The framing of plastic pollution responsibility: comparing corporate versus environmental movement discursive evaluations
Corporate Communications: An International Journal
ISSN: 1356-3289
Article publication date: 19 July 2022
Issue publication date: 20 September 2022
Abstract
Purpose
This article aims to investigate evaluative framing of global plastic pollution as discursively performed by two opposed categories of social actors, namely corporations versus environmental movements.
Design/methodology/approach
The article builds on the literature related to framing, issue arenas and moral evaluations to unravel how evaluative framing and counterframing are implemented in multimodal digital spaces and how social practices get legitimized or delegitimized according to different communicative purposes. It presents a longitudinal critical discourse analysis of the issue-related webpages and press releases of PepsiCo, one of the worst global plastic polluters, and of the global environmental movement #breakfreefromplastic.
Findings
Findings suggest that the systematic recurrence of specific evaluative strategies has a double macro-function: (a) organizing discourses strategically through its presence or absence; (b) signalling the moral significance of recontextualized social practices by conferring legitimacy to remedial actions and/or illegitimacy to deviant actions.
Social implications
This study contributes to increasing accountable environmental action and trustful communication for overcoming global sustainability issues.
Originality/value
The article offers a nuanced understanding of the role of evaluative framing in communicating global sustainability issues. Methodologically, it extends existing categories of moral evaluations and articulates a framework for future studies.
Keywords
Citation
Ravazzani, S. and Maier, C.D. (2022), "The framing of plastic pollution responsibility: comparing corporate versus environmental movement discursive evaluations", Corporate Communications: An International Journal, Vol. 27 No. 4, pp. 800-816. https://doi.org/10.1108/CCIJ-11-2021-0121
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2022, Emerald Publishing Limited