ABSTRACT
In communication studies, as well as in other fields across the human sciences, we are perplexed by the meaning of such basic elements of a communication/rhetorical situation as speaker, message, and audience when these terms are construed within the context of "corporate" (used broadly here, referring to a body or group of natural persons) communication. For example, when Exxon "speaks," as it did so frequently following the March, 1989 oil spill in Alaska's Prince William Sound, how should those messages be understood? Indeed, the study of communication in the corporate or organizational context makes especially challenging questions about authorship, intent, attribution, responsibility, audience, and degree of "personalness." (It is instructive to note that among the corresponding terms for "Inc." in French and Spanish is "S.A.," standing for société anonyme and sociedad anónima, respectively. The corporation is then the anonymous society.) For the layperson, a fundamental question arises: How do I converse with a corporate or collective speaker? These questions take on even greater importance as our society becomes more organized, more thoroughly organizational (see Cheney &, McMillan, in press).
