"When a face has been threatened, face-work must be done"

The emergence of social media opens up more places for interaction. The interaction enables individuals to produce how they want to be perceived by an audience, which can be referred to as image. Image is essential since people will act to fit this picture. However, image can be ravaged in a moment, which causes individuals to take actions to repair the audience's perception of image, if threatened. Therefore, this study examines how influencers communicate in their vlogs, after being targeted as controversial. The purpose of this study is to identify how influencers' crisis communication is rhetorically designed in an attempt to direct the audience's perception of image. Based on crisis rhetoric and the three rhetorical appeals, Goffman's theory of image and social identity, and finally the theory of image repair, an abductive rhetorical analysis has been conducted on a case study with the aim to identify which strategies and rhetorical appeals influencers use to steer the audience's impression of image. Concluding, it was identified that the influencers use the three rhetorical appeals as well as all image repair strategies, but in individual ways. The results of the study can contribute with knowledge to the field of strategic communication, and particularly how crisis communication can be used to repair image