Article title: SOCIAL MEDIA TROLLS AS FAUX THIRD-PARTY AGENTS OF IMAGE REPAIR: CHINA'S DISINFORMATION CAMPAIGN AND STATECRAFT IN THE DARYL MOREY AFFAIR
Authors: Gregory A. Cranmer, Darren Linvill, Hudson Smith, Bryan Denham,
Joseph Bober, Kevin Nutt and William Seaton
Journal: Journal of Applied Communication Research
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/00909882.2023.2282508
In the published version, the endnote was not included. The author wishes to include Endnote 1 in both the online and print versions.
The Endnote 1 text is given below for reference.
After personal correspondence with Daryl Morey, the authors recognize that Mr. Morey objects to characterizing his second statement as an apology, as he intentionally sought to avoid apologizing under great pressure. He also wished to draw attention to The Wall Street Journal’s retraction of a reference to his statement as an apology from a November 19 editorial entitled “On China, Women's Tennis Beats the NBA.” The authors, however, use the term apology in a manner consistent with broad understandings of apologia, image repair, and Scher and Darley's (1997) conceptualization of an apology as a communicative act that seeks to remedy a social disruption. Various additional considerations also informed our language, including (a) O’Connell's (2022) use of the term in his account of the case study and in the outlining of the sport-related statecraft process (i.e., the framework from which this study builds), (b) legacy media's coverage of the statement as an apology (New York Times, National Public Radio, CBS, NBC, BBC, and CNBC), (c) the social construction of the statement as an apology within the public discourse featured in this article, and (d) the statement's focus on acknowledging and mitigating offense that may have been incurred by Rocket fans and friends who reside in China.