Should The BP Oil Spill In The Gulf Of Mexico

Deepwater Horizon Assignment

On April 20th 2010 a BP licenses oil rig 50 miles off the coast of Louisiana exploded, killing 11 people. For three months millions of barrels of oil poured into the Gulf of Mexico killing sea life, altering the eco-system and affecting towns situated around the Gulf’s livelihood and quality of life. The Deepwater Horizon rig is responsible for the worst offshore oil spill in history. The corporation lost billions of dollars due to the disaster stemming for systematic failures across the entire operation, including its crisis management and communication. The “Gulf of Mexico Restoration” website uses these three strategies to repair its reputation: BP uses the verbal technique of passive voice to shift the
subject and therefore the blame of the Deepwater Horizon explosion and subsequent oil leak from BP to a machine failure in order to repair BPs reputation using Coombs “accident” method; BP uses the visual and verbal technique of a child and grandfather enjoying fishing on the Gulf of Mexico with the buzz words on the websites landing page to remind viewers of the good will BP did towards the Gulf of Mexico and its community after the spill, and redirect viewer’s thoughts from the disaster BP caused, and BP uses the visual technique of boldly listing the dollar amounts spent on cleanup and claims to repair its reputation by emphasizing it indemnifying the victims via compensation. BP uses the verbal technique of passive voice to shift the subject and therefore the blame of the Deepwater Horizon explosion and subsequent oil leak from BP to a machine failure in order to repair BPs reputation using Coombs “accident” method. “A gas release and subsequent explosion occurred on the Deepwater Horizon oil rig” is stated in big bold letters on the accident response page. BP strategically explained the disaster passively to persuade readers without their conscious awareness that the “gas release” is at fault for the disaster, not the subject, the oil rig and consequently BP. BP also uses the verb “to occur” a weak word choice, but strong use of rhetoric, to explain the events, since “occur” denotes a happening without much causation. BP presents the facts to readers using the accident method. Using passive voice and the verb “occurred” indicates that BP had a lack of control over all of the events that lead to this fatal disaster, and that the entire explosion was an accident, not a systematic failure within the company. BP uses the accident technique in order the repair its reputation and shift blame without actually saying it. This technique is well thought out and planned as seen in the report commissioned by BP and presented to the public. The investigation team working for BP… claimed that ‘multiple companies’ and mistakes were at the heart of the Deepwater Horizon blowout” (Macalister). By not actively taking the blame on the website when explaining the disaster and shifting the cause to multiple entities, BP tries to repair its reputation by signifying that the explosion was an accident, unforeseen by many parties, and unpreventable by BP. Making the explosion an accident, by removing BP as the cause and subject via verbal techniques works to repair BPs reputation because it states facts about what happened while confusing the readers, this disperses the blame of the disaster and therefore vitriol of those affected. BP uses the visual and verbal technique of a child and grandfather enjoying fishing on the Gulf of Mexico with the buzz words on the websites landing page to remind viewers of the good will BP has done towards the Gulf of Mexico and its community after the spill, and redirect viewer’s thoughts from the disaster BP caused.
Although the Gulf is far from clean, the words “BP is committed to Gulf” overlaid on the picture infers the Gulf is restored to its pre-spill state, and can be fully enjoyed again by Gulf communities because of BPs commitment. This follows the important “reminder” strategy explained by Coombs in “Crisis Management and Communications.” By creating a website with a pleasant landing page about the Gulf now, the public affected by the BP’s disaster can get information how BP wants to present it while being reminded of all the good works the BP organization is doing. BP invests heavily in this strategy of combating the disaster with reminding the public everything good BP does now for the economy and environment. “BP tripled its advertising budget to £60m…. It has run a series of full-page newspaper adverts to coincide with the one-year anniversary of the spill” (Bryant). To save the company and reputation BP had to spend billions of dollars to do good in the gulf, but BP made sure the public knew about the countless hours and money spent for the cleanup with year anniversary advertisements of its goodwill as if the goodwill were voluntary. The visual and
verbal methods used on the landing page works to repair BPs reputation because it reminds the public of all of the good will BP has done, and shows the Gulf looking clean and its residents happy, to make viewers think the Gulf is clean because of BPs efforts BP the visual technique of listing the dollar amounts spent on cleanup and claims to repair its reputation by indemnifying victims via compensation.
The video states “23 Billion” has been paid out in “cleanup & claims,” and the Claims Information page reports over 12 Billion has been paid out. BP informs viewers of the dollar amounts to repair its reputation by justifying the damage done with amount paid out. A victim is less likely to retain anger with BP if the victim was made monetarily whole. BP makes sure to state the amount paid in claims in cleanup, because although people can be indemnified, the environment and Gulf ecosystem cannot. With the initial disaster BP projected the cost to the company “BP 's own most recent estimate of the total cost of the disaster was announced in November 2010 as nearly $40bn” (Bryant). The organizations realized how much it was going to spend and realized it should use it to its advantage by emphasizing the monetary amount it is costing it and presenting the money as compensation for victims. The money spent on the cleanup of the oil spill, though mandatory, works to cover the damages done to the environment and assure readers BP cares to restore all aspects of the Gulf to pre-spill
conditions. The Deep Water Horizon explosion killed eleven people and the subsequent oil spill damaged the Gulf ecosystem, the tourism economy, and the surrounding resident’s quality of life. BP created a website to mitigate the severity of the damages by appealing to the general public via visual and verbal techniques and reputation repair strategies like inferring the disaster was an accident, reminding residents of BP’s goodwill to the Gulf and surrounding communities and emphasizing the compensation paid to victims.

APA Citations

Bryant, Ben. "Deepwater Horizon and the Gulf oil spill - the key questions answered." the Guardian. N.p., n.d. Web. 6 Nov. 2013. .
Macalister, Terry. "BP oil spill investigators place much of blame on Transocean." The Guardian . N.p., n.d. Web. 5 Nov. 2013. .