Kiss of death or a miracle cure? Metaphors as vehicles for legitimation in shutdown cases

Abstract

The purpose of this thesis is to examine how shutdowns are legitimated in the media coverage of four recent shutdown cases. A specific approach to metaphors as vehicles of legitimation is adopted. Thereby, the study contributes to the research focusing on discursive construction of the sense of legitimacy in organizational restructurings. The research question the study aims at answering is: “How are metaphors used to legitimate shutdowns and related layoffs in Finnish media texts?” A critical discourse analysis approach is adopted and applied on a data set of 107 articles covering four Finnish shutdown cases and collected from five Finnish newspapers. The data set is analyzed by identifying metaphorical expressions and categorizing them into thematic groups. Finally, underly-ing metaphorical thought concepts are suggested and their potential implications for the sense of legitimacy of the shutdowns discussed. The findings reveal that metaphors are frequently used to discuss shutdowns and that the most recurring metaphors are those related to war, sports, journey, and life and death. Based on this observation, it is concluded that metaphors engage in both legiti-mating and resisting shutdowns by portraying them in terms of one or several of these categories.