<p>In this essay I want to investigate how the <em>poodle strategy</em> affects a person’s credibility when he or she uses it. The <em>poodle strategy</em> is a strategy, which someone uses when he or she is scrutinized by the media. It’s primary purpose is to suppress further media coverage but it is also a strategy for defending oneself and hence rescuing one’s reputation either as a private person or as an official.</p><p>The essay’s research questions are:</p><ul><li>How has the strategy been applied for defensive purposes and what are the results?</li><li>To which extent can the Stasis theory and Benoit’s theory on Apologia be connected to the strategy?</li><li>Does the strategy affect the user’s credibility?</li></ul><p>To answer these questions four cases from the political sphere in Sweden where persons have been said to have “done a poodle” have been analyzed. In order to analyze the strategy and to judge how successful it has been these cases have been connected to the Stasis theory, Benoit’s theory on apologia and theories about credibility and trust.</p><p>Additionally this essay investigates how applicable the Stasis theory is as a model for analyses and how relevant analyses based on stasis theory are today. Furthermore it investigates wheteher a fusion of the Stasis theory and Benoit´s theory on Apologia can be profitable.</p><p>An important conclusion is that the <em>poodle strategy</em> is a strategy, which is more complicated than one might first think. Whether the strategy works depends on a series of factors; for example the person’s initial credibility (or ethos) and the morality of the actions. These factors need to be assessed before the strategy is put into use.</p>

In this essay I want to investigate how the poodle strategy affects a person’s credibility when he or she uses it. The poodle strategy is a strategy, which someone uses when he or she is scrutinized by the media. It’s primary purpose is to suppress further media coverage but it is also a strategy for defending oneself and hence rescuing one’s reputation either as a private person or as an official. The essay’s research questions are: How has the strategy been applied for defensive purposes and what are the results? To which extent can the Stasis theory and Benoit’s theory on Apologia be connected to the strategy? Does the strategy affect the user’s credibility? To answer these questions four cases from the political sphere in Sweden where persons have been said to have “done a poodle” have been analyzed. In order to analyze the strategy and to judge how successful it has been these cases have been connected to the Stasis theory, Benoit’s theory on apologia and theories about credibility and trust. Additionally this essay investigates how applicable the Stasis theory is as a model for analyses and how relevant analyses based on stasis theory are today. Furthermore it investigates wheteher a fusion of the Stasis theory and Benoit´s theory on Apologia can be profitable. An important conclusion is that the poodle strategy is a strategy, which is more complicated than one might first think. Whether the strategy works depends on a series of factors; for example the person’s initial credibility (or ethos) and the morality of the actions. These factors need to be assessed before the strategy is put into use.

This essay is a qualitative study where the theory of face and image repair theory evaluate the apologetic strategy of a pudel. The analysed data is from Swedish former Members of Parliament that had to leave their positions due to scandals they were involved in that affected them personally. The analysis shows that the image repair strategy of bolstering is commonly used, that bolstering poses a threat on the speaker’s positive face, and that bolstering is a jeopardising move when attempting to perform a pudel. This study also confirms that when executed successfully, a pudel could restore image and be a successful face-saving strategy. The results also detect the need to further research on how linguistics and rhetoric can cooperate to make more thorough analyses of speech acts. / Denna uppsats är en kvalitativ studie där teorin om face och image repair analyserar och utvärderar den kommunikativa strategin pudeln. Det analyserade datat kommer från pressmeddelanden, presskonferenser och officiella Facebookmeddelanden från svenska riksdagspolitiker som på grund av en skandal behövt lämna sin ledamotsroll i Sveriges Riksdag. Resultatet påvisar att strategin bolstering inom image repair teorin, är vanligt förekommande, att samma strategi utgör ett ansiktshot på den person som använder sig av den strategin och att om man inte lyckas med sin bolstering, riskerar man att inte rädda sitt ansikte eller anseende. Studien visar också på att en lyckad tillämpning av pudeln kan rädda en persons anseende och ansikte. Resultaten i studien öppnar även upp för framtida undersökning, och påvisar att lingvistiska teorier och retoriska teorier kan komplettera varandra vid mer ingående analyser av talakter.