An Extended Rhetorical Typology of Crisis Communication: Managing the Roman Catholic Clergy Sex Abuse Crisis

Author:

• Suzanne E. Boys (Univ of Cincinnati)

Abstract:

This paper extends current rhetorical approaches to analyzing crisis communication. By adapting Linell's (1998) focus on the balance between initiatives and responses to crisis communication, this study extends traditional understandings of the offensive and defensive orientation to crisis communication. What emerges is a hybrid typology of crisis communication orientations, including offensive-initiatives (i.e., being the first to levy an attack), offensive-responses (i.e., responding to another's discourse with an attack), defensive-initiatives (i.e., using a preemptive defense), and defensive-responses (i.e., responding defensively to an attack). When applied to the clergy sex abuse crisis, this typology reveals ways in which each organization either offsets or compounds any weakness in its rhetorical position. The focus on how multiple stakeholder organizations treat the potential for interactivity is relevant to any organization interested in adapting its crisis management to the responses of key stakeholders. It could also be extended to indicate reasons organizational crises become intractable or evolve in particular ways. As public relations researchers broaden their focus beyond managerial strategies to larger situational variables to explore co-creational theories of PR, such approaches are essential.