A Transparent Hillary Clinton Through the Lens of Apologia Discourse

Abstract

In March 2015, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was accused of using her family’s private email server for official government communications. While being a candidate in the 2016 Presidential Election, Clinton has been under public scrutiny for lacking transparency. Clinton has had to employ strategic means in order to repair her public image. This study utilizes Benoit’s Image Restoration Theory’s typology to analyze Clinton’s rhetorical responses to the email controversy. It was revealed that for Clinton transparency was used as a strategy in her attempt to successfully repair her image. Ultimately, it was determined that there is an intersection between transparency and image repair theory.