The Portrayal Of Environmental Corporate Social Responsibility (1970’S-2010): A Look At The New Yorker’s Cartoons

Abstract

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has become a hot topic. This thesis focuses on analyzing the way environmental CSR has been depicted over 40 years (1970-2010) by cartoon artists in The New Yorker magazine. The research question addressed is: How have The New Yorker cartoonists’ views of Carroll’s (1991) CSR components changed over time? This study adopts a mixed methods methodology – qualitative visual methods (cartoon analysis) and quantitative counting of instances of presence of certain elements or lack thereof. An in-depth qualitative and quantitative analysis of eight selected cartoons was performed. The qualitative part of the analysis was done by partially adopting Carroll’s framework of CSR, i.e. by adopting three of the four Carroll’s (1991) components of CSR and the SCIM-C model. This model was used to analyze the cartoons from a historical context. The quantitative part of the analysis was done by counting the number of “yes” and “no” answers to several questions based on the same work. The results of the analysis demonstrate that throughout the specified time period, 1970 to 2010, cartoonists viewed corporations and corporate executives as primarily profit driven, disregarding of ethical societal expectations, and rather careless about complying with existing environmental laws.