DOCSLIB.ORG

Updating the Critical Perspective on Corporate Social Responsibility

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Updating the Critical Perspective on Corporate Social Responsibility Sociology Compass 2/6 (2009): 1–12, 10.1111/j.1751-9020.2009.00250.x 1 2 3 4 Updating the Critical Perspective on Corporate Social 5 6 Responsibility 7 Gerard Hanlon* and Prof Peter Fleming 8 University of London 9 10 11 12 Abstract 13 This paper argues that Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is a key element of the new neo- 14 liberalism as it searches for both legitimacy and new sources of innovation. Rather than simply being a fraud or a drain on resources as CSR is often portrayed, we argue that it is one of a 15 suite of practices that corporations are deploying as they seek to shift the nature of social regula- 16 tion away from collective to more individual solutions. While the criticism that CSR is corpo- 17 rate propaganda has purchase, we explore a deeper development. This development is one CE: Shantha 18 wherein as the old ways of capitalist regulation were surpassed in the 1970s and 1980s new 19 social practices such as CSR, Human Resource Management, ethical marketing etc. were 20 deployed as a way of engineering new forms of identity, new expectations of individuals and 21 institutions and new sources of legitimacy and social value. Social criticism needs to take this 22 development more seriously (than the propaganda view) since it frames CSR as a predatory 23 facet of this new neo-liberalist tendency. 24 25 Toc heading: OW No. of pages: 12 PE: Pushpa Dispatch: 17.8.09 Journal: SOC4 26 Updating the critical perspective on corporate social responsibility 27 28 In this paper, we extend the critical perspective on CSR by examining how the contem- B 29 porary corporate practice of CSR reflects shifts in the nature of late capitalism. We pro- 30 vide this examination of CSR for two reasons. One, unlike many of the authors writing 31 about CSR (see for example, the recent Harvard Business Review 2003, Matten et al., 32 12007) we wish to examine CSR as a socio-economic phenomenon rather than simply as a business or management issue. Two, we also see CSR as one part of a broad, differenti- 33 250 34 ated but related change, wherein corporations are increasingly appropriating social life 35 and using arguments about self-actualization, social responsibility, and ethical behavior to 36 legitimate their activities. We also suggest that CSR must be considered critically as more 37 than propaganda; instead, in our view, the critical perspective on CSR must now inte- 38 grate how CSR is a predatory form of extending corporate power under late capitalism. 39 40 Introduction 41 42 Almost every large corporation in western economies now makes some effort to indicate how they are committed to communities that ostensibly lie beyond basic business objec- Journal Name Manuscript No. 43 SOC4 44 tives (i.e., making profits). One need only take a cursory glance at the websites of large 45 multinationals such as British Petroleum, Shell, British American Tobacco and BT to 46 notice that firms in many industries and sectors create much fanfare around their corpo- 47 rate responsibility initiatives. Indeed, what has come to be called Corporate Social 48 Responsibility (or CSR) is now a key marketing and branding reference point for most 49 large and medium sized corporations. ª 2009 The Authors Journal Compilation ª 2009 Blackwell Publishing Ltd 2 Corporate Social Responsibility – A Key to the New Neo-liberalism 1 This trend extends beyond controversial industries that invest in CSR policies such as 2 those involving petroleum or tobacco products. For example, a large industry is built 3 around ethical business (with the Bodyshop and Fair Trade being early examples). This 4 industrial group claims to make profits while avoiding the exploitation of people and nat- 5 ural resources, minimizing what economists call ‘negative externalities’. Moreover, today 6 CSR is also an academic growth industry. CSR is increasingly written about in business 7 and management journals, prestigious journals such as the Journal of Business Ethics are 8 devoting more space to CSR and the UN runs a University network for responsible 9 management. 10 Given that altruistic kindness to nature, animals and other stakeholders can conflict 11 with the economic imperative to make money, there has been much discussion about 12 what exactly drives capitalist enterprises to focus on business ethics and ‘giving back’ to 13 society above and beyond minimum legal requirements. There are generally two wide- 14 spread theoretical positions to make sense of CSR given this question. The first views 15 CSR as a sincere mechanism through which corporations can balance their profit-seeking 16 behavior with the concerns of other agents or stakeholders including workers, consumers, 17 non-governmental organizations and so-forth. This is largely a pro-business understanding 18 of CSR, in which capitalism is considered redeemable via a concern with ethical con- 19 duct. The second theoretical approach is very critical of the assumption that CSR repre- 20 sents a fundamental shift in the largely brutal corporate pursuit of profits. In this study, 21 CSR is considered more of an ideological ‘smoke screen’ designed to either soften the 22 image of firms engrossed in the rampant pursuit of profit (at any cost) or a way to deflect 23 attention away from an unsavory core business model. As Roberts (2003) puts it: 24 25 My fear is that all this talk of ethics is just that – talk; new forms of corporate self-presentation 26 that have no reference to or influence on what is practiced in the name of the corporation, beyond those associated with good public relations. In this form, corporate social responsibility 27 is cheap and easy; a sort of prosthesis, readily attached to the corporate body, that repairs its 28 appearance but in no way changes its actual conduct. (Roberts 2003: 250). 29 30 For sure, the fact that British American Tobacco consistently ranks extremely well in the 31 Dow Jones Sustainability Index,’ which showcases the world’s most ethical firms, is cause 32 for cynicism. In this sense, and as Banerjee (2007) points out, CSR might be considered 33 more a public relations gimmick, or representative of some cynical ‘enlightened self-inter- 34 est,’ than a serious corporate concern with the ethical and political implications of capital- 35 ism. From the critical perspective we identified earlier, any sustained analysis of CSR 36 ought to be sympathetic to the view that CSR is a form of capitalist ideology that is 37 intended to pull the wool over people’s eyes. One only has to contrast actual actions 38 against the CSR polices of British America Tobacco, Shell and Easyjet (to name but a 39 few), and their espoused commitment to the environment and consumer health, to con- 40 firm this critical perspective. 41 In this paper we extend the critical view of CSR by examining how the contemporary 42 corporate practice of CSR reflects shifts in the nature of late capitalism. We provide this 43 examination of CSR for two reasons. One, unlike many of the authors writing about 44 CSR (see for example the recent Harvard Business Review 2003, Matten et al., 2007) we 45 wish to examine it as a socio-economic phenomenon rather than simply as a business or 46 management issue. Two, we also see CSR as one part of a broad, differentiated but 47 related change, wherein corporations are increasingly appropriating social life and using 48 arguments about self-actualization, social responsibility, ethical behavior etc. to legitimate 49 their activities. We suggest CSR must be considered as more than propaganda. In our ª 2009 The Authors Sociology Compass 2/6 (2009): 1–12, 10.1111/j.1751-9020.2009.00250.x Journal Compilation ª 2009 Blackwell Publishing Ltd Corporate Social Responsibility – A Key to the New Neo-liberalism 3 1 view, the critical perspective on CSR must now integrate how CSR is a predatory soft 2 power form of extending corporate influence in late capitalism. We argue that CSR is a 3 key element of the neo-corporate search for both legitimacy and new markets. 4 We advocate an understanding of CSR that extends beyond viewing CSR as just a 5 fraud or a drain on resources, as CSR is often portrayed. While the criticism that CSR is 6 corporate propaganda has much credence, we hope to advance the critical perspective by 7 placing CSR initiatives within the context of a changing nature of capitalism, whereby 8 new sources of legitimacy are sought outside the traditional realm of business. This devel- 9 opment is one wherein as the old ways of capitalist regulation were surpassed in the 10 1970s and 1980s and new social practices such as CSR, Human Resource Management 11 (HRM), ethical marketing etc. were deployed to engineer new forms of identity, new 12 expectations of individuals and institutions, and new sources of legitimacy and social 13 value. Social criticism needs to take this development more seriously than the propaganda 14 view, as CSR is now an important predatory arm of this neo-corporate tendency. 15 16 What is corporate social responsibility? 17 18 In some of the less wealthy areas of London, one can see a strange collection of people 19 that is almost reminiscent of a Lars Von Trier film. Indeed, one of the authors came 20 across such a tragic-comedy gathering a few months ago in East London. A group of 21 smiling young men and women dressed in uniform t-shirts were leading another group 22 of decidedly anxious blind people down a street in which the encroaching business dis- 23 trict was hastening the gentrification process of East London.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • 119 a Political Economy of News Media in the People's Republic Of
    A Political Economy of News Media in the People’s Republic of China Jesse Owen Hearns-Branaman Institute of Communication Studies University of Leeds, UK Keywords : Chinese news media, Chomsky, Herman, political economy, Propaganda Model, transitioning media systems Abstract This article analyses the political economy of news media production in the People’s Republic of China (PRC) using Herman and Chomsky’s Propaganda Model. This method contains two aspects: (1) an examination of the effects that a capitalist base has on news media in the transitioning system of the PRC, and (2) a study of the utility of the Propaganda Model’s dimensions for use in comparative media research. The article finds that the differing political systems of the USA and the PRC do not lead to completely different media systems. The largest differences are found to be only in the civil society sphere and in the repression of PRC journalists. The capitalist base of the media system, however, causes many commonalities, such as pro-capitalist ideology, the influence of advertisers and constraints on sourcing, while a transition towards a US-style system, in professionalization, corporatization, secularization and conglomeratization, can be found in its embryonic stages. At the beginning of the twenty-first century the People’s Republic of China (PRC) is securing its position as an important global player. This country’s entry into the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 2001, along with its massive economic growth, has signalled a major paradigm shift in the balance of global economic and political power. This economic growth is largely due to the increasing influence of capitalist institutions and ways of governance brought into the PRC since its opening up in the late 1970s, an influence heavily felt in the PRC’s unique and conflicted news media system.
    [Show full text]
  • Markets Not Capitalism Explores the Gap Between Radically Freed Markets and the Capitalist-Controlled Markets That Prevail Today
    individualist anarchism against bosses, inequality, corporate power, and structural poverty Edited by Gary Chartier & Charles W. Johnson Individualist anarchists believe in mutual exchange, not economic privilege. They believe in freed markets, not capitalism. They defend a distinctive response to the challenges of ending global capitalism and achieving social justice: eliminate the political privileges that prop up capitalists. Massive concentrations of wealth, rigid economic hierarchies, and unsustainable modes of production are not the results of the market form, but of markets deformed and rigged by a network of state-secured controls and privileges to the business class. Markets Not Capitalism explores the gap between radically freed markets and the capitalist-controlled markets that prevail today. It explains how liberating market exchange from state capitalist privilege can abolish structural poverty, help working people take control over the conditions of their labor, and redistribute wealth and social power. Featuring discussions of socialism, capitalism, markets, ownership, labor struggle, grassroots privatization, intellectual property, health care, racism, sexism, and environmental issues, this unique collection brings together classic essays by Cleyre, and such contemporary innovators as Kevin Carson and Roderick Long. It introduces an eye-opening approach to radical social thought, rooted equally in libertarian socialism and market anarchism. “We on the left need a good shake to get us thinking, and these arguments for market anarchism do the job in lively and thoughtful fashion.” – Alexander Cockburn, editor and publisher, Counterpunch “Anarchy is not chaos; nor is it violence. This rich and provocative gathering of essays by anarchists past and present imagines society unburdened by state, markets un-warped by capitalism.
    [Show full text]
  • Shareholder Capitalism a System in Crisis New Economics Foundation Shareholder Capitalism
    SHAREHOLDER CAPITALISM A SYSTEM IN CRISIS NEW ECONOMICS FOUNDATION SHAREHOLDER CAPITALISM SUMMARY Our current, highly financialised, form of shareholder capitalism is not Shareholder capitalism just failing to provide new capital for – a system driven by investment, it is actively undermining the ability of listed companies to the interests of reinvest their own profits. The stock shareholder-backed market has become a vehicle for and market-fixated extracting value from companies, not companies – is broken. for injecting it. No wonder that Andy Haldane, Chief Economist of the Bank of England, recently suggested that shareholder capitalism is ‘eating itself.’1 Corporate governance has become dominated by the need to maximise short-term shareholder returns. At the same time, financial markets have grown more complex, highly intermediated, and similarly short- termist, with shares increasingly seen as paper assets to be traded rather than long-term investments in sound businesses. This kind of trading is a zero-sum game with no new wealth, let alone social value, created. For one person to win, another must lose – and increasingly, the only real winners appear to be the army of financial intermediaries who control and perpetuate the merry-go- round. There is nothing natural or inevitable about the shareholder-owned corporation as it currently exists. Like all economic institutions, it is a product of political and economic choices which can and should be remade if they no longer serve our economy, society, or environment. Here’s the impact
    [Show full text]
  • Untitled [Karen Miller on Taking the Risk out of Democracy
    Alex Carey. Taking the Risk Out of Democracy: Corporate Propaganda Versus Freedom and Liberty. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1997. $15.95, paper, ISBN 978-0-252-06616-0. Reviewed by Karen S. Miller Published on H-Business (October, 1997) Taking the Risk Out of Democracy opens with as the Sacred and the Satanic. Business leaders a discussion of Henry Wallace's notion of "the cen‐ also co-opted social science to aid their cause, and tury of the common man," a twentieth century they exported their free enterprise campaigns to American society ruled not by individual power other countries, including Carey's home, Aus‐ or class privilege but by common consent. It is the tralia. By taking corporate power out of the range "failure to move significantly" toward Wallace's of public discussion, Carey argues, propaganda vision that concerns Carey, a failure he attributes has closed minds and society. "in important measure to the power of propagan‐ The book, a collection of essays ably edited af‐ da." Propaganda, he asserts, especially corporate ter Carey's death by Andrew Lohrey, contains propaganda, has been used to "control or deflect three sections. The frst includes fve chapters on the purposes of the domestic electorate in a demo‐ Closing the American Mind. Carey discusses in de‐ cratic country in the interests of privileged seg‐ tail the Americanization movement and the post- ments of that society" (p. 11). World War I red scare, McCarthyism, and the In Carey's view, U.S. corporate propaganda credibility gap of the Vietnam and Watergate eras, emerged because of the growth of democracy arguing that "by 1947 the war for control over the (specifically, increased popular franchise and the American mind had all but been won," for union movement) and the growth of corporate "[o]bjection to democratic propaganda on ethical power, which clashed to create a climate where grounds had almost completely disappeared by business leaders perceived a need to protect cor‐ this time" (p.
    [Show full text]
  • Functional Models of Economic Propaganda in Different Political and Economic Systems – Socialism and Capitalism
    STUDIES IN LOGIC, GRAMMAR AND RHETORIC 59 (72) 2019 DOI: 10.2478/slgr-2019-0034 Jarosław Kinal University of Rzeszow e-mail: [email protected] ORCID: 0000–0002–2810–7307 FUNCTIONAL MODELS OF ECONOMIC PROPAGANDA IN DIFFERENT POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC SYSTEMS – SOCIALISM AND CAPITALISM. EXAMPLE OF SELECTED FORMS OF BROADCAST ADVERTISING MESSAGES IN POLAND IN THE SECOND HALF OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY1 Abstract. Marketing communication in modern times is similar to the propa- ganda model, i.e. persuasive communication in all possible fields of exploitation. The last three decades in Central and Eastern Europe constituted a time of transformation in many areas of social, political and economic life. Thanks to immanent changes depending on the economic situation and the clash of de- mand and supply, it was possible to create functional models in three selected time intervals distinguished by the author (socialism, transformational period and capitalism). The use of functional models gives the opportunity to indicate how many changes have taken place in such a short period of time both in terms of consumer mentality and in satisfying the needs of producers. The basis for the application of this type of operationalization of the idea is the statement that “the functional model consists in mapping the functioning of a given system. It should give an idea of the functions and processes taking place in a given system” (Sabryła, Trzciniecki 1986). The purpose of this article is also to start a discussion on contemporary models of product communication. Keywords: economic propaganda, advertising, transformation, PRL, III RP, so- cialism, capitalism. JEL: A12 Introduction.
    [Show full text]
  • Toward an Organizationally Diverse American Capitalism? Cooperative, Mutual, and Local, State-Owned Enterprise
    Toward an Organizationally Diverse American Capitalism? Cooperative, Mutual, and Local, State-Owned Enterprise Marc Schneiberg† ABSTRACT Discussions of economic reform focus on two strategies for tempering corporate excess and mobilizing corporations for growth and prosperi- ty: restructuring markets via competition policies and various forms of countervailing power. Populists, Progressives, and New Dealers looked to anti-trust, regulatory states, and unions as counterweights to corpora- tions. Contemporary efforts look to not-for-profit watchdogs, NGO cer- tification and standard setting, privatization, and corporate governance reform to upgrade markets and deflect corporations from low road paths. This essay recovers a third strategy for regulating and reforming corporate capitalism: promoting organizational diversity via the forma- tion of parallel systems of cooperative, mutual and local, state-owned enterprises. During the “era of corporate consolidation,” producer and consumer groups in the US formed tens of thousands of such enterpris- es in just in agriculture, but also in banking, insurance, and technologi- cally advanced industries like electricity and telephones. These efforts produced enduring systems of cooperatives and kindred enterprise in the American economy, creating alternatives to corporations and orga- nizational legacies for present day problem solving. They provided regulators and policy makers with new options and capacities for state intervention. And they demonstrated possibilities for using mixed or- † John C. Pock Professor of Sociology, Reed College. B.A., Haverford College, 1980; Ph.D., Soci- ology, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1994. Research for this Article was funded in part by the National Science Foundation grant #0318466, and the Levine and Corbett-Goldhammer Funds at Reed College. I thank Charles O’Kelley, the participants at the Berle II Symposium at Seattle Uni- versity School of Law, Jerry Davis, and the participants at the ICOS seminar at the University of Michigan for helpful feedback on this research.
    [Show full text]
  • When Corporations Wield the Constitution
    When Corporations Wield the Constitution PDF Version by Richard L. Grossman and Ward Morehouse Co-Founders, PROGRAM ON CORPORATIONS, LAW & DEMOCRACY November 2002 The following is reproduced with permission of the authors. Copyright © 2002 by Richard L. Grossman and Ward Morehouse. This appeared as the Foreward in George Drafan's The Elite Consensus: When Corporations Wield the Constitution (Apex Press: 2003) (Cartoon - Matt Wuerker, from Building Unions) The 1st Amendment "does not intend to guarantee men freedom to say what some private interest pays them to say for its own advantage. It intends only to make men free to say what, as citizens, they think." Alexander Meiklejohn Philosopher & Educator (1872-1964) "Over the past 200 years, all over the world but especially in the United States, legal systems have been changed to accomplish two things: limit the legal liabilities of corporations, and give corporations the rights and protections of citizens" by extending "constitutional rights to corporations." So writes George Draffan in this book about the few who govern the many. These two accomplishments have enabled corporate officers "to make decisions and control resources . to unite to influence political agendas" towards transforming their values and goals (maximizing production, paying as few workers as possible as little as possible, building complex industrial systems, propelling America as Empire, etc.) into law and policy. What does this mean for all the people hired and fired at will by corporate managers? For people who value cooperation, love, human rights, ecological sanity, democracy and consent of the governed? It means that a unified corporate class uses the law of the land to deny the majority's fundamental right to govern.
    [Show full text]
  • Global Capitalism: Reflections on a Brave New World
    June 2017 Global Capitalism: Reflections on a Brave New World William I. Robinson We are in the throes of a transition to a qualitatively new stage of world capitalism. Its essence is the emergence of truly transnational capital, a transnational capitalist class (TCC) made up of the owners and managers of transnational corporations, and transnational state apparatuses through which the TCC attempts to exercise global political authority. This corporate-driven globalization has brought a vast new round of global enclosures as hundreds of millions of people have been uprooted and converted into surplus humanity. The extreme global inequality that has resulted erodes social cohesion and fuels unrest. In response, the more enlightened members of the transnational elite clamor for a powerful transnational state to resolve the ecological, social, economic, and political crises of global capitalism, but instead a global war economy and a global police state may be in the offing. If we are to avoid a civilizational collapse and reach a Great Transition, we will need an accurate reading of the new global capitalism to guide our social practice. A GTI Essay Epochal Shift A Great Transition to a just and sustainable world requires as its starting point an accurate understanding of how the system in which we live, capitalism, has evolved in recent decades. A “brave new world” of globalized capitalism burst forth in the latter decades of the twentieth century. At first glance, the system may look familiar: capitalism continues to be driven by the endless accumulation of capital, with the attendant outward expansion, polarization, crises, and wars.
    [Show full text]
  • The Corporate Assault on Democracy SHARON BEDER
    The Corporate Assault on Democracy SHARON BEDER The International Journal of INCLUSIVE DEMOCRACY, vol.4, no.1, (January 2008) The Corporate Assault on Democracy SHARON BEDER The revolutionary shift that we are witnessing at the beginning of the 21 st Century from democracy to corporate rule is as significant as the shift from monarchy to democracy, which ushered in the modern age of nation states. It represents a wholesale change in cultural values and aspirations. This eclipse of democratic values by corporate values is not a natural evolution but the consequence of a deliberate strategy employed by corporate executives who have combined their financial and political resources to spread free market ideology. Corporations, individually and in concert, have utilised all the major communication institutions of a modern society – including the media and education – to shape community beliefs, values and behaviour. This has enabled corporations ‘to enthral and becloud the understanding’ of large numbers of citizens [1] so that it is commonly believed that large corporations are benevolent institutions that should be minimally regulated because what is good for them is good for society as a whole. Throughout the 20th Century business associations and coalitions coordinated mass propaganda campaigns that combined sophisticated public relations techniques developed in 20 th Century America with revitalised free market ideology originating in 18 th Century Europe. The purpose of this propaganda onslaught has been to persuade a majority of people that it is in their interests to eschew their own power as workers and citizens, and forego their democratic right to restrain and regulate business activity.
    [Show full text]
  • Chinese Corporate Capitalism in Comparative Context
    Chinese Corporate Capitalism in Comparative Context Curtis J. Milhaupt* Columbia Law School Capitalism will be much more robust if it’s not a monopoly of the West, but flourishes in societies with different cultures, religions, histories, and political systems.1 Introduction The “Beijing Consensus” is a broad label applied to China’s approach to economic governance, one in which the state plays a pervasive role and (at least in theory) markets serve the higher interests of national development. As such, the Beijing Consensus may be an alternative term for “state capitalism,” a concept that has attracted considerable attention due to China’s spectacular economic growth. These labels suggest something unique about China’s developmental path. However, the Chinese economy shares with all other developed and developing economies a key feature: corporate capitalism. That is, the central actors in the Chinese economy are legal entities enjoying separate and perpetual existence, governed ostensibly by a board of directors and appointed managers, with ownership interests represented by shares held by the providers of capital.2 Using this fundamental commonality as a starting point, this essay looks behind the “Beijing Consensus” or “state capitalism” by briefly examining Chinese corporate capitalism in comparative context, with particular reference to other countries that have influenced China’s approach to economic organization: Japan, South Korea, and Singapore. It seeks to distill the common and distinctive features of China’s approach to corporate capitalism, explain their existence in the context of the Chinese political economy, and examine the feasibility and normative appeal of replicating Chinese corporate capitalism in other developing countries.
    [Show full text]
  • Living on the Edge of Burnout: Defamiliarizing Neoliberalism Through Cyberpunk
    Living on the Edge of Burnout: Defamiliarizing Neoliberalism Through Cyberpunk Science Fiction Caroline Alphin Dissertation submitted to the faculty of the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy In ASPECT: The Alliance of Social, Political, Ethical, and Cultural Thought François Debrix, Chair Mauro Caraccioli Rebecca Hester Phil Olson Blacksburg, VA Keywords: Neoliberalism; Cyberpunk; Science Fiction; Intensity; Resilience; Competition; Logic of Intensity; Biohacker; Political Theory; Genre Studies; Critical Theory; Biopolitics; Necropolitics; Fitness Tracker; Self-Quantification; Film Studies; Cyborg Copyright 2019 Living on the Edge of Burnout: Defamiliarizing Neoliberalism Through Cyberpunk Science Fiction Caroline Alphin ACADEMIC ABSTRACT A dominant trend in cyberpunk scholarship draws from Fredric Jameson’s diagnosis of postmodernism as the logic of late capitalism, using Jameson’s spatial pastiche, schizophrenic temporality, and waning of affect, along with Jameson’s characterization of Baudrillard’s simulacrum to interpret postmodern cultural artifacts. For many cultural critics, the city of cyberpunk is thoroughly postmodern because parallels can be drawn between the cyberpunk city and the postmodern condition. However, very little work has considered the ways in which cyberpunk can defamiliarize the necro-spatial and necro- temporal logic of neoliberalism. This project moves away from more traditional disciplinary aesthetic methods of analyzing power and urban systems, such as interpretation and representation. And, it problematizes the biopolitical present in three different ways. First, by weaving in and out of an analysis of the narratives, discourses, and spatio-temporalities of cyberpunk and neoliberalism, I seek to produce epistemological interferences within these genres/disciplines, and thus, to disrupt the conceptual and lived biopolitical status-quo of late-capitalism.
    [Show full text]
  • Talking About the Status Quo of Corporate Public Relations and Marketing Under the New Media Environment
    2020 4th International Conference on Economics, Management Engineering and Education Technology (ICEMEET 2020) Talking about the Status Quo of Corporate Public Relations and Marketing under the New Media Environment Lu Qingshuang Department of Humanities and Tourism, Zhejiang Institute of Economics and Trace, Zhejiang, Hangzhou 310018, China Keywords: New media, Corporate public relations, Public relations marketing Abstract: With the continuous progress of science and technology and the continuous development of society, the speed of information dissemination is getting faster and faster, resulting in the accumulation of information data gradually increasing. In today's society, corporate propaganda is not only limited to traditional TV and newspapers, but also uses new media dissemination tools such as WeChat, Weibo, and other information dissemination platforms to disseminate information, thereby improving corporate public relations and Proportion in marketing. This article will proceed from the current situation of corporate media public relations and marketing, in-depth discussion of the current status of enterprises in the new media. 1. Introduction Traditional media has extremely high credibility. With the emergence and development of new media, traditional media have new channels of communication, which has opened up new paths for other users to promote. The development of the network has made the way of information dissemination faster, wider, and updated, and the information has been fully displayed in a timely and effective manner. At the same time, under the constant development of the times, companies subvert the old rules in the past, better carry out public relations activities, and form a new trend of corporate marketing. Under the spread of new media, the development direction of public relations marketing has changed, and the road of publicity has also increased a lot, which has led to a better corporate image and stable corporate reputation.
    [Show full text]