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- Title
Weaponizing Apologia in Response to Me Too: Organizational Silencing in CBS Coverage of Charlie Rose.
- Authors
Buisker, Lauren L.
- Abstract
At the height of the Me Too movement, CBS News fired its top correspondent, Charlie Rose, for sexual misconduct--a scandal that subjected CBS to public scrutiny. This essay investigates CBS's reporting on the Charlie Rose case to explore how the organization used the apologia strategies of corrective action, blame shifting, and bolstering in efforts to repair its reputation and answer the Me Too movement's call for change. In contrast to most apologia scholarship, which understands image repair as a defensive discourse, this essay shows how CBS weaponized apologia as an offensive rhetoric. Specifically, I argue that CBS's apologia contributes to broader discourses of rape culture by externalizing silencing tactics characteristic of internal organizational communication, individualizing narratives of sexual violence, and concealing survivors' experiences from its rhetoric. Ultimately, this essay offers insight about apologia's ability to recuperate hegemonic discourses surrounding sexual violence and to institutionalize organizational rhetorics of rape culture.
- Subjects
ROSE, Charlie, 1942-; RAPE culture; METOO movement; RAPE; SEXUAL assault; ORGANIZATIONAL communication
- Publication
Women & Language, 2023, Vol 46, Issue 2, p331
- ISSN
8755-4550
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.34036/WL.2023.020