Framing Diversity in Corporate Communication on Twitter and CSR Reports. A Corpus-Based Study

Abstract

Abstract Nowadays, companies are required to produce annual reports on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and consider the promotion of diversity as one of their fundamental values, particularly in terms of reputation and image (Fuoli 2018; Maier and Ravazzani 2018). Given its importance, diversity is included in companies’ communication planning (Mundy 2015). The aim of this work is to explore how eleven companies (Amazon, Calvin Klein and Pfizer among others) frame diversity and talk about it on their Twitter (now X) profiles and CSR reports over a timespan of five years (2018-2022), filling a gap in the literature which, to date, has mainly focused on the study of companies’ websites rather than their social media channels. To do this, we analysed a corpus of tweets and reports to identify recurring patterns and phrases related to diversity and inclusion. The findings reveal disparities between the two communication channels, with an overall positive framing of diversity, although the term is mainly used in passive voice constructions which indicate that as a principle and value it is far from being considered established in its own right.

Keywords

• corporate communication
• corpus linguistics
• csr reports
• diversity
• twitter.