Chapter published in:
Developing New Identities in Social Conflicts: Constructivist perspectives
Edited by Esperanza Morales-López and Alan Floyd
[Discourse Approaches to Politics, Society and Culture 71] 2017
► pp. 133–158

Chapter 7
Rhetorical analysis of health risk discourse

The 2009 influenza pandemic crisis

This paper is part of my research on public health crisis communication. I have studied the discursive strategies at play in the case of the 2009 influenza A (H1N1) pandemic within the framework of rhetoric and argumentation theory. Here, I analyse two opposing speeches given at the turning point of the 2009 pandemic crisis: the hearing in the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe on the management of the pandemic by WHO (World Health Organization).The aim of my study is to highlight the rhetorical nature of public trust as the central attribute of public health institutions’ professional identity. In other words, how these factors – trust and identity – are constructed using arguments, such as the argument from authority or the precautionary principle, and the narratives that give meaning to these arguments.
Keywords: health risk communication, trust, professional identity, rhetorical analysis, argument from authority, precautionary principle, framing, discourse analysis, discourse of pandemic crisis, 2009 influenza pandemic crisis
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.The social study of risk within a constructivist frame
  • 3.Current rhetorical theory as a toolkit for the social study of health risk
  • 4.The European Council hearing on June 26 2006: Analysis of the speeches of Wolfgang Wodarg and Keiji Fukuda
    • 4.1The speech by Wolfgang Wodarg
    • 4.2Construction of the international health authority and community in the narrative of Wodarg’s discourse
    • 4.3Construction of the political authorities and other national social institutions in the narrative of Wodarg’s discourse
    • 4.4The speech by Keiji Fukuda
    • 4.5Construction of the international health authorities and the scientific community in the narrative of Fukuda’s discourse
    • 4.6Construction of the political authorities and other social institutions in Fukuda’s discourse
  • 5.Final conclusions and interpretations
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 26 July 2017
https://doi.org/10.1075/dapsac.71.07gar
References
Abeysinghe, Sudeepa
2015 “Vaccine Narratives and Public Health: Investigating Criticisms of H1N1 Pandemic Vaccination.” PLOS Currents Outbreaks 25. Ed 1. Crossref.Google Scholar
Bacon, Dawn and Borthwick, Alan M.
2013 “Charismatic Authority in Modern Healthcare: The Case of the Diabetes Specialist Podiatrist .” Sociology of Health & Illness 35 (7): 1080–1094. Crossref.Google Scholar
Barthes, Roland
1985 “L’Ancienne Rhétorique.” In L’Aventure Sémiologique 85–165. Paris: Seuil.Google Scholar
Beck, Ulrich
1992 Risk Society. Towards a New Modernity. London: Sage.Google Scholar
Billig, Michael
1991 Ideology and Opinion. Studies in Rhetorical Psychology. London: Sage.Google Scholar
Black, Steven and Rappuoli, Rino
2010 “A Crisis of Public Confidence in Vaccines.” Science Translational Medicine 2 (61): 61mr1. Crossref.Google Scholar
Castel, Robert
1991 “From Dangerous to Risk.” In The Foucault Effect. Studies in Governmentality, ed. by Graham Burchell, Collin Gordon and Peter Miller, 281–297. Hemel Hempstead: Harvester Wheatsheaf.Google Scholar
Chiang, Wen-Yu, and Duann, Ren-Feng
2007 “Conceptual Metaphors for SARS: ‘War’ Between Whom?” Discourse & Society 18 (5): 579–602. Crossref.Google Scholar
Cohen, Deborah, and Carter, Philip
2010 “WHO and the Pandemic Flu Conspiracies .” British Medical Journal 340: c2912. Crossref.Google Scholar
Cummings, Louise
2005 “Giving Science a Bad Name: Politically and Commercially Motivated Fallacies in BSE Inquiry.” Argumentation 19: 123–143. Crossref.Google Scholar
2010 Rethinking the BSE Crisis. Dordrecht: Springer. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Douglas, Mary and Wildavsky, Aaron
1982 Risk and Culture. An Essay on the Selection of Technological and Environmental Dangers. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Ericson, Richard V. and Haggerty, Kevin D.
1997 Policing the Risk Society. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.Google Scholar
Fish, Stanley
1989 Doing What Comes Naturally: Change, Rhetoric, and the Practice of Theory in Literary and Legal Studies. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Flynn, Paul
2010 The Handling of the H1N1 Pandemic: More Transparency Needed. http://​assembly​.coe​.int​/CommitteeDocs​/2010​/20100604​_H1n1pandemic​_E​.pdf. Accessed January 2, 2016.
Foertsch, Jacqueline
2001 Enemies Within. The Cold War and the AIDS Crisis in Literature, Film, and Culture. Chicago: University of Illinois Press.Google Scholar
Gilles, Ingrid, Bangerter, Adrian, Clémence, Alain, Green, Eva G. T., Krings, Franciska, Staerklé, Christian, and Wagner-Egger, Pascal
2011 “Trust in Medical Organizations Predicts Pandemic (H1N1) 2009 Vaccination Behavior and Perceived Efficacy of Protection Measures in the Swiss Public.” European Journal of Epidemiology 26 (3): 203–210. Crossref.Google Scholar
Goffman, Erving
1974 Frame Analysis. Los Marcos de la Experiencia. Madrid: Siglo XXI 2006.Google Scholar
Gross, Alan G.
1990 The Rhetoric of Science. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
1994 “The Roles of Rhetoric in the Public Understanding of Science.” Public Understanding of Science 3 (1): 3–23. Crossref.Google Scholar
2006 Starring the Text. The Place of Rhetoric in Science Studies. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press.Google Scholar
Katz, James E., Rice, Ronald E., and Acord, Sophia K.
2004 “E-Health Networks and Social Transformations: Expectation of Centralization, Experiences of Decentralization.” In The Network Society: A Cross-Cultural Perspective, ed. by Manuel Castells, 293–318. Northampton, MA: Edward Elgar. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Kroll-Smith, Steve
2003 “Popular Media and Excessive Daytime Sleepiness: A Study of Rhetorical Authority in Medical Sociology.” Sociology of Health & Illness 25 (6): 625–643. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Lakoff, George
2004 Don’t Think of an Elephant: Know Your Value and Frame the Debate. White River junction, VT: Chelsea Green Publishing Company.Google Scholar
Lash, Scott
2000 “Risk Culture.” In The Risk Society and Beyond, ed. by Barbara Adam, Ulrich Beck and Joost Van Loon, 47–62. London: Sage.Google Scholar
Lausberg, Heinrich
1960 Manual de Retórica Literaria. Fundamentos de una Ciencia de la Literatura. Madrid: Gredos 1966.Google Scholar
Lupton, Deborah
1999 Risk. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Lupton, Deborah, McCarthy, Sophie, and Chapman, Simon
1995 “ Panic Bodies: Discourses on Risk and HIV Antibody Testing.” Sociology of Health & Illness 17 (1): 89–108. Crossref.Google Scholar
Mackey, Eva
1999 “Constructing and Endangered Nation: Risk, Race and Rationality in Autralia’s Native Title Debate.” In Risk and Sociocultural Theory. New Directions and Perspectives, ed. by Deborah Lupton, 108–130. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Majone, Giandomenico
1989 Evidencia, Argumentación y Persuasión en la Formulación de Políticas. México D.F.: Fondo de Cultura Económica 1997.Google Scholar
McCloskey, Deirdre
1998 The Rhetoric of Economics. 2nd ed. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.Google Scholar
Nerlich, Brigitte
2004 “War on Foot and Mouth Disease in the UK, 2001: Towards a Cultural Understanding of Agriculture.” Agriculture and Human Values 21 (1): 15–25. Crossref.Google Scholar
Nerlich, Brigitte, Hamilton, Craig, and Rowe, Victoria
2002 “Conceptualising Foot and Mouth Disease: The Socio-Cultural Role of Metaphors, Frames and Narratives.” Metaphorik.de 2: 90–108.Google Scholar
Nespereira García, Javier
2014 Estrategias Discursivas en la Comunicación de Crisis Sanitarias. (Retórica y Teoría de la Argumentación). El Caso de la Gripe A en 2009. PhD diss., University of Valladolid.Google Scholar
Ostherr, Kirsten
2005 Cinematic Prophylaxis. Globalization and Contagion in the Discourse of World Health. Durhan: Duke University Press. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Perelman, Chaïm, and Olbrechts-Tyteca, Lucie
1958 Tratado de Argumentación. La Nueva Retórica. Madrid: Gredos 1989.Google Scholar
Plantin, Christian
1996 La Argumentación. Barcelona: Ariel 1998.Google Scholar
Plett, Heinrich F.
1985 “Rhetoric.” In Discourse and Literature. New Approaches to the Analysis of Literary Genres, ed. by Teun van Dijk, 59–84. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Pujante, David
2003 Manual de Retórica. Madrid: Castalia.Google Scholar
Radley, Alan
1994 Making Sense of Illness. The Social Psychology of Health and Disease. London: Sage.Google Scholar
Radley, Alan, and Billig, Michael
1996 “Accounts of Health and Illness: Dilemmas and Representations.” Sociology of Health & Illness 18 (2): 220–240. Crossref.Google Scholar
Renn, Ortwin
2007 “Components of the Risk Governance Framework.” In The Tolerability of Risk. A New Framework for Risk Management, ed by Fréderic Bouder, David Slavin and Ragnar E. Löfstedt, 7–19. London: Earthscan.Google Scholar
Scott, Robert L.
1967 “On Viewing Rhetoric as Epistemic.” Central States Speech Journal 18 (1): 9–17. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Semir, Vladimir de. and Revuelta, Gema
2010 Informe Quiral 2009. Medicina, comunicación y sociedad. Barcelona: Observatori de la Comunicació Científica UPF.Google Scholar
Sullivan, William M.
2000 “Medicine under Threat: Professionalism and Professional Identity.” Canadian Medical Association Journal 162 (5): 673–675.Google Scholar
Tomes, Nancy
2000 “The Making of a Germ Panic, Then and Now.” American Journal of Public Health 90 (2): 191–198. Crossref.Google Scholar
van Loon, Joost
2002 Risk and Technological Culture. Towards a Sociology of Virulence. London: Routledge. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Wagner-Egger, Pascal, Bangerter, Adrian, Gilles, Ingrid, Green, Eva, Rigaud, David, Krings, Franciska, Staerklé, Christian, and Clémence, Alain
2011 “Lay Perceptions of Collectives at the Outbreak of the H1N1 Epidemic: Heroes, Villains and Victims.” Public Understanding of Science 20 (4): 461–476. Crossref.Google Scholar
Wallis, Patrick, and Nerlich, Brigitte
2005 “Disease Metaphors in New Epidemics: the UK Framing of the 2003 SARS Epidemic.” Social Science & Medicine 60 (11): 2629–2639. Crossref.Google Scholar
Walton, Douglas
1997 Appeal to Expert Opinion: Arguments from Authority. University Park, PA: The Pennsylvania State University Press.Google Scholar
WHO
2009 Pandemic Influenza Preparedness and Response: A WHO Guidance Document. Geneva: World Health Organization. http://​apps​.who​.int​/iris​/bitstream​/10665​/44123​/1​/9789241547680​_eng​.pdf. Accessed January 2, 2016.
Zinn, Jens O.
2010 “Risk as Discourse: Interdisciplinary Perspectives.” CADAAD. Critical Approaches to Discourse Analysis Across Disciplines 4 (2): 106–124.Google Scholar