The Merger Storm Recognizes No Borders: An Analysis of Media Rhetoric on a Business Manoeuvre
提出结合批判话语分析、系统功能语法和修辞结构理论的方法框架，通过细读一篇关于金融服务业重组的新闻文章，揭示记者如何通过修辞策略合法化特定管理理念和意识形态。
Despite the central role of the media in contemporary society, studies examining the rhetorical practices of journalists are rare in organization and management research. We know little of the textual micro strategies and techniques through which journalists convey specific messages to their readers. Partially to fill the gap, this paper outlines a methodological framework that combines three perspectives of text analysis and interpretation: critical discourse analysis, systemic functional grammar and rhetorical structure theory. Using this framework, we engage in a close reading of a single media text (a press article) on a recent case of industrial restructuring in the financial services. In our empirical analysis, we focus on key arguments put forward by the journalists’ rhetorical constructions. We maintain that these arguments—which are not frame-breaking but rather tend to confirm existing presuppositions held by the audience—are an essential part of the legitimization and naturalization of specific management ideas and ideologies.