Constructing the responsible individual: A critical discourse analysis of Coca-Cola’s social media communication
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2025-06-24
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en
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As sustainability becomes a more important challenge globally, companies are increasingly expected to not only act responsibly, but to communicate their sustainable efforts with stakeholders as well. This study investigates how Coca-Cola constructs the ‘responsible individual’ in their communication through linguistic choices. A Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) was conducted, analyzing 19 LinkedIn posts published by Coca-Cola in the past year. An abductive coding approach was employed, combining both deductive and inductive methods. The deductive method applied the SHIFT framework to identify the five psychological factors present in Coca-Cola’s communication, to influence individual behavior to be more sustainable: Social Influence, Habit Formation, Individual Self, Feelings and Cognition, and Tangibility. The inductive approach, based on the Gioia method, allowed for the emergence of two additional themes: Motivate Collective and Enablement. These findings illustrate how Coca-Cola promotes responsibility, through emotional appeals, as a collaborative effort and facilitates consumer engagement through partnerships and innovations. Together these results demonstrate how Coca-Cola constructs the ‘responsible individual’ in their communication by integrating the five psychological factors of the SHIFT framework with additional emergent themes, emphasizing the facilitation of sustainable behavior and positioning consumers as part of a collective.
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Faculteit der Managementwetenschappen