Papers by Carmen Daniela Maier
Group & Organization Management
Alleged organizational wrongdoings are often characterized by high levels of uncertainty about wh... more Alleged organizational wrongdoings are often characterized by high levels of uncertainty about what happened, which can take years to be established judicially. In this study, we examine organizations’ efforts to manage their stakeholders’ impressions of their possible guilt in this period of uncertainty. The study examines the discursive guilt-management strategies organizations employ in such situations to embrace the paradoxical tensions that emerge between their routine, positive self-presentations as responsible organizations and their communication about their possible guilt. Taking departure in impression management and a paradox perspective, we conceptualize guilt management as a discursive practice enacted in times of uncertainty. Specifically, we conduct a microlevel discourse analysis of corporate social responsibility (CSR) reports published by large US banks after the financial crisis and analyze how these banks managed impressions of their possible guilt, before they e...
The Handbook of Crisis Communication
Corporate Communications: An International Journal
PurposeThis article aims to investigate evaluative framing of global plastic pollution as discurs... more PurposeThis article aims to investigate evaluative framing of global plastic pollution as discursively performed by two opposed categories of social actors, namely corporations versus environmental movements.Design/methodology/approachThe article builds on the literature related to framing, issue arenas and moral evaluations to unravel how evaluative framing and counterframing are implemented in multimodal digital spaces and how social practices get legitimized or delegitimized according to different communicative purposes. It presents a longitudinal critical discourse analysis of the issue-related webpages and press releases of PepsiCo, one of the worst global plastic polluters, and of the global environmental movement #breakfreefromplastic.FindingsFindings suggest that the systematic recurrence of specific evaluative strategies has a double macro-function: (a) organizing discourses strategically through its presence or absence; (b) signalling the moral significance of recontextual...
International Journal of Business Communication, 2018
Diversity has become a buzzword and a “must-have” corporate practice for contemporary organizatio... more Diversity has become a buzzword and a “must-have” corporate practice for contemporary organizations. This article aims to determine how discursive strategies employed by organizations to frame diversity are constructed in digital contexts. Drawing on the literature related to diversity in organizations and its framing in external digital contexts, this study adopts a critical perspective on the discourse analysis of corporate multimodal communication. This methodological approach allows us, first, to map the discursive strategies used to frame diversity in digital contexts through several semiotic modes; and second, to unravel in detail how this discursive construction is realized in terms of social actors, social actions, space, and time. This approach is empirically applied to the case of a leading global organization, Google. The study takes current research on diversity-related framing in corporate digital communication forward and shifts the focus to multimodal discursive strat...
Corporate Communications: An International Journal, 2019
Purpose The purpose of this paper is to address the need to reconsider online external communicat... more Purpose The purpose of this paper is to address the need to reconsider online external communication that integrates diversity management (DM) and corporate social responsibility (CSR) by examining the multimodal discursive strategies purposefully employed by organizations to reflect the symbiotic relationship between these two areas of management practice and to communicatively emphasize their corporate commitment. Design/methodology/approach Building on the recently emerged stream of literature linking DM and CSR, and adopting a critical perspective on discourse analysis, this study delves into the multimodal discursive strategies that help bridge DM and CSR in online external communication. The analytical approach proposed is used for the qualitative analysis of 43 web pages selected from Microsoft company’s “Global Diversity and Inclusion” website. Findings Findings highlight the discursive efforts made by the organization to strategically integrate DM and CSR communication into...
Corporate Communications: An International Journal, 2017
Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore how organizations can strategically frame their l... more Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore how organizations can strategically frame their legitimate perspective on a specific issue in order to gain salience and public support in a social media context. Design/methodology/approach By means of framing theory and a critical perspective on strategic discourse in hypermodal spaces, the study examines in detail the discursive strategies and framing processes employed by a non-profit organization that faces local and global contestation of its corporate operations. Findings Through a critical discourse analysis of the organization’s 385 Facebook posts during two periods of time, the results not only show how the corporate perspective is strategically framed and legitimized, but also challenged and consequently adapted in this hypermodal issue sub-arena. In addition to legitimizing the organizational perspective by providing evidence-based facts and external expert views as reliable and neutral sources, and echoing supporters’ voic...
Corporate Communications: An International Journal, 2017
Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore how corporate heritage identity (CHI) implementat... more Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore how corporate heritage identity (CHI) implementation strategies are communicated by Grundfos, a 70-year-old global company from Denmark, in their internal history references. Design/methodology/approach Drawing on an interdisciplinary methodological framework related to heritage identity communication, hypertextuality, and multi-modality, it proposes a multi-leveled analysis model through which communicative strategies are explored at the level of four semiotic modes (written text, speech, still image, and moving image) and at the level of their hypermodal interplay. Findings This exploratory case study explains how CHI implementation strategies are communicated in accordance with the potential and constraints of semiotic modes and hyperlinking affordances. The analytical work suggests that the management employs complex CHI implementation strategies in order to strengthen organizational identity and to influence employees’ identificat...
International Journal of Strategic Communication, 2014
This article explores how an organization’s identity is strategically communicated through texts ... more This article explores how an organization’s identity is strategically communicated through texts and images in the employees’ magazines of a global Danish company with a worldwide readership of over 18,000 employees. Drawing on an interdisciplinary methodological framework related to organizational identification theory and social semiotics, it proposes a multimodal analysis model through which several identification strategies are explored at the level of each semiotic mode and at the level of their interplay. The article explains how identity is strategically communicated in accordance with the potential and constraints of texts and images. It claims that by exploring how these semiotic modes reinforce, complement or subvert each other, the identification strategies can be more thoroughly addressed. Shedding light on how the multimodal interplay contributes to communicate identity, this model can also be employed by communicators in order to nuance and improve their strategic communicative practice. By examining the semiotic modes’ complex interconnectivity and functional differentiation in the strategic communication of identity, this article expands the existing research work as the usual textual focus is extended to a multimodal one.
asb.dk
To be or not to be green is no longer a question for business communities. The necessity to reduc... more To be or not to be green is no longer a question for business communities. The necessity to reduce the environmental impact of various products and production methods is an unquestionable responsibility of the contemporary business world. The challenging question is: how is business greening communicated? This paper explores how environmental knowledge is communicated in the new specialized discourse of a series of multimodal texts existing in Arla Corporation's website at: nature/from-nature-to-you/. The texts are a part of "Closer to Nature" marketing campaign promoting environmentally friendly products and positioning Arla as an eco-friendly corporation. In order to investigate how knowledge about business greening is communicated in accordance with the potential and constraints of linguistic features and images, the paper draws upon a multimodal methodological framework. The paper intends to establish which semiotic mode is given prominence in the multimodal interplay by examining the functional differentiation of the two semiotic modes. Furthermore, as the greening of business is persuasively promoted, the paper also intends to contribute with a discussion of new multimodal processes of discursive transformation like evaluation and legitimation. Thus, the proposed model of multimodal analysis aims to show how evaluation and legitimation are employed in novel ways in order to shape knowledge about environmental issues and the greening efforts of Arla Corporation.
Nordicom Review, 2019
This study marks a shift in research focus from verbal to visual aspects in crisis communication ... more This study marks a shift in research focus from verbal to visual aspects in crisis communication and contributes to the emerging field of visual crisis communication by exploring the use of images in the Scandinavian press when reporting on and/or commemorating a disaster. We used rhetorical arena theory (RAT) and a social semiotic approach to visual analysis to investigate how fifteen newspapers from Sweden, Norway and Denmark visualised the MS Estonia disaster ten, fifteen and twenty years after the sinking of the ship. We examined 93 images published on the anniversaries in 2004, 2009 and 2014 to determine what kinds of images accompanied the press reports and how these changed over time. The results demonstrate that the images, which changed considerably over time, represented the disaster both as an irreversible loss and as a process with a strong symbolic value.
Academy of Management Proceedings, 2019
HERMES - Journal of Language and Communication in Business, 2017
This paper presents research findings on the use of a multilevel analytical method for the explor... more This paper presents research findings on the use of a multilevel analytical method for the exploration of a complex text. The paper begins by describing The Difference, an advertising and instructive material of the Kodak Company, in which several semiotic modes, media, texts types and genres are functionally integrated in order to persuasively convey specialized knowledge. A presentation of the main concepts that are employed in the multilevel analysis of this complex text is also provided. Through the application of the multilevel analysis on The Difference, it is explained in detail how the instructive and argumentative discourses are actualized at the multimodal and multimedial intersection of different genres and text types. The last part of the analysis is dedicated to the presentations of the interactive connections that can be established through a multilevel analysis. The possible implications for further applications and the improvement of the method are included in the c...
HERMES - Journal of Language and Communication in Business, 2016
The International Journal of Learning: Annual Review, 2008
Designs for Learning, 2010
In order to secure understanding of environmental issues, to promote behavioral change and to enc... more In order to secure understanding of environmental issues, to promote behavioral change and to encourage environmental action, more and more educational practices support and provide environmental programs. This article explores the design of online learning resources created for teachers and students by the GreenLearning environmental education program. The topic is approached from a social semiotic perspective. I conduct a multimodal analysis of the knowledge processes and the knowledge selection types that characterize the GreenLearning environmental education program and its online discourse. The multimodal analysis aims at identifying what types of knowledge and knowledge processes are communicated. The impact of knowledge processes upon the transformation of learning’s forms and purposes, students’ roles and environment’s function is then examined. The analysis also aims to show how the new learning design addresses the expertise of multiliterate students allowing for diverse forms of engagement and interaction when fostering environmental knowledge and action.
Telecinematic Discourse, 2011
This chapter discusses the generic structure of 12 comedy film trailers and explains how the prom... more This chapter discusses the generic structure of 12 comedy film trailers and explains how the promotional goals of trailers influence the way in which their generic staging is multimodally structured. Given that trailers are designed to sell and tell a story, it is argued that the specificity of these trailers’ generic structure lies in their dynamic interplay between narrative and promotional structures. The chapter proposes a model of analysis that emerges from the interdisciplinary intersection between multimodality, genre theory and film studies. The analysis draws upon and extends these theoretical frameworks by examining the interdependencies between semiotic modes in a distinct generic structure in which each functional stage achieves a specific communicative purpose.
Uploads
Papers by Carmen Daniela Maier