Organizational discourse about face-to-face communication and corporate muting

Abstract

This article proposes a critical look at the discourse about face-to-face communication and attempts to unveil the use that is made of its positive features in order to sustain corporate interests. Based on the theoretical-methodological support of French-school discourse analysis, it aims at evaluating the appropriation of advantages of this mode of communication on the part of organizations. The corporation under scrutiny is Yahoo, from North America, which in 2013 banned home-office practice, trying to stimulate face-to-face conviviality among its employees. The organizational discourse is studied in consonance with the journalistic discourse that disclosed it. Besides evaluating the discourse genres, this article also focuses on corporate and media muting.