes from Todd Frobish’s article “The Virtual Vatican: A

Case Study Regarding Online Ethos”. He claims that in regard to religious leaders, “They may

try to establish religious legitimacy and authority by emphasizing a large number of supporters

or showcasing a large network of affiliated groups” (Frobish, 42).

Therefore, the findings of this study will fill a gap in current research by identifying whether or

not It’s statements (re)establishing the ethos of the airline. Finally, McCroskey and Teven (1999)

define goodwill as “perceived caring” and go on to say that the, “three elements may result in a

person being seen as more caring are understanding, empathy, and responsiveness”. Findings of

this study will better help us understand our artifact because we will be able to look at future

public statements from companies and determine whether or not they were able to reestablish

their credibility if an incident were to occur.

As a result, the following research question was examined:

RQ: What strategies does Malaysian Airlines use to (re)establish its ethos following the

disappearance of Flight MH370?

[Method]

38 public statements will be examined from Malaysia Airlines following the

disappearance of Flight MH370 in 2014. More specifically, the public statements from the time

of the flight disappearance to April, 2014 will be examined. This time period has been chosen

because that is when the world was glued to the news to know more about the flight

disappearance, thus which is when Malaysia Airlines had to be careful about the information

they send out. Statements will be looked at based on how quickly they were made and how

effective they were in reestablishing their ethos following the flight disappearance. Forms of

communication will be examined as well, including those that were used in the public

statements; whether they were released on the company’s social media sites or on the public

website. What will also be examined is how the company reached out to the families of those

who had loved ones on the flight; doing this is huge when it comes to ethos. If you contact the

families too late or in a non­effective way, you can make them dislike you more than they

already do.

The method that will be used to examine the public statements is the Constant

Comparative Analysis Method. Using this method will allow us to carefully analyze each

individual public statement made by the company. Analyzing these will show how timely they

were in responses to the flight disappearance as well as how heartfelt they were in apologies

once they knew they had lost sight of the flight. To use this method correctly, general themes

must be listed that are noticeable throughout the artifact. In this case these would be the public

statements made by Malaysia Airlines. Then it is important to pay attention to specific quotes

from the artifacts and how frequent these themes occur. Finally, an organized list of final themes

will be listed that will be the main focus of the findings section below.

The goal of this research question is to investigate each of the public statements made by

Malaysian Airlines throughout the presented timeline. More specifically, the strategies made by

the company to increase their image and credibility are what will be investigated. Many

statements, 38 in total were released following the disappearance of the flight, and with each one

the reputation of the company was at stake.

Frequent Updates

Malaysia Airlines released public statements onto the company website frequently, usually with

a new statement every other hour or so. This is good for reestablishing ethos because the

company is trying to give as much information as possible to the public, even if it’s not much.

This shows that the company is staying on top of the situation updating the media with any new

information on the whereabouts of the airplane. On the other hand, this can be detrimental to

reestablishing ethos because if you are releasing the same information over and over again,

people may get fed up and look elsewhere for knowledge on the airplane.

Updating Media about Potentially Sighted Objects

On March 23, 2014, Malaysia Airlines stated that the search for the missing Flight MH370 has

now become an international effort, and afterwards many media statements were made to update

people about the mysterious objects that were seen that may be connected to the incident.

Malaysia Airlines is trying to reestablish ethos by reaching out to the other nations for help to

show that it is needed. This is tricky because Malaysia Airlines had no choice but to make a

statement about this; if they didn’t report about it people would have been even more upset that

they didn’t release this information. Also, this hurts the credibility of the company because they

must ask other nations for help, which allows the audience to believe that they cannot find the

flight on their own, which hurts the reputation of the company. This is also

difficult because if they released faulty information it would make them look less credible. They

had no choice but to release the information that was sent to them.

Providing Facts about Flight

In the first few statements Malaysia Airlines continuously gave the audience background

information on the flight; when it took off, where it was headed, when it expected to land, who

was on board, etc. Doing this frequently is a good idea to allow people to be up to speed if

they’ve missed any information or are just now hearing about the incident. They also finish these

statements by expressing interest in reaching out to families of those on board.

Expressing Sympathy for Families

In the third public statement made on March 8th, they say, “we are deeply saddened this morning

with the news on MH370.” Malaysia Airlines makes it apparent to tell the audience in these

public statements how deeply sorry they are for what has transpired and reminding the audience

that the search will continue. Malaysia Airlines does this in a majority of the public statements

they made from then on. They do this to try and reestablish ethos because they want to show the

audience that they feel as they do and that they recognize that something went wrong and they

will not rest until it is solved. They end a number of public statements by saying, “Our thoughts

and prayers are with the affected passengers and crew and their family members.” Showing their

concern and having sympathy shows ethos because they are taking responsibility for what

happened and want to continue the search operation.

Contacting Families Early

In the third media statement released on March 8th at 10:30AM Malaysia Airlines stated that,

“Our team is currently calling family members of passengers to keep them updated on the

situation and our focus now is to work with the emergency responders and the authorities.” They

state this in plenty of other statements from this point on. Reaching out this early allows

Malaysia Airlines to reestablish ethos because they are making the attempt to reach out to each

family affected by this incident. Later on they reach out to the families even more so when they

fear that no progress has been made.

The Search will Continue

Once Malaysia Airlines realizes that they have lost contact with the flight, they make it apparent

to end each public statement by reminding everyone that the search for the missing flight will

continue. They do this to show everyone that they haven’t given up and will go to whatever

necessary lengths are needed to gain contact with the missing flight. However, seeing this over

and over can make the audience restless because they want to hear good news.

Poor Forms of Communication to Families

After the search a text message was sent to the families of someone aboard the plane. They

concluded that they have lost all contact with the flight and that they search will not continue.

This drastically hurts their credibility because instead of sending a personalized note or some

other kind of apology, they send a text message to those involved. There are no good factors that

occur here to help their ethos.

Discussion

By evaluating ethos, it is clear just how important the establishment and reestablishment

of credibility was to Malaysian Airlines after the events of Flight MH 370. From the initial

indications that the flight had disappeared, Malaysian Airlines was quick to formulate public

statements and let the public know of any new information. Not only were they demonstrating

their abilities to give information to the public, but they were also being sympathetic and quick

to provide the families with support.

Malaysian Airlines succeeded in the fact that they attempted to reestablish their

credibility. However, the effectiveness of these strategies could be improved upon. It seems that

their efforts to give speedy information diminished their credibility because of the information

changes throughout this process. By attempting to give quick suggestions, the airline did not

have the clear truth about certain events, which led to contradictions in their statements. This

resulted in the complete opposite effect of their attempts to reestablish credibility.

From the findings you can see that Malaysia Airlines attempted to reestablish their credibility.

What they didn’t notice is that their statements led to both positive and negative interpretations

based on how the public reacted. Within each public statement released by Malaysian Airlines

there were elements of good moral character and goodwill. By reminding the public about

information that was already released and by being apologetic you express these qualities to the

public. This can be tricky however, because if you’re a member of the audience or are a family

member who is glued to the TV or computer waiting for good news, seeing the same information

over and over again can make the public more restless.

There are two major limitations of this study. A limitation that was faced was the fact that

we only studied a month’s worth of news. Lately, we have learned more about the incident in the

news that we weren’t able to cover during the study. Had we expanded our timeline and studied

more recent events as well our findings and future research would change completely. However,

all that is being studied is the statements made during about a month’s time.

There were also different mediums of communication that were sent from the company. Whether

it were public statements released on the website, Facebook posts, Tweets, or even the text

message that was release to tell the families that the search would no longer continue, there were

a number of different forms of communication that led to different outcomes. Studying just the

public statements is difficult when other opposing information is being sent out through different

forms of communication.

You can see consistency between these public statements and other statements regarding

different incidents because of the strategies used to try and reestablish ethos.

There is one major implication of this study. This study applies to the theory of ethos because it

is something that is in the news every day. Whether it be a national or natural disaster, a celebrity

mishap, or a company doing something unethical, attempts to reestablish that trust from the

public is something that is faced almost on a daily basis. The findings of this study are important

because it describes how in this one incident, a company tries to regain faith from the public and

the steps they are taking to do this. It is understood that regaining this trust is going to be difficult

when peoples’ lives have been lost, however they are doing their best to reestablish ethos.

There is one area of future research that should be done. There should be a comparison between

how a company looks to reestablish ethos after an incident like this versus how a celebrity

attempts to reestablish his/her ethos following a scandal that occurs. This would be interesting to

investigate the steps taken by both parties; how they address the media or if they choose to do so,

what they plan to do in the future, if they truly are sorry, etc.

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