Rhetoric of Public Crisis: Constructing Communication Networks in Transcultural Digital Contexts

Abstract

Pubic crises that target multinational corporations are becoming increasingly common in their emerging markets. The current crisis communication scholarship is inadequate to attend to this matter because of its theoretical, contextual, and methodological problems. This study proposes a new framework for public crisis communication. It defines public crisis as a rhetorical contest among networked stakeholders in a risk society with globalized disorder. Based on Manuel Castells’ network society theory and Kenneth Burke’s dramatism, this study establishes a duo-layered framework to mathematically build the semantic networks of public crisis communication among stakeholders and also to rhetorically interpret the networks. By theorizing crisis communication within a network ecosystem, it breaks the traditional, institution-centric paradigm and promises a more scientific analysis of the complexities and dynamics of public crisis.