Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Affairs in the British Press: An Ecofeminist Critique of Neoliberalism

An ecofeminist criticism of neoliberalism, this book uses economic growth, CSR and the press coverage of environmental affairs as a case study. The author argues that CSR is part of a wheel of neoliberalism that continually perpetuates inequality and the exploitation of women and Nature. Using an ecofeminist sense-making analysis of media coverage of food waste, global warming, plastic, economic growth and CSR, the author shows how the press discourse in writing is always similar and serves to preserve the status quo with CSR being just a smokescreen that saved capitalism and just one cog in the wheel of neoliberalism. While available research offers perspectives from business and public relations studies, looking at how CSR is implemented and how it contributes towards the reputation of businesses, this book explores how the media enforce CSR discourse while at the same time arguing for environmental preservation.

The book presents a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods to explain how and why CSR is being pushed forward by the news media, and how the media preserves the status quo by creating moral panic on environmental issues while at the same time pushing for CSR discourse and economic growth, which only contributes towards environmental degradation. The original research presented in the book looks at how the media write about economic growth, plastics, food waste, CSR and global warming. This interdisciplinary study draws on ecofeminist theory and media feminist theory to provide a novel analysis of CSR, making the case that enforcing CSR as a way to do business damages the environment and that the media enforce a neoliberal discourse of promoting both economic growth and environmentalism, which does not go together.

Examining the UK media as a case study, a detailed methodological account is provided so that the study can be repeated and compared elsewhere. The book is aimed at academics and researchers in business and media studies, as well as those in women’s studies. It will also be relevant to scholars in business management and marketing.

Martina Topic is a Reader at Leeds Business School, Leeds Beckett University, UK. She is an editor of the ’Culture, Media and Film’ section of the Cogent Arts and Humanities Open Access journal (Taylor and Francis), editor-in-chief of Corporate Communications: An International Journal and editor-in-chief of the book series Women, Economy and the Labour Relations.