Building Blocks of Individual Biography? Non-Governmental Organizational Communication in Reflexive Modernity

Abstract

In this article, we present a rhetorical analysis of organizational communication by a non-profit, social movement organization, Amnesty International Denmark (AID), to illustrate how communication by non-governmental organizations (NGOs) simultaneously serves organizational self-interest and provides a set of symbolic tools for individuals to use in the process of constructing biographical certainty. Our analysis shows how AID’s member communication constructs a view of the world centered on moral binaries and invites members to identify with the moral position that AID represents. This idealistic morality not only offers members a sense of collective identity, certainty, and order in their own lives but also serves AID by preserving the moral high ground for the organization and creating a broad basis for support.