Performative Remorse and the Erosion of Trust: Rethinking Apology Rhetoric in Contemporary Brand Communication

In contemporary brand communication, apologies are increasingly issued in the absence of actual wrongdoing, functioning as strategic and symbolic gestures rather than mechanisms of moral repair. This paper examines the rise of performative apologies and their implications for trust, authenticity, and accountability in organizational communication. Grounded in Situational Crisis Communication Theory and employing Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), the study analyzes five publicly posted mock apology messages that share similar structures, tones, and communicative intents. Using Fairclough’s three-level CDA framework, the analysis explores how apology language is linguistically constructed, discursively circulated, and socially normalized outside crisis contexts. Findings reveal that these messages systematically imitate the genre of genuine apologies while avoiding responsibility, blending apology discourse with promotional narratives, and reframing accountability as performance. This normalization of simulated remorse contributes to apology fatigue, public skepticism, and the erosion of the moral authority of apologies. The paper argues that the strategic misuse of apology rhetoric undermines organizational authenticity and weakens the capacity of apologies to repair trust during genuine crises. The study contributes to scholarship on crisis communication, discourse, and organizational ethics by highlighting the need to restore proportionality, sincerity, and accountability in apology practices. Keywords: Performative apologies; Critical Discourse Analysis; organizational trust.