Budweiser in the 2017 Superbowl: Dialectic Values Advocacy and the Rhetorical Stakeholder

• In Event: ICA Interactive Paper/Poster Session I
  In Interactive Poster Session: Public Relations Interactive Poster Session

Abstract

Public relations discourse is changing given the advent of social media, and corporate statements are evaluated under different criteria in the digital age. Grounding Budweiser’s response to controversy over their 2017 Super Bowl ad in terms of corporate social responsibility and issues management provides a new perspective for approaching Bostdorff and Vibbert’s (1994) conceptualization of values advocacy. This study recognizes the consumer powers of the rhetorical stakeholder, a discursively created and mediated public, and demands re-evaluation of the values common to society from a cocreational public relations perspective. Conceptualizing dialectic values advocacy outlines the changing values among contemporary, common stakeholders as well as the means for communicating these values superficially to promote unanimity among publics and organizations. Previously successful universal values like unity and patriotism have since been replaced with engagement and disruption; formally engendering these values allows an organization to construct audience perceptions of responsibility.

Author

• Benjamin Windholz, University of Kentucky