Abstract
Corporate harms and their legitimation are situated within a complex cultural, structural, and historical landscape. This chapter is an effort to illuminate that landscape. The unifying argument of this chapter is that Tyson’s harm/socially responsible discourse reflects general attitudes about harm to nonhumans and corporate power, as well as weak corporate regulation. In addition, Tyson’s harm/discourse cannot be understood without also understanding the history of corporate public relations or “spin,” and its contemporary conduit par excellence, the corporate web page, and the particularly modern “need” for companies to project social responsibility.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
Undercover or stealth marketing refers to the corporations’ strategic hiring of individuals to give positive reviews of products or to use products in public. For example, Blackberry’s undercover marketing campaign involved hiring attractive women to ask strangers to take their picture or to ask men to put their phone numbers into the smartphone (Osterhout 2010).
- 2.
Other theoretical frames have been developed for understanding the relationship between consumption and sustainability. For example, the ecological modernization perspective conceptualizes environmental harm as stemming from the process of modernization—industrialization in particular. The perspective, however, holds that it is within the context of modernity that we will be able to solve our environmental problems; human ingenuity will remedy those problems by producing some kind of technological fix (see Buttel 2000).
References
Allen, David S. 2005. Democracy Inc.: The Press and Law in the Corporate Rationalization of the Public Sphere. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.
Amos, Amanda, and Margaretha Haglund. 2000. From Social Taboo to ‘Torch of Freedom’: The Marketing of Cigarettes to Women. Tobacco Control 9: 3–8.
Animal Legal and Historical Center. 2014. Code of Laws of South Carolina 1976 Annotated. Title 47. Animals, Livestock and Poultry. Chapter 21. Farm Animal and Research Facilities Protection Act. East Lansing: Animal Legal and Historical Center. http://www.animallaw.info/statutes/stussc47_21_10.htm. Accessed 19 Apr 2014.
Arkansas State Legislature. 2014. SB13- Providing Legal Protection to Animal Owners and Their Animals and to Ensure That Only Law Enforcement Agencies Investigate Charges of Animal Cruelty. http://www.arkleg.state.ar.us/assembly/2013/2013R/Pages/BillInformation.aspx?measureno=SB13. Accessed 19 Apr 2014.
ASPCA. 2016. Ag-Gag Legislation by State. New York: American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. http://www.aspca.org/animal-protection/public-policy/ag-gag-legislation-state. Accessed 29 Oct 2016.
Beder, Sharon. 2002. Global Spin: The Corporate Assault on Environmentalism. White River Junction: Chelsea Green Publishing.
Bell, Michael M. 1998. An Invitation to Environmental Sociology. Thousand Oaks: Pine Forge Press.
Bernays, Edward. 1923. Crystallizing Public Opinion. New York: Boni and Liveright.
———. 1952. Public Relations. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press.
Box, Steven. 1983. Power, Crime, and Mystification. London: Tavistock.
Brisman, Avi. 2013. Not a Bedtime Story: Climate Change, Neoliberalism, and the Future of the Arctic. Michigan State International Law Review 22: 241–289.
Brisman, Avi, and Nigel South. 2013. A Green-Cultural Criminology: An Exploratory Outline. Crime Media Culture 9: 115–135.
———. 2014. Green Cultural Criminology: Constructions of Environmental Harm, Consumerism, and Resistance to Ecocide. London/New York: Routledge.
Buttel, Frederick H. 2000. Ecological Modernization as Social Theory. Geoforum 31: 57–65.
Cable, Sherry. 2012. Sustainable Failures: Environmental Policy and Democracy in a Petro Dependent World. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
Campbell, David, and A. Cornelia Beck. 2004. Answering Allegations: The Use of the Corporate Website for Restorative Ethical and Social Discourse. Business Ethics: A European Review 13: 100–116.
Capriotti, Paul, and Angeles Moreno. 2007. Corporate Citizenship and Public Relations: The Importance and Interactivity of Social Responsibility Issues on Corporate Websites. Public Relations Review 33: 84–91.
Carey, Alex. 1997. Taking the Risk Out of Democracy: Corporate Propaganda Versus Freedom and Liberty. Champaign: Illini Books.
Carroll, Archie B. 1991. The Pyramid of Corporate Social Responsibility: Toward the Moral Management of Organizational Stakeholders. Business Horizons 34: 39–48.
Castells, Manuel. 2010. The Rise of the Network Society. Chichester: Wiley Blackwell.
Deegan, Craig. 2002. The Legitimizing Effect of Social and Environmental Discourses- A Theoretical Foundation. Accounting, Auditing, and Accountability Journal 15: 282–311.
Diggs-Brown, Barbara. 2011. Strategic Public Relations: An Audience-Centered Practice. Independence: Cengage.
Dowling, Grahame. 2001. Creating Corporate Reputations: Identity, Image and Performance. New York: Oxford University Press.
Driscoll, Janis W. 1992. Attitudes Toward Animal Use. Anthrozoös 5: 32–39.
Flynn, Dan. 2013. 2013 Legislative Season Ends with Ag-Gag Bills Defeated in 11 States. Food Safety News. http://www.foodsafetynews.com/2013/07/2013-legislative-season-ends-with-ag-gag-bills-defeated-in-11-states/#.UgmPT220R4M. Accessed 18 Aug 2013.
Friedman, Milton. 1970. The Social Responsibility of Business Is to Increase Its Profits. New York Times Magazine. http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/business/miltonfriedman1970.pdf. Accessed 12 Apr 2014.
Galli, Cindy, and Randy Kreider. 2013. Ag-gag: More States Move to Ban Hidden Cameras on Farms. ABC News. http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/states-move-ban-hidden-cameras-farms/story?id=18738108. Accessed 18 Aug 2013.
Gang, Jeff. 2012. Don’t Be Fooled. Boston: The Green Life Online. http://thegreenlifeblog.files.wordpress.com/2012/04/dbf-report.pdf. Accessed 18 Aug 2013.
Greenpeace. 2013. Greenwashing. Washington, DC: Greenpeace. http://www.stopgreenwash.org/. Accessed 18 Aug 2013.
Grunig, James E., and Todd Hunt. 1984. Managing Public Relations. New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston.
Harrison, Shirley, and Kevin Moloney. 2004. Comparing Two Public Relations Pioneers: American Ivy Lee and British John Elliot. Public Relations Review 30: 205–215.
Hartman, Laura P., Joseph DesJardins, and Chris MacDonald. 2008. Business Ethics: Decision Making for Personal Integrity and Social Responsibility. 3rd ed. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Heinze, Nathan, and Hu Qing. 2006. The Evolution of Corporate Web Presence: A Longitudinal Study of Large American Companies. International Journal of Information Management 26: 313–325.
Henry, Stuart, and Dragan Milovanovic. 1996. Constitutive Criminology: Beyond Postmodernism. London: Sage.
Holcomb, Jeanne. 2008. Environmentalism and the Internet: Corporate Greenwashers and Environmental Groups. Contemporary Justice Review 11: 203–211.
Irving, Sarah, Rob Harrison, and Mary Raynor. 2002. Ethical Consumerism: Democracy Through the Wallet. Journal of Research for Consumers 3: 63–83.
Lusk, Jayson L., F. Bailey Norwood, and Robert W. Prickett. 2007. Consumer Preferences for Farm Animals Welfare: Results of a Nationwide Telephone Survey. Washington, DC: American Farm Bureau Federation. http://asp.okstate.edu/baileynorwood/Bailey/Research/InitialReporttoAFB.pdf. Accessed 22 May 2014.
Lynch, Michael J., and Paul B. Stretesky. 2003. The Meaning of Green: Contrasting Criminological Perspectives. Theoretical Criminology 7: 217–238.
Milbrath, Lester W. 1984. Environmentalists: Vanguard for a New Society. Albany: SUNY Press.
O’Dwyer. 2014. Worldwide Fees of Top PR Firms with Major U.S. Operations. http://www.odwyerpr.com/pr_firm_rankings/independents.htm. Accessed 14 Apr 2014.
Osterhout, Jacob E. 2010. Stealth Marketing: When You’re Being Pitched and You Don’t Even Know It. New York Daily News. http://www.nydailynews.com/life-style/stealth-marketing-pitched-don-article-1.165278. Accessed 22 June 2014.
Pirages, Dennis, and Paul R. Ehrlich. 1974. ARK II. New York: W.H. Freeman and Company.
Plous, Scott. 1993. Psychological Mechanisms in the Human Use of Animals. Journal of Social Issues 49 (1): 11–52.
Schnaiberg, Allan. 1980. The Environment: From Surplus to Scarcity. New York: Oxford University Press.
Strong, Carolyn. 1996. Features Contributing to the Growth of Ethical Consumerism: A Preliminary Investigation. Marketing Intelligence and Planning 14: 5–13.
Tyson Foods. 2013. Core Values. http://www.tysonfoods.com/Our-Story/Core-Values.aspx. Accessed 11 Aug 2013.
Van Riel, Cees B.M., and John M.T. Balmer. 1997. Corporate Identity: The Concept, Its Measurement and Management. European Journal of Marketing 31: 340–355.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2018 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Schally, J.L. (2018). Contextualizing the “Socially Responsible” Corporation and the Cultural Legitimation of Harm. In: Legitimizing Corporate Harm. Palgrave Studies in Green Criminology. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-67879-5_4
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-67879-5_4
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-67878-8
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-67879-5
eBook Packages: Law and CriminologyLaw and Criminology (R0)