Letters to the Business Public: The Material Intersections of Wall Street and Main Street

• In Event: The Rhetorical Analysis of Corporate Speakers: Three Approaches to Warren Buffett’s Letters to Shareholders

Abstract

As Chairman of Berkshire Hathaway, Inc, Warren Buffett delivers a report to shareholders, which is read closely by financial professionals and the business media. Buffett’s messages have had an enormous influence on investment behavior as well as the contemporary view of the stock market as a mechanism through which every citizen can participate in growth and prosperity (Iden, 2005). Using Celeste Condit’s framework of modal materiality, this paper subjects Buffett’s letters to an empathic critique (1993; 2008), concluding that Buffet’s letters perform an important function in the ongoing renegotiation of the relationship between business and society.

Author

• Dale Cyphert, University of Northern Iowa