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From Prophecy to Advocacy: A Rhetorical Analysis of Al Gore's Enactment of Climate Crisis Management

Hunt, Kathleen P.
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1243353239

Abstract Details

2009, MA, University of Cincinnati, Arts and Sciences : Communication.
The purpose of this study is to engage in a “rich…robust explanation of the communication practices that constitute, sustain, and transform environmental crises” (Schwarze, 2007, p. 92). In undertaking this task, I propose an analogy comparing Al Gore, an environmental activist, to a crisis manager in an organization. The focus of this study will be the ways in which Gore creates a sense of urgency while also mobilizing his audience to action. Combining the application of an organizational communication perspective, enacted sensemaking, with rhetorical analysis, this study seeks to build climate crisis communication theory. Traditional crisis management literature tends to limit analysis to the strategies used by managers to re-actively frame an organizational crisis. Al Gore represents a unique case study because rather than deemphasizing the crisis, Gore pro-actively constructs climate crisis through his public discourse. In this way, Gore enacts climate crisis management. Thus, this study represents an alternate application of traditional crisis management literature through the examination of the rhetorical techniques by which Gore continuously re-constitutes global climate crisis. Borrowing the crisis management terminology from crisis communication literature, I posit that Al Gore can be viewed as an activist crisis manager. Using Weick's (1988) theory of enacted sensemaking as the primary theoretical lens, Gore's 2006 documentary, An Inconvenient Truth, his 2007 Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech, and selected pages from the We Campaign website are analyzed as a sequence of public address, framing the crisis situation over time, while also constructing Gore's crisis manager persona as well as the persona of his audience.
Stephen Depoe, PhD (Committee Chair)
Suzanne Boys, PhD (Committee Member)
William Jennings, PhD (Committee Member)
195 p.
Communication; Rhetoric
Al Gore; Enacted Sensemaking; Crisis Communication; Rhetoric; Global Climate Change

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Hunt, K. P. (2009). From Prophecy to Advocacy: A Rhetorical Analysis of Al Gore's Enactment of Climate Crisis Management [Master's thesis, University of Cincinnati]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1243353239

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Hunt, Kathleen. From Prophecy to Advocacy: A Rhetorical Analysis of Al Gore's Enactment of Climate Crisis Management. 2009. University of Cincinnati, Master's thesis. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1243353239.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Hunt, Kathleen. "From Prophecy to Advocacy: A Rhetorical Analysis of Al Gore's Enactment of Climate Crisis Management." Master's thesis, University of Cincinnati, 2009. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1243353239

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

ucin1243353239
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© 2009, all rights reserved.
This open access ETD is published by University of Cincinnati and OhioLINK.