‘Doing’ ethos—A discursive approach to the strategic deployment and negotiation of identities in meetings

Rhetoric is classically divided into three notions: ethos, pathos, and logos. Taking a discursive approach to the construction of identity as a turn-by-turn members’ achievement, we hope to add fresh insights to the rhetorical notion of ethos. More specifically, using a transcript of one of President Kennedy's meetings about the space race, we examine how Kennedy and his advisors ‘do’ identity to strategic effect. Findings indicate how Kennedy initiates the topic of geo-politics which (1) makes relevant his identity as president and evokes a domain of practice in which his voice counts and (2) evokes the ‘them and us’ polarity of the Soviet threat which allows Kennedy to speak as ‘us’, and thus with the authority of the American people. Conversely, his main advisor orients to Kennedy's identity as president, but he subverts the predicates linked with this identity to his own ends. He refers to another predicate of president, namely political vulnerability and argues that Kennedy should therefore not stake everything on getting a man on the moon before the Soviets. To increase his ‘good sense’ and counter Kennedy's deployment of political responsibilities linked to the identity of president, his advisor evokes an expert identity based on superior access to scientific knowledge.