Industrial Pioneerism in the Beehive State: Rio Tinto and the Corporate Persona

Abstract

Contributing to organizational rhetoric, environmental communication, and persona criticism, this paper offers the corporate persona as a heuristic for mapping the rhetorical forces of corporate rhetors in a networked era of rhetoric and subjectivity. Giving the rhetor presence where there is absence, the corporate persona is a single image of a multiple subject implied by discursive and extra-discursive networks. I show how mining giant Rio Tinto Kennecott (RTK), which owns the Bingham Canyon Copper Mine outside of Salt Lake City, uses places, spaces, and objects—including a visitor’s center, a suburban community, a soccer stadium, and a natural history museum—to create a pioneer persona that is tied to cultural memories of the Utah Deseret. RTK’s persona is illustrative of how corporations are networked subjects that can adapt their very selfhoods to meet different exigencies while evading singular responsibilities.