A toolbox for public relations: The oeuvre of Michel Foucault

In this article, we provide a brief introduction to the work of Michel Foucault. Our focus is on the major themes of Foucault's work: discourse, power/knowledge and subjectivity. We demonstrate the rich contribution that Foucauldian theory can make to public relations practice and scholarship by moving beyond a focus on excellence towards an understanding of public relations as a discourse practice with power effects.     

Narrating Sustainability in Canadian Health Care Reform Discourse

In Canada, as in other industrialized welfare states, definitions of health system sustainability reflect different goals and correspondingly diverse ways of understanding exactly what is to be sustained and how. In this article, we report on results from a survey of documents and groups involved in and/or concerned about sustainability of the healthcare system. We identify four broad narratives of sustainability in Canadian healthcare reform discourse, and explore what these different sustainability narratives tell us about the character and contours of these often‐fractious debates. We argue that sustainability itself may not be a paradigm shift, as has been suggested, but a plot device that helps to steer the story in a particular direction, ‘black‐boxing’ certain aspects of context and emphasizing others.     

语言、寓言与修辞——论伊格尔顿文学批评中的政治内涵

伊格尔顿是反＂本质＂论者,他把对＂文学＂的命名看做是各种现实关系相互纠葛所形成的某项事件。伊格尔顿从对语言的分析出发,将其与现实的话语相连,引入本雅明的＂寓言＂概念,企图从中找出从语言通往现实秩序的入口,而修辞理论则是伊格尔顿语言关系现实化工作的深入。修辞强调对话性与公共性,这正是现代性建立以来逐步失去的东西,而批评的意义就在于重新唤醒修辞的力量,让个体与其生存的现实秩序变得更具互动性。     

How publics react to situational and renewing organizational responses across crises: Examining SCCT and DOR in social-mediated crises

The prevalence of social media among networked publics calls for more research regarding how organizations can conduct effective crisis communication on social networking sites. Based on the situational crisis communication theory (SCCT) and the discourse of renewal (DOR) theory, this study examined how social media publics’ sentiments were affected by situational and renewing organizational responses in various clusters of crises. Twitter data of six crises representing three crisis clusters varying in the responsibility attribution (i.e., ambiguous, accidental, and preventable) were collected. We conducted a content analysis on organizations’ official tweets during crises (N = 59) and sentiment analysis on publics’ replies on Twitter (N = 4,340). The results showed that publics’ positive sentiments toward organizations were affected by organizational crisis responses that included instructing information, sympathy, systemic organizational learning, and effective organizational rhetoric. We recommend that crisis managers express sympathy toward publics as well as organizational learning that prevents a crisis from happening again.     

外语教师课堂话语标记语语用功能考究

话语标记语是外语教师课堂话语中颇为常见的语言现象,具有十分重要的话语功能。以认知语用学为理据,结合自然的教师课堂话语语料,分析了外语教师课堂话语标记语的语用功能,揭示出课堂话语标记语不但是课堂教学中语篇组织的语言机制,而且是教学过程中动态顺应策略的显性依据。同时,研究结果对外语教师课堂话语标记语的合理使用,教学效果的优化也有所启示。     

积极语篇分析:和谐的态度韵律研究——以汉语导游讲解词为例

文章从语篇分析的新视角——积极语篇分析入手,以评价理论为框架,试图探寻在导游讲解词中,导游是如何缩短自身以及景点与游客之间的距离,从而达到宣传景点、传播文化的交际目的的。作为一个较新视角的积极语篇分析并没有固定的分析方法和模式,本文融合了语类理论、评价理论和态度韵律理论构建了态度韵律研究的分析模式,并将它运用到导游讲解词的分析中。通过研究本文发现导游讲解词作为一种机构语言确是语类的一种,是分阶段的具有目标朝向性的社会过程,并有其独特的语类结构。主要包括五个阶段:欢迎词、整体介绍、具体讲解、评价和欢送词。态度韵律是一个具有层级性的结构,存在于语篇之中,具有普遍共性,导游讲解篇词中的态度韵律有其特性。态度韵律的运作有着内在机制,态度韵律可分为发散韵、波浪韵和梯度韵三类,这三类结构具有动态平衡的特质,它们共同流动于语篇之中使其成为和谐统一的整体。      

Ecological modernisation and discourses on rural non-wood bioenergy production in Finland from 1980 to 2005

Rural bioenergy production is currently a much debated question worldwide. It is closely connected to questions of environmental protection and rural development in both developing and industrial world. In Finland, rural bioenergy production has traditionally meant the production of wood fuels for heating purposes. The utilisation of forest biomasses is undiminished even today, and other biomasses are scarcely used for energy production. The purpose of this article is to discuss the possibility of widening the bioenergy production palette to include biomasses other than forest-based woody ones. This matter is approached from an environmental aspect using the concept of ecological modernisation. Empirical data is collected from two Finnish rural periodicals. The central analytical tool used in the analysis is discourse analysis. Four different periods of discursive variety, based on the contents of the analysed articles, could be identified from the data. In the first periods bioenergy talk was expert-driven and questions on non-wood bioenergy were dealt with varyingly. During the last period, a broad interest in rural bioenergy production evolved and more recognition was given to farmers' role as real energy producers. This raises hopes for a better future for rural non-wood bioenergy production in Finland.     

A play for rurality – Modernization versus local autonomy

It is common to understand the governing of rural space as the outcome of a conflict between some romantic protectors of a lost past on the one hand, and the people who worry about creating economic values on the other. However, the power to shape the rural should not only be searched for in the open struggle between protectors and developers, but also should be analysed at the level of discourse, in the play between discourses about how to deal with the rural. In this paper I therefore present a modernist discourse and demonstrate how taken-for-granted truths about the rural – its history, its present and its future – are made possible by this discourse. Secondly, I will reveal how rurality takes on a different meaning in an alternative to the modernist discourse, emphasizing local and regional autonomy. In demonstrating that rurality is contingent upon a play between these two discourses, I want to provide some new insights into an important force behind the persistence of ideas about rurality in Norway.     

Moving Forward or Taking a Stand? Discourses Surrounding the Politics of Wisconsin High-speed Rail

The 2010 launch of a national high-speed rail (HSR) initiative became heavily politicized in some parts of the U.S. Research on HSR, however, has predominantly focused on quantitative variables at the national scale, while the fraught sub-national politics of HSR have been mostly overlooked. Using discourse theory, I explore the politics of Wisconsin HSR, arguing that HSR figured heavily in a larger state-based political struggle over conflicting spatial visions of how Wisconsin ‘ought’ to be. This research highlights the significance of spatiotemporally contingent meanings and the scale of analysis in politics of mobility research.