In this recently published article for Critical Studies on Security, SPIN member Dr. Natalie Jester (University of Gloucestershire) and Dr. Emma Dolan of the University of Limerick, examine the Boeing social media response to the Ethiopian Airlines crash of 2019, arguing that while deaths resulting from aviation are openly acknowledged, deaths resulting from the arms trade are a largely unacknowledged ‘public secret’.
Boeing is famous for aviation but also made $29.2 billion from arms in 2018. Deaths resulting from the arms trade can be considered a ‘public secret’ – known, but typically socially unacknowledged. This work considers how (un)acknowledgement obscures everyday security arrangements. We argue that public apology and scandal are boundary-delineating practices, locating certain issues within the public secret, whilst rendering others knowable and sayable.
We examine Boeing’s Twitter response to the March 2019 Ethiopian Airlines flight 302 (Boeing aircraft) crash. The content: 1) produced the crash as a tragedy, positioning a grieving Boeing as ‘sorry,’ 2) allowed Boeing to ‘take responsibility’, with moral obligation for safety.
In the wider contexts of the arms trade and safety in commercial aviation, Boeing’s Twitter navigation of apology/scandal is not merely corporate face-saving. Instead, it (re)confirms the public secret by positioning aviation deaths as knowable/grievable, and those lost to the arms industry as neither.
The open access article is available here.
Boeing is famous for aviation but also produces arms, making $29.2 billion from the latter in 2018. The role of the arms trade in facilitating death can be considered a ‘public secret’ – known, but socially unacknowledged. This allows Boeing to represent its role as one of ‘neutral’ technological advancement, obscuring violence engendered by certain products. This paper builds on works on public secrecy, which investigate how (un)acknowledgement obscures everyday security arrangements. How can we know the public secret? We argue that public apology and scandal are boundary-delineating practices, locating certain issues within the public secret and rendering others knowable and sayable. We examine Boeing’s Twitter response to the March 2019 Ethiopian Airlines flight 302 crash. The content: 1) produced the crash as a tragedy, positioning Boeing as ‘sorry’ and capable of grief, 2) allowed Boeing to ‘take responsibility’, positioning safe operation of their products as a moral obligation. Within the wider political contexts of the arms trade and responsibility for safety in commercial aviation, we explain Boeing’s Twitter navigation of apology/scandal not as simply corporate face-saving, but as a practice of (re)confirming the public secret, positioning aviation deaths as knowable/grievable, and those lost to the arms industry as neither.