Corporate Performative Activism

A SYLLABUS ON

CORPORATE PERFORMATIVE ACTIVISM Determining if Corporations' Social Media Activism is Authentic or Performative

Prepared by Amanda Torres and Lia Schuermann

STATEMENT OF PURPOSE By rethinking the role of social media in disseminating politized content, we can look at this platform as more than just a source of hollow entertainment, but a critical avenue for audiences to learn more about social issues that demand public attention. More narrowly, our project focuses on the rhetoric behind corporate activism. By focusing on online corporate activism, we want to challenge the notion of activism as a form of branding, while being careful not to undermine the efficacy or validity of online activist movements at large. Often corporate gestures of solidarity reach wide, builtin audiences who may not be tapped into the social discourses which necessitate social action.

However, digital audiences and consumers need to be critical of activist rhetoric that is purely performative or detracts from the intended message.

We want to look at how corporate activism can potentially spin messages of solidarity to augment their brand and promote their bottom line. The learning outcome of this syllabus project is to provide audiences with tools to be good critics of media and identify bias in media messages. The scope of our audience includes online users, social media activists, organizers, influencers, brands, and consumers of the internet.

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A BRIEF HISTORY ON DIGITAL ACTIVISM Social media has ushered in a new

Beyond the politicization of social

wave of digital activism, with online

media, scrolling through these

platforms offering a new way to

various apps has moved beyond an

reach audiences with a spectrum of

entertaining past time to an

political messaging. Applications

educational endeavor. With frequent

such as Facebook, Instagram, and

online use, social media has become

Twitter have evolved from

a place where most of us learn

communication sites to political

about current events and breaking

sounding boards. The gratuitously

news. Moreover, Twitter and

accessible nature of these

Instagram have specifically become

applications has contributed to their

havens for social justice movements

evolution into politically charged

to gain momentum online.

spaces. Political texts can be found online in multimodal forms such as memes, videos, and cartoons.

SOME EXAMPLES Some examples of documented online activism include the organization and coverage of the anti-government Arab Spring protests via Facebook and Twitter, the #BlackLivesMatter hashtag on Twitter in response to racially motivated police brutality, and the countless online petitions shared via Facebook from sites such as Change.org. The online coverage of these IRL movements has garnered widespread attention to a degree that would not have been possible through traditional media alone.

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THE 24 HR NARRATIVE Snapchat premiered a new method of digital storytelling, with users uploading short videos and pictures that disappear after 24 hours.

Instagram and other applications followed suit with the popular and disposable “story” format. Social media apps such as Facebook and Instagram are now placeholders for information and breaking news, moving beyond a place for people’s personal highlight reels. Checking these apps has become an urgent task for most, giving power to messages they publicize. When looking at the dissemination of activist-centered advertising, it’s important to consider the attention span of audiences on social media platforms such as Instagram, an app that has recently seen a barrage of protest messaging.

CORPORATE ACTIVISM & BLM Social media allows users to fashion narratives around their brand, with the intention of aligning themselves with normative discourse, which presently is solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement. Companies and brands are latching onto these movements as social discourse has shifted to include anti-racist rhetoric, a term that has recently entered our lexicon. There has been a sustained presence of digital activist movements over the last decade, however, with the recent killing of George Floyd, the ethos of BLM has crescendoed online. The visibility of BLM has catalyzed even the most apolitical corporations to flood our timelines and twitter threads with pledges of solidarity with the movement.

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DEFINING CORPORATE ACTIVISM Corporate activism involves establishing and maintaining a connection to a cause and its community, exercising their power and platform for that cause, particularly in educating and changing their behaviors and policies rather than claiming an activist identity, assuming a degree of risk in their actions, and are guided by a vision of what this social progress will look like.

DEFINING CORPORATE PERFORMATIVE ACTIVISM Corporate performative activism involves performative actions that claim an activist identity to benefit themselves through increasing social capital with their audience and do not reflect authentic activism due to not fulfilling the guiding principles of corporate activism, resulting in a form of activism that is not helpful and possibly harmful to social progress.

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THE RHETORICAL SITUATION

Many posts such as this one have been circulated with the attempt to make a statement in solidarity with anti-racist rhetoric. These messages bring into question the components of an effective activist text, as they vaguely position the corporate “we” with the consumer “you.”

What these messages leave out however is how these companies intend to “stand” with their justice-seeking audiences. Will they hire more BIPOC? Address gaps in representative leadership?

Work toward community outreach? Rethink their brand/messaging altogether?

A number of social media users can often be at a loss to know whether the posts of companies/brands can be considered genuine activism or a ploy to gain social capital. The use of vague pronouns further adds to the confusion of authentic messaging. To help address this ethical dilemma, our syllabus strives to help people analyze these posts to help social media participants better identify authentic corporate activism and corporate performative activism. By using the definitions from the previous page, we have developed guiding questions that you can use to better understand these social media posts in an activism context.

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GUIDING QUESTIONS Q: Do they have a specific plan to establish and/or to maintain

Q: Are they exercising their power and platform for that

a connection to a cause and its community?

cause, particularly in educating and changing their behaviors and policies rather

Do they state specific organizations that they are going to or have had connections with?

Can you find evidence of these connections or plans?

Where is the source of information coming from?

Is the source published by the organization or by a third party?

Q: Are they assuming a degree of risk in their actions?

than claiming an activist identity?

Are they transparent about their plans to educate, change, and maintain company behaviors and policies?

Do they have concrete actions mentioned and/or linked in their post?

Does their website or other media reflect these plans as well?

Do they acknowledge what risk they’re taking or the lack of risk that might be perceived?

Are the comments on the post reveal past actions that aren’t recognized or mentioned that work against the cause?

Q: Are they guided by a vision of what this social progress will look like?

Do they state what they hope will be accomplished by their activism?

Are they specific about what situations they hope to change?

Q: Do they claim an activist identity or focus on behaviors that will support the cause?

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WHAT DOES CORPORATE ACTIVISM LOOK LIKE? To begin with, let's look at some traits of authentic corporate activism in this social media post by a company: Affordability and cost of service in the past is acknowledged.

Customer demographic is primarily Caucasian-Americans. Solidcore recognizes that these aspects of their business model are “an issue.”

Specific plan of action includes an “internal task force” led by President and COO Bryan Myers (an African-American male) to address these issues and increase outreach to "underserved populations" in critical areas.

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APPLICATION OF GUIDING QUESTIONS Here we provide a more detailed example of using the guiding questions we've created to analyze the social media posts by the brand Converse to determine if their social media activism is authentic or performative.

First, what we suggest you do when you encounter social media posts that indicate corporate activism is ask, does this fit the guidelines for corporate activism?

Let's refer to page 7 and look over this post and its links, so we can find some answers.

Here we can see that this post states where the brand specifically stands on BLM issues. This is a good indication as the post isn't using a generic template or statement. They also provide a link of their commitment to their website. Let's look at this stated commitment to find out more.

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FURTHER APPLICATION OF GUIDING QUESTIONS

Here we can see that the brand acknowledges that they need to make change in their "company culture" and use their platform to make change, such as working with companies to commit funds to "support Black communities." However, not all of these plans are concrete or specific as they don't detail how they plan to "amplify voice" and provide more "inclusion" and "equity."

Converse doesn't only claim to support the BLM movement, but the LGBTQIA+ movement as well. Let's look at a couple of social media posts they published to draw better overall conclusions about the company and to better determine if its activism is authentic or performative.

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Here in their social media posts on Twitter, Converse provides links to specific partners of the LGBTQIA+ cause’s local and global community.

They also have multiple social media posts to support Converse's overall activism towards the cause of LGBTQIA+.

In addition, they establish a continuing relationship with the cause through designs by "members of the LGBTQIA+ community" and stating that they will celebrate "Pride on our channels every weekend."

While specifics on these statements regarding a continuing relationship would be better for transparency, these statements do help to indicate a more authentic corporate activism.

While Converse has a number of good indications of authentic corporate activism, they do fail to fulfill other aspects of the guidelines as stated in our definition for corporate activism on page 5.

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CONCLUDING APPLICATION OF GUIDING QUESTIONS Overall, we can draw some concrete conclusions on Converse's activism based on our analysis of their social media posts: What Converse does right to show authentic corporate activism: Provide a link to prove their commitment on their own website Have other posts on social media and their website support this stance Establish connections with members and organizations of the cause's community Don’t claim an activist identity AND focus on behaviors instead State a (somewhat) specific plan of action to change company culture and policies What Converse does wrong that doesn't show authentic corporate activism: Don't have a statement of the risks they are taking by doing this Don't acknowledge specific past or present problematic behaviors Don't state a vision or specific hope they have by doing this In conclusion, an important takeaway from this detailed example is that it may not be so clear-cut whether a company/brand's social media activism is authentic corporate activism or corporate performative activism.

However, by using the definitions and accompanying guiding questions we provide in this syllabus, we hope that you can better understand and identify traits of authentic activism to help in determining if a company/brand's social media activism is performative or not.

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FURTHER READINGS

Here are articles and webpages that can help provide further understanding and context to the concept of corporate performative activism.

This article deals with NFL's recent social media posts claiming to support the BLM movement in contrast with their past controversial actions.

This article discusses corporate performative activism through the concept of virtue signaling, which can be used positively, unlike its common use.

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FURTHER READINGS

This article talks about how recent events that inspire the social media activism of companies/brands is a call to action for authentic activism.

This article discusses how companies/brands' corporate performative activism is being called out by social media users/consumers and provides further context and examples on this activism.

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This article points out how important it is that the activism being done by companies/brands on social media be authentic and built on with action.

This article discusses the problem of performative activism and how education on the cause and long term commitment is necessary for change.

This article speaks on how corporate performative activism is not only carried out by companies/brands, but cultural institutions as well.

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FURTHER READINGS

This article calls out companies/brands and schools using the author's personal experiences for performative activism when their past actions indicate racial gaslighting and/or silence when it came to these issues.

This article speaks about how education and knowledge on a cause is needed to avoid performative activism, speaking from personal experiences to help.

This article talks about how authentic activism involves taking risks in order enact real change and support of a cause and the problem of performative activism.

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A webpage that asks you to consider critical questions when buying 'pink' products from companies, involving corporate performative activism.

This article delves into the intents and influences behind both corporate activism and corporate performative activism and how it can be authentic.

This webpage analyzes activism with its own guiding questions and provides a number of its own additional readings that can help further explore and contextualize corporate performative activism.

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GLOSSARY OF TERMS While we provide definitions on corporate activism and corporate performative activism, there is a number of relevant terminology commonly used in the literature/media on the subject. We hope the definitions provided here will help clarify the constellation of these terms:

Propaganda - is a rhetorical strategy that generally contains false or misleading information, is manipulative in the sense that it attempts to persuade people by devious or unfair means, is addressed to a mass audience, advantageous to the propagandist or to the party he or she represents, must be crafted and disseminated systematically (in some kind of “organized” fashion) and is, typically very one-sided, concealing information that would enable its audience to assess its truth value through critical examination.

Bullshit - is any communication made without concern for truth or knowledge, generally with the purpose of building a good impression of the speaker and whomever he or she represents that can be identified by an audience by the way it treats people in ways that we do not approve of and arises in encounters with asymmetric power relations.

“Virtue Signaling” - refers to a public expression of opinion or highly indirect and symbolic actions that outwardly communicates their goodness of character or moral correctness through their stance on an issue, regardless of whether these values are authentic or not, usually without a clear purpose. This can be done by individuals or companies/brands in order to gain social capital/status and/or selfsatisfaction, and thus has heavy negative connotations to its use.

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“Optical/Performative” Allyship - is allyship that is shallow and performative as it does not focus on breaking down systems of power and oppression that the cause rallies against and only serves to platform the ally. Like "slacktivism," optical allyship relies on the satisfaction of alleged good deed. The "optical ally" is usually motivated by outside forces and wants to feel accepted as part of the "conversation" of social justice.

“Slacktivism” - refers to a costless activist measure that requires minimal effort, such as liking or sharing a social media post. It is usually a token performance of supporting a cause that coincides with a lack of willingness to commit significant effort to create meaningful change and instead serves to increase the feel-good factor of the participants. However, while these singular measures have no impact on real-life political outcomes, when they are built upon, they can arguably shift public discourse and thus catalyze political change.

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FURTHER PRACTICE FOR ANALYZING SOCIAL MEDIA POSTS Using the guiding questions and the examples we analyzed in this syllabus, feel free to analyze the following examples of social media activism to better identify them as performative (inauthentic) or non-performative (authentic).

You can also use the notes section to help organize your thoughts on how these posts fulfill or fail to fulfill the guidelines provided in our definition of corporate activism.

EXAMPLE ONE Remember that your conclusions may not be as clear-cut as you expect, and that's okay. A full exploration will still leave you better informed and aware on these companies' activism.

Be sure to look into the link they provide here in the post to fully investigate the activism of this company.

You may also want to look to see if you can find other social media posts to support the activism that they are claiming here.

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EXAMPLE TWO Be sure to look into the link they provide here in the post to fully investigate the activism of this company.

Also, you may want to look at the comments section as well to see if anyone calls them out for past or present actions that they have not acknowledged either in their post or in their linked webpage.

EXAMPLE THREE Be sure to look into the video they provide here in the post to fully investigate the activism of this company.

Also, you may want to fully explore their webpage to see if they have taken past actions that support their activism as well.

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NOTES

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NOTES

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WORKS CONSULTED Cabrera, Nolan L., et al. “Activism or Slacktivism? The Potential and Pitfalls of Social Media in Contemporary Student Activism.” Journal of Diversity in Higher Education, vol. 10, no. 4, 2017, pp. 400–415.

Caramanica, Jon. "This ‘Imagine’ Cover Is No Heaven." The New York Times, 23 Mar. 2020, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/20/arts/music/coronaviru s-gal-gadot-imagine.html Frankfurt, Harry G. On Bullshit. Princeton University Press, 2005, http://www2.csudh.edu/ccauthen/576f12/frankfurt__harry__on_bullshit.pdf Fredal, James. “Rhetoric and Bullshit.” College English, vol.

73, no. 3, 2011, pp. 243–259.

Glenn, Cerise L. “'Activism or ‘Slacktivism?': Digital Media and Organizing for Social Change.” Communication Teacher, vol. 29, no. 2, 2015, pp. 81–85.

Gray, Sara Goto, et al. “The Benefit of Virtue Signaling: Corporate Sleight-of-Hand Positively Influences Consumers’ Judgments about ‘Social License to Operate." Journal of Environmental Management, vol. 260, 2020, p. 1-7.

Henderson, Gae Lyn, and M. J. Braun, eds. Propaganda and Rhetoric in Democracy: History, Theory, Analysis. Southern Illinois University Press, 2016.

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Manzaria, Johnnie and Jonathon Bruck. "Media's Use of Propaganda to Persuade People's Attitude, Beliefs and Behaviors." Edge, n.d., http://web.stanford.edu/class/e297c/war_peace/media/hprop aganda.html Wood, Allen. “Propaganda and Democracy.” Theoria: An International Journal for Theory, History and Foundations of Science, vol. 31, no. 3, 2016, pp. 381–394.

Kristofferson, Kirk, et al. “The Nature of Slacktivism: How the Social Observability of an Initial Act of Token Support Affects Subsequent Prosocial Action.” Journal of Consumer Research, vol. 40, no. 6, 2014, pp. 1149–1166. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/674137.

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We created this syllabus to help others better contextualize and identify the authenticity of the social media activism of companies and brands. It is but a humble attempt to help all of us better adjust to a world of social media where companies and brands are now claiming activism with social media posts that are difficult to decipher as genuine or self-serving. We hope it helps.