Who is the Responsible Corporation? A multimodal analysis of power in CSR videos of multinational companies

Abstract

Drawing on Judith Butler’s understanding of performativity, this study aims to explore how power embeds in CSR videos of multinational companies. It adopts a critical semiotics multimodal analysis to show how a particular kind of responsible corporation is constituted by the language, both verbal and visual, that those CSR videos speak. Our findings show in-depth the multimodal construction of three subjects of a responsible corporation: hero, missionary and architect. We advance the constitutive turn in CSR communication by conceptualizing CSR communication as a political project which (1) subjectifies the corporation through the articulation of a relationship that subordinates CSR beneficiaries and the audience and (2) iterates the business ideology. We discuss how multimodality contributes to masking power, and conclude with guidelines for alternative multimodal CSR communication.