Banker’s New Clothes: Cultural Change and Ideological Use of Social Accounts

Abstract

Since the financial market crisis banks face a substantial damage of their legitimacy. Several banks reacted by proclaiming cultural change and emphasizing the norm of acting responsibly in the future. We analyze how the cultural change affects the use of social accounts which are rhetorical tactics to influence responsibility judgments after negative events in different domains (economic, legal, moral). Furthermore, we show social accounts as ideological tactics to contrast an organization from their surrounding environment of opponents and competitors. Our analysis reveals a shift towards emphasizing an ideology of moral values and a perpetual focus of accounts targeting the situational/norm perception of the audience judging about the bank’s legitimacy. In addition, ideologies are enforced by different rhetorical tactics applied with the social accounts. Especially, emphasizing the positive achievements of the bank and emphasizing negative doings of others (opponents, government, media, and competitors...