IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/sustdv/v32y2024i4p4001-4019.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Media framing of sustainability: The case of British pharmaceutical companies (2000–2020)

Author

Listed:
  • Dejan N. Zec

Abstract

Corporate sustainability is a complex concept, creating ambiguity regarding what it means and entails in a given context. Especially in sectors such as the pharmaceutical industry, where there is little direct interaction between the company and its stakeholders, infomediaries such as the mass media play a pivotal role in framing corporate sustainability and providing social evaluations to the general public. This paper reports on a longitudinal frame analysis of the newspaper reporting on corporate sustainability related to two British pharmaceutical companies, AstraZeneca and GlaxoSmithKline, in the period between 2000 and 2020. It explores and explains dominant sustainability frames related to pharmaceutical industry. The findings suggest that newspaper frames prioritize social and economic sustainability dimensions, related to companies' core business activities and relationships with stakeholders, and neglect the environmental dimension. The paper contributes to the existing literature by exploring contextual media framing, sustainability complexity and, empirically, sustainability in the pharmaceutical industry.

Suggested Citation

  • Dejan N. Zec, 2024. "Media framing of sustainability: The case of British pharmaceutical companies (2000–2020)," Sustainable Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 32(4), pages 4001-4019, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:sustdv:v:32:y:2024:i:4:p:4001-4019
    DOI: 10.1002/sd.2882
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1002/sd.2882
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1002/sd.2882?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wly:sustdv:v:32:y:2024:i:4:p:4001-4019. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10.1002/(ISSN)1099-1719 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.