Opening the CSR Discourse for Critical Stakeholders in Social Media: When Official CSR Communication and Stakeholder Critique Interfere

This study examines how a contested fast food chain in the middle of on-going image transformation efforts opens the distorted discourse about CSR with a social media campaign and enables the interference of official corporate communication and stakeholder critique. The study examines how the company closes the CSR discourse and re-establishes the distorted discourse through various closing moves. Furthermore the study shows how the corporation resolves substantial and unsubstantial accusations by turning them into discursive resources and publicly frames neutralisation and denial of critique as a transparency campaign. Therewith the company is able to co-opt its critical consumers, address long-lasting critique and at the same time emphasis the commitment to its new values.