Blame-avoiding strategies for a digital scandal
A critical discourse analysis of Mark Zuckerberg’s Congressional hearings
The burgeoning digital economy has also aroused wide public concerns over its improper use of personal data for
economic and political profits. This study focuses on the milestone Facebook-Cambridge Analytica scandal and examines how Mark
Zuckerberg succeeded in avoiding public blame during two US Congressional hearings. An integrated analytic framework has been
established by combining blame theory and critical discourse analysis to examine blame-avoiding strategies used by Mark Zuckerberg
during the two Congressional hearings. The findings have revealed not only the topics but also the specific strategies and the
linguistic means and realizations for these strategies. It is expected that this study can generate significant implications on
blame-avoiding strategies by digital corporations for their inherently flawed business models.
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 2.Previous studies on blaming and blame-avoiding discourses
- 3.Towards an integrated analytic framework
- 4.Methodology
- 5.Findings
- 5.1Analysis of macro-strategies
- 5.2Analysis of micro-strategies
- 5.2.1Facebook
- 5.2.2“Cambridge analytica”
- 6.Conclusion
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References