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The purpose of this paper is to discuss the rhetorical framings that can be discerned by applying discourse analysis to a publicly available transcript of a Public Accounts Committee (PAC) inquiry in the UK.

In particular, the authors examine the discursive tactics used during the 2013 investigation by the House of Commons PAC, “Tax Avoidance: The Role of Large Accountancy Firms”.

Two opposing rhetorical framings of “tax avoidance” are analysed which the authors see developing incrementally and directly opposing each other. Metaphors are used by the PAC to exemplify the dark side of professions, including potentially transgressing the boundaries of what constitutes “tax avoidance”. This is counteracted by the Big Four portraying an alternative market-oriented/neo-liberal view of professions pursuing a societal good through dedication to promoting market competition.

Whilst one rhetorical framing is predicated on being able to draw a clear distinction between tax evasion and tax avoidance, the alternative rhetorical framing contests this distinction and contributes to an existing cultural account that paints the dark side of some of the professions. Extending the work of Creed et al. (2002) and Alexander (2011), the authors demonstrate the bridging between micro-level discursive acts and broader cultural accounts, at the macro level. As such the authors discuss the pertinence of this multi-level discursive contest, within post-inquiry sensemaking, for understanding the “dark side” of professions.

The purpose of this study is to apply a rhetorical lens to the exploration of symbolic interactions used to negotiate contested identity. Specifically, we provide and analyze an Internet discussion among nurses concerning job duties and responsibilities. In this case study, one nurse questions her superior's remarks about her “abandoning” her responsibilities if she does not undertake “non-nursing” tasks. Ironically, the majority of posts that follow from other nurses perpetuate the notion that nurses must perform “non-nursing” tasks to fulfill their primary moral obligation and sustain an identity of nurses as flexible and caring. A rhetorical lens is applied and suggests that multiple framing techniques and rhetorical tactics (i.e., mutual negation, minimization, red herrings, sunny-side of domination, and perhaps most important the moral imperative) are used to persuade the nurse toward a collective identity – flexible professional. Although the main contribution of this study is found in the use of the rhetorical lens, an additional contribution is discussed – unexpected evidence, which suggests that the primary assumption of a “nursing shortage” may be a discursive reality, as well.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze media storytelling and rhetoric surrounding the credibility of the longstanding accounting practice of mark‐to‐market valuation.

The cascading storytelling model of progressive framing by the media of mark‐to‐market valuation was applied to story subsets of the three types of classic Aristotelian rhetorical appeals.

The authors found that the media blamed the accounting profession's mark‐to‐market valuation practices as substantive cause of recent corporate problems and declines in market values. In addition, the rhetorical framing of mark‐to‐market accounting practices in the media prompted the Financial Accounting Standards Board to a rush to judgment.

The paper is limited to the analysis of the storytelling included. Different results from other sources may provide another result.

The failure in the media to address the duality between the logos of accounting and the ethos of the media narratives exacerbated the cascading activation. Understanding this duality may provide a different lens in looking at information dissemination. This is not only relative to stakeholders in making more informed decisions but should also serve as a warning to the profession, to have more voice, to use a rhetorical strategy that can have more saliency in the public arena.

The paper examined storytelling as interplay of retrospective narrative, the presentness of living story, and the antenarratives shaping the future of not only the unfolding economic crisis, but the future of accounting itself. In terms of rhetoric, we extended the application of pathos, ethos, and logos by examining a cascading activation theory model. This is one of the few studies of antenarratives and how through cascade rhetoric the future is shaped.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the framing and rhetorical devices employed by luxury brands to build CSR-based, ethical corporate identities while managing complexities of the CSR-luxury paradox, the perceived clash between the self-transcendent values of CSR, and the self-enhancement values of luxury.

Qualitative frame analysis was conducted to create detailed frame matrices for each dimension of CSR message content, followed by quantitative content analysis to establish the extent of usage of these frames across 43 luxury brand websites in the apparel, beauty, jewelry, and watch categories.

Luxury brands predominantly framed their CSR efforts as discretionary, driven by altruistic motives. They foregrounded brand over social issue and highlighted substantial input into CSR efforts consistently over a period. CSR efforts were put into programs that were congruent with the brands’ business and that conveyed impact in abstract terms, evoking emotions over logic. Such framing across the CSR message-dimensions of issues, motives, importance, commitment, fit, and impact reflected a sophisticated understanding of communicating to a socially and environmentally conscious demographic while simultaneously aligning with the central, enduring, and distinctive characteristics of luxury.

This study contributes to emerging empirical work on CSR as a tool to build ethical corporate identity. This study also adds to the literature on identity management and CSR communication in the luxury industry, a sector that exceeded €1 trillion in retail sales in 2016.

Between 1985 and 2000, the six largest US pharmaceutical firms entered a very active period of partnerships with other pharmaceutical firms to expand their knowledge of biotechnology-based research and development (R&D) frameworks and to bolster the growth of their drug portfolios. The purpose of this study is to examine the annual reports published by these companies for evidence of strategic framing of these partnerships.

A content analysis method was most appropriate for this study, as it allows for analysis of a large amount of information and accurate analysis over time. Ninety-six annual reports from the six major US pharmaceutical firms (Abbott, Bristol Myers Squibb, Eli Lilly, Johnson and Johnson, Merck, and Pfizer) were coded. The final codebook included 18 categories derived from framing theory. After collection, the data were uploaded to SPSS for statistical analysis.

Results indicate that mention of partnerships grew considerably in depth and length over time, but companies did not consistently employ frames to describe why or how they engaged in external partnerships.

This is the first study to assess mentions of pharmaceutical firms' external efforts to build their R&D programs and drug portfolios, from the intersecting perspectives of framing theory and the resource-based view (RBV) of the firm, to illustrate how changes were communicated to shareholders during a dynamic period of change within the industry.

The paper explores university leaders' employee-focused sensegiving discourse during the COVID-19 health crisis. The aim is to reveal how leadership sensegiving narratives construct emotion in the rhetor-audience relationship.

A social constructionist, sensemaking approach centres on the meaning-making discourse of university leaders. Using rhetorical discourse analysis (RDA), the study analysed 67 emails sent to staff during a three-month period at the start of the global pandemic. RDA helps to reveal how university leaders help employees make sense of changing realities.

Three core narratives: organisational competence and resilience; empathy, reassurance and recognition; and community and location reveal a multi-layered understanding of leadership sensegiving discourse in which emotion intersects with material and temporal sensemaking dimensions. In supporting a process of organisational identification and belonging, these core narratives help to mitigate audience dissonance driven by the antenarrative of uncertainty.

An interpretivist approach was used to analyse qualitative data from two UK universities. While focused on internal communication, the employee perspective was not examined. Nevertheless, this paper extends the human dimension of internal crisis communication, building on constructionist approaches that are concerned with emotion and sensegiving.

This paper expands the domain of internal crisis communication. It integrates the social construction of emotion and sensemaking with the underexplored material and temporal dimensions in internal crisis communication and applies RDA.

Entrepreneurial firms such as professional service firms (PSFs) face constant challenges to acquire resources, one of the greatest of which is the challenge to win client engagements. Although rhetoric is at the center of the challenge to win client engagements, scholars have not identified what rhetorical strategies are the most persuasive to potential clients. By exploring one type of PSF, architecture firms, we argue that PSFs can compete for and legitimate themselves with clients by deploying institutional logics that provide symbolic frameworks and meaning. Since multiple institutional logics exist in society, a critical question for a PSF is which logic is most persuasive to clients. We analyze architecture firms’ written pitches to predict which rhetoric strategies win the valuable resource of a client engagement for a multiclient state project. Our results identify that rhetoric deploying a “profession” logic was most effective whereas a “business” logic was counter-productive in obtaining client engagements and securing resources for the firm.

High levels of child obesity alongside rising stunting and the absence of a coherent food policy have deemed UK’s food system to be broken. The National Food Strategy (NFS) was debated intensely in media, with discussions on how and who should fix the food system.

Using a mixed methods approach, the authors conduct framing analysis on traditional media and sentiment analysis of twitter reactions to the NFS to identify frames used to shape food system policy interventions.

The study finds evidence that the media coverage of the NFS often utilised the tropes of “culture wars” shaping the debate of who is responsible to fix the food system – the government, the public or the industry. NFS recommendations were portrayed as issues of free choice to shift the debate away from government action correcting for market failure. In contrast, the industry was showcased as equipped to intervene on its own accord. Dietary recommendations made by the NFS were depicted as hurting the poor, painting a picture of helplessness and loss of control, while their voices were omitted and not represented in traditional media.

British media’s alignment with free market economic thinking has implications for food systems reform, as it deters the government from acting and relies on the invisible hand of the market to fix the system. Media firms should move beyond tropes of culture wars to discuss interventions that reform the structural causes of the UK’s broken food systems.

As traditional media coverage struggles to capture the diversity of public perception; the authors supplement framing analysis with sentiment analysis of Twitter data. To the best of our knowledge, no such media (and social media) analysis of the NFS has been conducted. The paper is also original as it extends our understanding of how media alignment with free market economic thinking has implications for food systems reform, as it deters the government from acting and relies on the invisible hand of the market to fix the system.

Given the growth in use of Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis (PGD) in reproductive medicine, most fertility clinics have developed websites describing the benefits of PGD. This chapter examines the media frames employed on 372 U.S. fertility clinic websites marketing PGD to consumers and how these frames promote biomedicalization.

Evaluation of website discourse was conducted with the use of frame analysis, a research methodology for examining the way media frames bind together claims, judgments, and value statements into a narrative that guides readers’ interpretation of an issue.

Findings show that website discourse frames PGD in terms of the attainment of reproductive normality, the management of reproductive risk, and the achievement of technological progress. These discursive frames contribute to the ongoing biomedicalization of reproduction by re-naturalizing conception as a choice rather than a natural fact, by promoting preoccupation with biomedical risk, and by affirming new forms of technological power and expertise.

Examination reveals the ways in which PGD has developed its own system of representations, notions of exchange, and epistemic forms, and highlights the important ethical issues leveraged on fertility clinic websites marketing PGD.

As one of the first attempts to systematically analyze media frames that depict PGD on fertility clinic websites, this study contributes to medical sociology by advancing theoretical and empirical understanding of the media processes shaping accounts of reproductive technologies. Findings also provide a foundation for further analysis of the social norms and bioethical standards arising from consumer marketing of reproductive technologies.