Ph.D Candidate
Michigan Technological University
United States
Vincent Manzie is a Ph.D. Candidate at Michigan Technological University. Vincent’s research interests include crisis communication, corporate crisis rhetoric, risk communication, organizational culture, communication theories, and globalization. His current research amends the renewal model (Discourse of Renewal Theory) of corporate crisis communication to address the complexities of a multinational corporate crisis in Africa. Specifically, Vincent’s research work considers how global relations, situated exigencies and cultural, social, and economic tensions contextualize corporate/organizational communication strategies especially during crises. His conceptual framework draws from globalization theory, organizational communication frameworks, and postcolonial studies. The research seeks to provide an alternative conceptualization of the major elements that inform the renewal model of communicating during corporate/organizational crises, namely, ethics, communicative effectiveness (effective organizational rhetoric), organizational learning, and prospective vision. The alternative understanding which his research offers to the renewal model points to the need for organizational crisis communication to not only acknowledge the interaction of global and contextual forces capable of disrupting effective communication, but also a significant push toward decentering the communication process and conceiving communication more as a social construct in which communities’ practices and norms become central aspects in conceptualizations that inform crisis communication frameworks. The research clearly points to the need to decolonize organizational crisis communication concepts, structure, practice, and focus, such that issues of social justice, equity, and empowering voiceless communities take center stage.Vincent also holds a Bachelor’s degree (university of Buea, Cameroon) and Master’s degree (Tsinghua University, Beijing) in journalism and communication. He has worked as editor-in-chief for a Cameroonian tabloid, Cameroon Trumpet, and as news and programs coordinator for several community radio stations in Cameroon. He was an intern with the international English service of China Radio International in Beijing. Prior to accepting the PhD offer at Michigan Technological University, Vincent was a lecturer at the university level in Cameroon. His class projects include among others, the Ebola crisis rhetoric with focus on the United States Center for Disease Control and Prevention, CDC.