Date of Award

Summer 8-2007

Degree Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department

Speech Communication

Committee Chair

Dr. Keith Erickson

Committee Member 2

Dr. Lawrence Hosman

Committee Member 3

Dr. Richard Conville

Committee Member 4

Dr. Gene Wiggins

Abstract

Despite recent scholarly endeavors in leadership and crisis communication as well as numerous actual instances o f tragic or embarrassing and incompetent crisis leadership, little research has addressed the question: How did leaders effectively influence constituents’ reality and reactions associated with a crisis? Consequently, the purpose of this study was to investigate, identify, and explain the rhetorical features and strategies enacted by constituents as they attempted to manage the meaning (Pearce & Cronen, 1980) of a community crisis. In particular, this study investigated the means by which Chief Influence Agents® as leaders affected the process of making sense o f events, shared experiences, and related with constituents in an attempt to cope with and survive a potential community crisis. Community leadership discourse during an actual meeting convened to consider the impacts o f the declaration of war by President G. W. Bush on Iraq in 2003 was the specific setting for the investigation of social influence and crisis management.

The study concluded chief influence agents as leaders should use natural rhetorical devices such as dialogic discourse to prime enthymemes, frame constituents’ reality, and direct the collective construction o f a new social reality for community development, crisis management, and community sustainability. In particular, the art of framing discourse is a useful rhetorical technique to address significant topics, construct master themes, assign and manage meaning, and co-create a meaningful and acceptable rhetorical vision for shared reality.