Retooling an image: Chrysler corporation's rhetoric of redemption

In this essay, the “bailout”; of Chrysler Corporation by the federal government is analyzed as a rhetorical act that symbolized Chrysler's failures and revealed possible sources of guilt for Chrysler as well. An analysis of Chrysler's advertising suggests that it was motivated by an effort to expunge its guilt and to create a new public identity. The strategies Chrysler selected, however, failed in part because of the strength of the symbolism of the bailout itself.