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.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:sh-1864 |
| Date | January 2008 |
| Creators | Rosqvist, Jenny |
| Publisher | Södertörns högskola, Institutionen för svenska, retorik och journalistik |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | Swedish |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
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