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Article published In: Argumentative Discourse in Contemporary China: A pragma-dialectical perspective
Edited by Peng Wu and Xu Cihua
[Journal of Argumentation in Context 6:3] 2017
► pp. 344–358

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Strategic maneuvering by persuasive definition in corporate crisis communication

The case of Taobao’s response to criticism

 | Zhejiang Gongshang University
Published online: 4 December 2017
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/jaic.17001.yan
Abstract
This paper aims to explore the use of persuasive definition in a corporate weblog by examining how a blogger attempts to define the company’s role in response to criticisms in the cyber space. Making use of a pragma-dialectical research framework, corporate weblog is characterized as an argumentative activity type in the commercial domain in which the legitimacy of persuasive definition is contextually constrained. The paper first analyzes the institutional preconditions that restrict all the argumentative moves in a corporate weblog, and then investigates how the corporate blogger of Taobao, the biggest online shopping website in China, responds to criticism by redefinition to evade the burden of proof.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Corporate crisis communication via weblogs as a communicative activity type
    • 2.1Corporate crisis communication as argumentation
    • 2.2Persuasive definition
  • 3.A pragma-dialectical approach to argumentation in crisis management via corporate weblogs
  • 4.Taobao as innocent and SAIC as the accused
  • 5.The strategic maneuvering of redefinition in the discourse
    • Redefinition of “responsibility” for self-legitimacy
    • Redefinition of “support” for others-illegitimacy
  • 6.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • References
References (15)
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Cited by (3)

Cited by three other publications

Yang, Na & Jiabei Hu
2023. Getting involved or acting in defence. Pragmatics and Society 14:3 ► pp. 410 ff. DOI logo
Cheng, Yang
2020. The social-mediated crisis communication research: Revisiting dialogue between organizations and publics in crises of China. Public Relations Review 46:1 ► pp. 101769 ff. DOI logo
Cheng, Yang & Chia-Jui Lee
2019. Online crisis communication in a post-truth Chinese society: Evidence from interdisciplinary literature. Public Relations Review 45:4 ► pp. 101826 ff. DOI logo

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