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"The Body Shop: A force for good": En multimodal kritisk diskursanalys av The Body Shops hållbarhetskommunikation
Umeå University, Faculty of Arts, Department of culture and media studies.
Umeå University, Faculty of Arts, Department of culture and media studies.
2023 (Swedish)Independent thesis Basic level (degree of Bachelor), 10 credits / 15 HE creditsStudent thesisAlternative title
"The Body Shop: A force for good” : A multimodal critical discourse analysis of The Body Shop’s sustainability communication (English)
Abstract [en]

Companies have an important role to play in sustainability initiatives as they have great power to drive development. Working with sustainability issues can be seen as crucial to their survival, as various stakeholders today place high demands on companies to take responsibility in this area. This study aims to critically examine The Body Shop’s sustainability communication in order to gain a deeper understanding of how the company constructs a sustainable brand. The study is based on the following questions: (1) How does The Body Shop communicate sustainability? (2) Which discourses are most prominent in The Body Shop’s communication? (3) What does The Body Shop convey through its sustainability communication? The material consists of The Body Shop’s sustainability report, as it is an important part of a company’s sustainability communication. The study’s theoretical framework is based on theories of critical discourse theory, consumer society, brand identity and brand activism. Furthermore, the methodology of the study is multimodal critical discourse analysis, where we have used different analysis tools to study both visual and textual elements of the company’s sustainability report. To see how The Body Shop relates to the sustainability discourse and constructs a sustainable brand, different discursive themes were identified based on the roles the company takes in its communication. The two most prominent roles are the role of the fair company and the role of the innovative company, which further contribute to the maintenance of the sustainability discourse. The result shows that The Body Shop communicates in a transparent way, using informative and persuasive language which creates a sense of credibility. We can conclude that The Body Shop presents itself as a leader in the field and often as the solution to various societal problems. Finally, The Body Shop presents its sustainability communication as a goal rather than a means, as it appears that sustainable development is the company’s sole purpose.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
2023.
Keywords [en]
sustainability communication, sustainability report, brand, The Body Shop, multimodal critical discourse analysis
Keywords [sv]
hållbarhetskommunikation, hållbarhetsrapport, varumärke, The Body Shop, multimodal kritisk diskursanalys
National Category
Media and Communication Studies
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:umu:diva-206606OAI: oai:DiVA.org:umu-206606DiVA, id: diva2:1750294
Educational program
Programme in Media and Communication Studies: Strategic Communication
Presentation
2023-03-20, Umeå, 17:40 (Swedish)
Supervisors
Examiners
Available from: 2023-04-17 Created: 2023-04-12 Last updated: 2025-02-17Bibliographically approved

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CiteExportLink to record
Permanent link

Direct link
Cite
Citation style
  • apa
  • ieee
  • vancouver
  • Other style
More styles
Language
  • de-DE
  • en-GB
  • en-US
  • fi-FI
  • nn-NO
  • nn-NB
  • sv-SE
  • Other locale
More languages
Output format
  • html
  • text
  • asciidoc
  • rtf