Sixteenth International Conference on The Image

Abstract

Crisis response is a knotty task for government officials. In November 2024, Taiwan’s Ministry of Labour, Miss Hsieh, was accused of bullying her subordinates for two years. One of them even committed suicide. Hsieh’s apology was criticised as a huge failure. The study affirms the importance of rhetorical strategy in crisis management. There are two research questions: 1. Why did the crisis response strategy fail? 2. How should we respond to crises with situational conditions and target audiences? Kenneth Burke’s dramatism and pentad, Aristotle’s rhetorical theory, and Ware and Linkugel’s apologia generic criticism inform the research questions. Hsieh’s response strategy was ‘identification by sympathy’; the pentad’s ratios were agency-act the most, in which the narrative is ‘denying the antecedent.’ Hsieh’s purification strategy is scapegoating. Since the public outcry over this negative statement, redemption was not achieved. Burke proposed another way to reduce guilt, which is mortification. Hence, Hsieh should admit her fault and bear the responsibility. The most significant ratio of the pentad of statements should be agent-act; she is the main subject and bears all responsibilities. Hsieh should advocate anti-bullying, a strategy of identification by inaccuracy, guiding the public’s attention to another perspective, which is a higher morale issue. It is a strategy of ‘bolstering and transcending’. The target audience is the public; Aristotle’s epideictic discourse would be the context. The statement’s purpose is to let the public identify that Hsieh’s apology motivation is not only for herself but for the government’s morale in the future.