Contaminated by Connection
(2026) SKOK11 20261Department of Strategic Communication
- Abstract
- Crisis communication research has often assumed that crises, actors, and responsibility can be identified with sufficient clarity to guide the selection of an appropriate response strategy. This study examines what happens when those conditions are less certain, when high-status individuals face reputational damage not through direct wrongdoing, but through contested and publicly constructed associations with a crisis source. Through a longitudinal qualitative analysis of Bill Gates’ public communication across two crisis contagion events, this study examines how communication strategies develop when responsibility is ambiguous and the threat itself is unstable. The cases concern Gates’ association with Jeffrey Epstein and his emergence as... (More)
- Crisis communication research has often assumed that crises, actors, and responsibility can be identified with sufficient clarity to guide the selection of an appropriate response strategy. This study examines what happens when those conditions are less certain, when high-status individuals face reputational damage not through direct wrongdoing, but through contested and publicly constructed associations with a crisis source. Through a longitudinal qualitative analysis of Bill Gates’ public communication across two crisis contagion events, this study examines how communication strategies develop when responsibility is ambiguous and the threat itself is unstable. The cases concern Gates’ association with Jeffrey Epstein and his emergence as a central target of COVID-19 conspiracy narratives. The findings suggest that the two cases required fundamentally different approaches. In the Epstein case, Gates worked to contain a crisis of proximity by acknowledging misjudgment while resisting interpretations that framed the association as reflective of his character, using minimization and philanthropic reframing across multiple phases of the crisis. In the COVID-19 case, Gates instead responded by dismissing conspiracy narratives as irrational and attempting to challenge the meanings attached to his public identity. The findings suggest that existing frameworks such as Situational Crisis Communication Theory and Image Repair Theory, while analytically useful, are built on assumptions that may not fully hold in cases of ambiguous individual-level crisis contagion. In these cases, responsibility is difficult to attribute and reputational threats are shaped through ongoing public interpretation. This study therefore calls for theoretical development that is more sensitive to ambiguity, audience segmentation, and the possibility that what requires repair is not an act, but a meaning. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
https://lup.lub.lu.se/student-papers/record/9229929
- author
- Nordkvist, Philip LU and Platt, Viggo
- supervisor
- organization
- course
- SKOK11 20261
- year
- 2026
- type
- M2 - Bachelor Degree
- subject
- keywords
- Crisis contagion, reputation management, crisis communication, high-status individuals, image restoration, image reclamation, ambiguity
- language
- English
- id
- 9229929
- date added to LUP
- 2026-06-25 10:54:57
- date last changed
- 2026-06-25 10:54:57
@misc{9229929,
abstract = {{Crisis communication research has often assumed that crises, actors, and responsibility can be identified with sufficient clarity to guide the selection of an appropriate response strategy. This study examines what happens when those conditions are less certain, when high-status individuals face reputational damage not through direct wrongdoing, but through contested and publicly constructed associations with a crisis source. Through a longitudinal qualitative analysis of Bill Gates’ public communication across two crisis contagion events, this study examines how communication strategies develop when responsibility is ambiguous and the threat itself is unstable. The cases concern Gates’ association with Jeffrey Epstein and his emergence as a central target of COVID-19 conspiracy narratives. The findings suggest that the two cases required fundamentally different approaches. In the Epstein case, Gates worked to contain a crisis of proximity by acknowledging misjudgment while resisting interpretations that framed the association as reflective of his character, using minimization and philanthropic reframing across multiple phases of the crisis. In the COVID-19 case, Gates instead responded by dismissing conspiracy narratives as irrational and attempting to challenge the meanings attached to his public identity. The findings suggest that existing frameworks such as Situational Crisis Communication Theory and Image Repair Theory, while analytically useful, are built on assumptions that may not fully hold in cases of ambiguous individual-level crisis contagion. In these cases, responsibility is difficult to attribute and reputational threats are shaped through ongoing public interpretation. This study therefore calls for theoretical development that is more sensitive to ambiguity, audience segmentation, and the possibility that what requires repair is not an act, but a meaning.}},
author = {{Nordkvist, Philip and Platt, Viggo}},
language = {{eng}},
note = {{Student Paper}},
title = {{Contaminated by Connection}},
year = {{2026}},
}