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1 Introduction
90 percent of a crisis response is communications, Barbara Reynolds, Center for Disease Control, USA ([1] "Quotations", 2010).
British Petroleum Plc (BP) is the world's third-largest oil and gas company headquartered in London, UK. Its mission is to be "innovative, progressive, safe and friendly for both its employees and the environment". BP tries to increase its profitability, aiming to achieve and sustain competitive advantage, through various routes, including the creation of a reputation which generates value ([29] Porter, 1985/2004).
However, BP is responsible for several oil spills since 2005 (e.g. 23 March 2005 in Texas and 2 March 2006 in Alaska) causing a number of deaths and injuries among its employees and incalculable disaster to the environment. The biggest environmental disaster in the history of the USA and the largest marine oil spill in the history of the oil industry took place on 20 April 2010, when an explosion occurred in the Deepwater Horizon oil drilling rig leased by BP in the Gulf of Mexico. The result of this tragedy was the death of 11 workers and the injury of 17 out of 126 workers who were on board ([33] Robertson and Kaufman, 2010; [7] Chakraborty, 2011).
After the tragedy in the Gulf of Mexico, BP's efforts to regain superior performance have been unsuccessful, leading to a drastic decline in its financial profitability by the end of 2010. Along with BP's history of crises, many reasons led to the Gulf of Mexico disaster, including neglected safety issues and management failures ([31] Qumer and Purkayastha, 2010). During this crisis another weak point in BP's management became obvious: that of effective crisis communication for the protection of its corporate image and reputation among its stakeholders.
Crisis communication is a significant issue in oil industries disasters. "Companies have to develop effective and efficient crisis communication strategies dealing with the complexity of the crisis, because of potential severe loss and damage in corporate value" ([23] Maresh and Williams, 2010). These strategies are directed towards stakeholders (the public and government, employees, shareholders) who want to know: what happened? Who did it happen to? When? Where? How? Why? ([14] Dowling, 2002).
Rham Emanuel, President Obama's Chief of Staff, described BP's crisis communication strategy as "a long line of PR...