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

    Authors

    J. B. Scott

    Comments

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    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

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