Hollow Notion of Corporate Social Responsibility. Introduction of a Frame Field Model to Investigate CSR in Public Discourses

Abstract

The present study examines the relevance and framing of Corporate Social Responsibility in the mass media. Challenged by the ethically (over)loaded issue of responsibility, communication studies are searching for a new understanding of framing to investigate phenomena of new economic values like Corporate Social Responsibility in public discourses. For the quantitative content analysis put forward herein, frames are described as footprints of diverse positions, which determine a given public discourse. The longitudinal analysis of 26 German-speaking newspapers in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland between 1999 and 2008, a phase where CSR was aligned in business practices and CSR communication established in public discourses, aims at identifying CSR-frames as well as inquiring into the existence of a public discourse about CSR. The results show that there is no discourse on CSR itself. Instead of the assumed multiple issue-specific frames, CSR itself is (ab)used as a masterframe or “buzz word” in economic discourses.