This study explores the process by which organizations involved in
crisis seek to manage and influence the public narratives surrounding
the event. Specifically, organizational messages are divided into the
stages of primary narrative and secondary narrative as the organiza
tions seek to reconstruct the crisis event for their stakeholders. The
National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's (NHTSA) multiple
responses to accusations that it failed to properly respond to the
Ford/Firestone case are analyzed as an illustration of the metanarra
tion model. We demonstrate the function of metanarration by show
ing that NHTSA effectively reconstructed the narrative associated with
its failure by creating an exigency for enhancing, rather than punish
ing, the organization.
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