Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®
Articles 1 - 1 of 1
Full-Text Articles in Entire DC Network
Communicating In Crisis: Rhetorical (De)Stabilization During The Covid-19 Pandemic., Brittany Nicole Smart
Communicating In Crisis: Rhetorical (De)Stabilization During The Covid-19 Pandemic., Brittany Nicole Smart
Electronic Theses and Dissertations
This project explores the role of rhetoric in crisis—how rhetoric can contribute to both the stabilization and destabilization of a worldwide health emergency. Specifically, I utilize the COVID-19 pandemic as a case study to investigate how institutional rhetorics exacerbated the ongoing burnout epidemic amongst healthcare workers. Through a feminist, materialist take on institutional ethnography (Fullagar & Pavlidis, 2021; Griffith & Smith, 2014), I show how, while institutions like the CDC were under pressure to contain the spread of the virus, in the chaos of communicating safety regulations to healthcare professionals, they inadvertently subverted clinician autonomy and expertise by “coordinating” (LaFrance, …