Categories as Rhetorical Barriers and the Federal Response to Hurricane Katrina

Anish Dave Georgia Southwestern State University

Abstract

I explore the role of categories as rhetorical barriers in organizations responding to crisis (Veil, 2011 Veil, S. R. (2011). Mindful learning in crisis management. Journal of Business Communication, 48(2), 116–147. doi:10.1177/0021943610382294[Crossref] , [Google Scholar]). I analyze some problematic categories of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the categories’ impact on the organizations’ response to Hurricane Katrina. My analysis shows that unintended and perverse consequences (Giddens, 1984 Giddens, A. (1984). The constitution of society: Outline of the theory of structuration. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press. [Google Scholar], 1987 Giddens, A. (1987). Social theory and modern sociology. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. [Google Scholar]) reversed the power of a key legitimated category (Orlikowski, 1995 Orlikowski, W. J. (1995). Categories: Concept, content, and context. Computer Supported Cooperative Work, 3, 73–78.[Crossref] , [Google Scholar]; Giddens, 1984 Giddens, A. (1984). The constitution of society: Outline of the theory of structuration. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press. [Google Scholar]) and exposed a set of reified categories (Giddens, 1984 Giddens, A. (1984). The constitution of society: Outline of the theory of structuration. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press. [Google Scholar]).

Journal
Technical Communication Quarterly
Published
2015-07-03
DOI
10.1080/10572252.2015.1044121
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Cited by in this index (3)

  1. IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication
  2. Journal of Technical Writing and Communication
  3. Technical Communication Quarterly

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