BBC Sex-for-Grades-Report: Nigeria Tertiary Institutions ‘Crisis Management Strategies and Stakeholders’ Reactions
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Date
2020-04-25
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The Journal of Society and Media
Abstract
Studies have already acknowledged sexual scandals as public relations nightmares of
higher institutions of learning. Therefore, we examined the crisis management strategies
of Nigerian tertiary institutions and stakeholders’ reactions after the British
Broadcasting Corporation’s sex-for-grades report. Adopting qualitative research, we
analysed 13 available press releases of institutions retrieved from some institutions’
websites and sampled opinions of 20 stakeholders comprising parents, students and
lecturers through a depth interview. We used Coombs’ theory of crisis response
strategies: denial, diminish, rebuild and bolstering as thematic categories. We discovered
that the institutions mostly used denial with diminish response strategy to blame societal
decadence, scapegoat female students for and downplayed the severity of sexual
harassment incidence by the institutions. More so, all the stakeholders distrust the
credibility of local media in the reportage of sexual harassment cases. However, female
students feel aggrieved that school administrations and national government neglected
them for failing to outlaw sexual harassment and severely punish offenders. Therefore,
we recommend that considering stakeholders’ perception of sexual harassment incidence
in Nigerian ivory tower, Nigerian higher educational institutions should not adopt denial
response strategy for sex scandal cases.
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Keywords
crisis, sexual harassment, Nigerian, situational