Visualizing sustainability fashionably
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URL
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
School of Business |
Master's thesis
Authors
Date
2019
Department
Major/Subject
Mcode
Degree programme
Corporate Communication
Language
en
Pages
139
Series
Abstract
Pressing global issues such as climate change, resource scarcity and human rights crises have led to stakeholders demanding organizations do their part to help alleviate these concerns. Subsequently, an upsurge in firms’ sustainability and corporate social responsibility (CSR) practices and communication of these activities has been detectable in recent years. A growing interest in the most effective way to communicate this involvement has naturally ensued, but until recently the attention of studies on CSR communication has almost entirely been limited to analyzing traditional one-way communication channels and strategies. With the ever-rising prominence of varied social media platforms that facilitate the democratization of information while encouraging two-way communication, organizations need to be aware of how their CSR messaging may be most effective on these sites too. Particularly visual based social media platforms such as Instagram have lacked research into defining how CSR messaging on them could be conducted most effectively. Therefore, the present study seeks to address this research gap by offering a detailed examination via content analysis of one sustainably-focused firm’s, H&M’s, CSR communication on Instagram. By identifying specific CSR communication strategies utilized as well as particular visual communication tools employed by the firm in their CSR posts, one can begin to develop a typology for effective CSR communication on these visually oriented social media platforms which could guide other organizations’ future behavior. The findings of the present study suggest that informational CSR communication strategies that contain ad-like tones are most commonly employed in this content. Furthermore, the visual elements in these posts brought additional emphasis to this tone through their focus on product displays, although they also included several subtle nods particularly towards environmental sustainability through their use of colors and background features. Whether these tool and strategy selections were in fact the most advantageous and could represent a fast fashion firm’s most effective CSR communication on visual social media platforms should in future studies be tested. This would allow for maxim prescriptive behavior to be determined which in turn could aid companies successfully communicate about CSR on these new platforms.Description
Thesis advisor
Moisander, JohannaKangas-Müller, Laura
Keywords
sustainability, social media, Instagram, visual communication, CSR communication