Corporate Social Responsibilit

3 Credits · Level: Graduate

This course will explore the growth of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) as an industry concept, as an observable, contemporary communications phenomenon, and as a response to digital media culture and crowd-sourced journalism. We look at the origin of CSR and track its progression to current state amid the rise of digital media, the breakdown of traditional media, and the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision allowing corporations, in certain circumstances, to be viewed as individual citizens. We look at how companies manipulate CSR to assert their privileges, viewpoints, obligations, and ultimately their rights within the public discourse. What are the communication strategies corporate entities use to transform their organizations into human persona with identifiable political/race/gender/nationality characteristics? And how do those choices affect increased profit and greater social standing? How do social media savvy CEOs – Tesla’s Elon Musk, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, Apple’s Tim Cook and others – marry their personal convictions with CSR to build their corporate brands? How can corporate social responsibility become a political tool? How can it result in net positives for society? In what ways have public discourses in social media and crowd-sourced journalism established new expectations of corporate citizens? The course uses case studies, news events, and research and theory described in our textbook in conjunction with a healthy dose of class discussion to try to answer these questions as we explore the new anatomy of corporate citizenship and corporate social responsibility.