Corporate image as collective ethos: a poststructuralist approach

This paper discusses the idea of projecting corporate image in terms of culturally regulated codes of appeals by using, mainly, the examples of ad campaigns by some US business companies in the post‐9/11 environment. The image of patriotism those companies are aspiring to suggests corporate imagery can be a shared social phenomenon, i.e. collective ethos, thus raising questions about the traditional approach to corporate imagery, which is summarized as “self‐representation.” The way to build up collective ethos is through Burke’s “identification,” seen as both a strategy and goal of communication. The paper also provides an overview of rhetorical theory on using image as a presentation strategy to explore the reason why it has been treated in history as a way for self‐projection, or representation of a “corporate self.”