Title

Kairos as indeterminate risk management: The pharmaceutical industry's response to bioterrorism

Authors

Authors

J. B. Scott

Comments

Authors: contact us about adding a copy of your work at STARS@ucf.edu

Abbreviated Journal Title

Q. J. Speech

Keywords

kairos; risk; bioterrorism; pharmaceutical; globalization; Communication

Abstract

The pharmaceutical industry's response to the threat of bioterrorism following 9-11 invoked the rhetorical notion of kairos as an urgent and ongoing opportunity not only to protect the nation but also to improve the industry's reputation and fortify its political power. Yet the notion of kairos as seizing an advantage-grounded in modernist assumptions about agency and control-is also complicated by the case history of big pharma's response, which left the industry vulnerable to heightened and additional risks. This case history suggests that kairos can be less about seizing an advantage than about indeterminately responding, to shifting, unbounded, uncertain, unpredictable, and uncontrollable risks shaped by the processes of globalization.

Journal Title

Quarterly Journal of Speech

Volume

92

Issue/Number

2

Publication Date

1-1-2006

Document Type

Article

Language

English

First Page

115

Last Page

143

WOS Identifier

WOS:000239394900001

ISSN

0033-5630

Share

COinS