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This paper aims to compare the Greek and Chinese rhetorical traditions and explore their influences on today’s business and marketing communication across relevant cultures. In particular, it uses the Aristotelian persuasive orientations as reference points to introduce the Chinese rhetoric, and interpret cultural differences in persuasion from a historical and sociocultural perspective. It has been found that Greek and Chinese rhetoric and persuasion were developed to meet the needs of the social and cultural environments and this rule still applies to today’s business communication. The logical approach has been emphasised in the English rhetorical tradition while both qing (emotional approach) and li (logical approach) are the focus of persuasion in the Chinese tradition. This difference is also the root of cultural differences in modern business communication. Findings from both English and Chinese texts and data are examined to substantiate our focal argument.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a theoretical framework of external accounting communication in the form of a typology based on perspectives, traditions, and theories from the discipline of communication studies. The focus is accounting communication with external audiences via public written documents outside the audited financial statements, i.e., annual reports, press releases, CSR reports, websites, conference calls, etc.

The theoretical framework is based on two broad research perspectives on accounting communication: (A) a functionalist-behavioural transmission perspective and (B) a symbolic-interpretive narrative perspective. Eight traditions of communication research are introduced which provide alternative ways of conceptualising accounting communication, namely (1) mathematical tradition, (2) socio-psychological tradition, (3) cybernetic/systems-oriented tradition, (4) semiotic tradition, (5) rhetorical tradition, (6) phenomenological tradition, (7) socio-cultural tradition, and (8) critical tradition. Exemplars of each tradition from prior accounting research, to the extent they have been adopted, are discussed. Finally, a typology is developed, which serves as a heuristic device for viewing similarities and differences between research traditions.

Prior accounting studies predominantly focus on the role of discretionary disclosures in accounting communication in the functioning of the relationship between organisations and their audiences. Research is predominantly located in the mathematical, the socio-psychological, and the cybernetic/systems-oriented tradition. Accounting communication is primarily viewed as the transmission of messages about financial, environmental, and social information to external audiences. Prior research is mainly concerned with the communicator (e.g. CEO personality) and the message (e.g. intentions and effects of accounting communication). Research from alternative traditions is encouraged, which explores how organisations and their audiences engage in a dialogue and interactively create, sustain, and manage meaning concerning accounting and accountability issues.

The paper identifies, organises, and synthesises research perspectives, traditions, and associated theories from the communication studies literature in the form of a typology. The paper concludes with an extensive agenda for future research on accounting communication.

The purpose of this paper is to present a theoretical background for studying rhetoric and narratives as equipment for living. Analyzing a case study on spinning and the spin doctor in recent narratives with a major focus on the Danish TV-series Borgen. Arguing that narratives can be equipment for teaching.

Introducing rhetorical concepts as tools for an analysis of narratives (based on the work of Kenneth Burke).

The authors argue for the importance of rhetoric and narrative as tools for meaning-making, illustrate how spinning has become a major topic in recent fiction (and the TV-series Borgen in particular), and focus on how Borgen can be equipment for living from different “terministic screens.”

The authors analyze how a popular narrative as Borgen can be read as equipment for living, focussing on how the spin doctor has become a major character in fiction, and illustrate what the authors can learn from narratives about rhetoric and spinning.

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.

The purpose of this investigation is to explore Alitalia and the Italian Government's crisis response strategies (CRSs) implemented in three specific periods of 2008 to understand Alitalia and the Italian Government's approach in communicating with media stakeholders as well as to examine how main Italian and international newspapers framed Alitalia's CRSs.

This study adopts a content analysis approach to evaluate CRSs used by Alitalia and the Italian Government in their official press releases then reported by the main Italian and international newspapers.

Both Alitalia and the Italian Government focused mostly on corrective action – however, some differences in their choice of CRSs are visible during the three periods. Alitalia provided more information on the situation through its press releases than the government, whereas the government used in a larger measure excuse strategies, especially in the later period. In terms of news coverage, the content analysis shows that the CRSs reported by the international press correspond to those in the press releases whereas the Italian newspapers preferred other frames than those offered by Alitalia and the Italian Government.

The findings confirm previous investigations on the importance of applying a context‐oriented approach in crisis communication management, but they also underline the importance of media relations management.

This study extends the body of knowledge in crisis communication management and news coverage and offers some suggestions to manage effective media relations within the Italian media system.

Education in library and information science (LIS) in the first decade of the 21st century is reviewed and discussed in terms of changes, developments, and associated issues. Specifically, courses and concentrations newly added to the LIS curriculum are described along with a summary of what has been revised, including the core. Distance education in LIS is presented as a result of technology application while reposition, relocation, and closures of LIS schools are also examined. Of the organizational changes among LIS schools, the emergence of iSchools and related topics received particular coverage with data gathered recently. Issues persistent in LIS education (i.e., accreditation of LIS programs, library education crisis, and chasm between LIS education and practices) are revisited with analysis. The author believes on the basis of this review that the digital age has brought us in LIS education with opportunities greater than ever. LIS education will move forward and even thrive in this digital age when the field not only makes intelligent use of the technology but also changes in other dimensions as the society advances.

In 2010, the author published a practical critique of some of Karl Weick's writings, to which Weick offered a rejoinder. The purpose of this paper is to use his response as an occasion to reflect on the rhetorical conditions of critique in the sensemaking tradition.

This paper provides a rhetorical analysis of Weick's response to the author's critique, showing that it is directed at the ethos of the critic. For the purpose of the analysis, ethos is conventionally defined as the character, competence and goodwill of the speaker.

The analysis shows that Weick's dismissal of the author's critique suggests the lack of a “dwelling place” (the primordial sense of “ethos” in pre‐Socratic Greek) for critical scholarship in sensemaking research.

All scholarly communities need a space for the critical evaluation of the claims their members make. In an attempt to establish such a place, the author counters the standard disciplinary pedagogy of sensemaking, which is inspired by Lave and Wenger's “legitimate peripheral participation”, with a call for legitimate peripheral irritation.

The paper criticises the dominant paradigm of public relations theory for lack of interest in discursive and rhetorical dimensions of public relations. An alternative theoretical approach to public relations is identified that does treat discursive and rhetorical dimensions of public relations, but it is indicated that at present it has not been sufficiently integrated into dominant public relations theory. The paper explores the points of convergence between rhetoric and public relations. The narrow and broad conceptions of rhetoric are presented, the first characterising rhetoric with persuasive and argumentative discourse, the second with different types of discourse. It is suggested that elements of the broad conception of rhetoric could provide heuristics for analysing public relations techniques as “genre repertoire” of public relations discourse. In the second part, an enquiry into the narrow conception of rhetoric as persuasive and argumentative discourse is made. Positivistic understanding of “truth” and “objectivity” as normative criteria of public relations discourse is criticised on the basis of the so‐called “rhetoric as epistemic” view. It is argued that in corporate discourse, especially in situations of confrontation with active publics, key managerial decisions have to be justified in argumentation. In the last part of the paper, Toulmin’s model of argumentation is suggested as especially suitable for analysis of the argumentative nature of corporate discourse.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate how organizational orators cope with situations where they must simultaneously address several audiences with clashing interests, conflicting identities and contradictory interpretations of crucial issues.

The paper draws on both the classical rhetorical tradition and various contemporary disciplines to delineate, conceptualize and critically discuss a repertoire of rhetorical strategies for dealing with composite audiences.

There are at least nine distinct strategies for dealing with the problem. Most of them make problematic assumptions about audiences. The most promising strategy involves shifting and blending frames.

Most managers will stand in situations where they have to cope with multiple and mutually antagonistic audiences. This paper provides practical suggestions for how to go about it.

The paper isolates and investigates a problem that was largely overlooked by classical rhetoricians, and contemporary scholars still underestimate its ubiquity, its complexity and its urgency. Apart from improving our grasp of the problem, the paper provides a comprehensive overview of potential solutions, and shows their shortcomings.

This comparative study aims to investigate the rhetorical organization of Korean and English argumentative texts. In previous studies, the rhetorical organization of such texts has been categorized as either direct or indirect depending on the placement of the thesis statement (Chien, 2011). The present study attempts to document more specific rhetorical patterns using Swales (1990) concept of moves and steps.

Ten Korean EFL students with similar L1 and L2 literacy backgrounds were selected, and, adopting a within-subject design, the students wrote two argumentative essays, one in Korean and one in English, in response to two different topics. The students’ essays were analyzed at both the macro and micro levels. The focus of the macro-level analysis was on the placement of the thesis statement and of topic sentences in each of the body paragraphs. Once the macro-level analysis was done, the essays were analyzed at the micro level using Swales (1990) move analysis.

The findings suggest that both texts were organized in a similar way at the macro level, constituting a typical paper structure (i.e. introduction, body and conclusion). However, a difference appears at the micro level: the students used a variety of steps to create a move when writing in Korean, whereas little variation was found in the English texts. An analysis of the data suggests the possibility that the standardized moves and steps in the English texts may be due not to culture-specific rhetoric, but to a lack of practice with rhetorical thinking in English.

In previous studies, the rhetorical organization of texts has been categorized as either direct or indirect depending on the placement of the thesis statement. The present study uses the framework of move analysis to describe more specific organizational patterns of Korean and English writing to determine the extent to which Korean and English writing is similar in the genre of argumentative writing. Another significance of the study lies in the choice of Korean writing as a reference point for comparison with English writing. It has been widely noted that there is a dearth of research of Korean students’ writing in contrastive rhetoric. To the best of the author’s knowledge, most of the contrastive rhetoric studies were conducted with Chinese or Japanese student writers.