Crisis and Risk Communication or Propaganda and Disinformation: Rhetorical Strategies That Blur the Lines between Strategy and Manipulation

The following analysis focuses on convergent areas between classical rhetorical strategies in strategic communication and propagandistic or deceptive discourse. Drawing on a framework based on critical cultural studies, it contends that corporate apology rhetoric may function as coercive communication approach, limiting audiences' interpretive agency and obstructing reflexive judgment. By screening impression management and reputation-repair strategies against modern disinformation techniques, it is shown that both rhetorical repertoires present structural vulnerability towards logical fallacies and various deceptive tropes. While research on disinformation has yielded significant insights into the mechanisms and ramifications of fake news, these findings have seldom been systematically incorporated into crisis and risk communication scholarship or practice. This article aims to address this gap by highlighting the conceptual and functional similarities between apologetic and deceptive rhetorical approaches. To disentangle crisis communication from propaganda, it is argued, a new language and rhetorical approach need to be developed.