How public discourse functions to restore moral orders: Online impolite comments on corporate apologies

Yongping Ran and Jiabei Hu
Guangdong University of Foreign Studies

Previous research has extensively examined corporate apologies as webcare in public settings. However, it has paid less attention to apologies made directly to the public despite their potential to evoke responses that reflect social expectations. This study examines corporate public apology strategies and social media users’ follow-up comments, specifically focusing on impolite comments and their underlying rationale. The findings reveal that, despite employing various apology strategies in response to food safety incidents, corporations continue to receive criticism and impolite comments online. These comments frequently reference the moral value of 良心 liángxīn ‘conscience’, which serves as a moral ground for public criticism. Specifically, these comments highlight a set of moral expectations constituting liángxīn: being responsible, being honest, avoiding being profit-centric, and caring for customers. Such impolite comments function as a rite of moral aggression aimed at reaffirming and restoring moral orders. This study enriches our understanding of public responses to corporate apologies and underscores the role of online criticism in shaping societal norms.

Publication history

Date received: 18 March 2024

Date accepted: 18 October 2024

Published online: 26 May 2025

Table of contents

The past several decades have witnessed a transfer of the speech act of apology from the private to the public sphere (Ancarno 2015), especially in business contexts. Many studies in this area have concentrated on corporate apologies as webcare and investigated how corporations utilise apology strategies to address individual customer complaints or issues (Decock 2022; Page 2014). Typically occurring in routine customer service interactions on social media or online platforms, these apologies are characterised by conversational human voice, such as greetings, and compensatory actions, which aim to maintain a positive brand image and rebuild rapport with customers (Morrow and Yamanouchi 2020; Page 2014).

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