Residual Crisis: The National Endowment for the Arts and Image Repair Rhetoric

• In Event: Forgive us: Organizational responses to wrongdoing and conflict

Abstract

The study of organizational rhetoric strengthens our understanding of communication in an organized world. Image repair rhetoric is one of the many forms of organizational discourse. I argue in this essay that current image restoration research should expand to consider the rhetorical strategies organizations suffering from what I call residual image damage. Using Benoit’s theory of image repair, I analyze a speech given by Chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts.

Author

• Mattea A. Garcia, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign