Analyzing the Voice of Recipients of CSR Activities from #NBATogether Campaign: Analyzing Twitter Posts and Comments through Critical Discourse Analysis Lens

Abstract

This study aimed to analyze the voice of recipients of professional sports teams’ corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities. Fairclough’s critical discourse analysis (CDA) was adopted and analyzed 275 tweets from every NBA team that included the #NBATogether hashtag from March 20th to April 20th, 2020. Results suggested the public mostly complied with discourses created by NBA teams, but challenging discourses were constantly created in comments. This study provided possible reasons to support these findings. First, the conceptual background of CDA is provided to justify the creation of different discourses in comments. Second, the characteristic backgrounds of users following professional sports teams’ social media were mentioned as a possible cause of complying discourse as dominant in comments. Third, the research also highlighted how social media should not be a panacea for delivering CSR discourse, which brings up the necessity for the traditional media to be considered as not all public have internet access. Finally, the importance of analyzing the public’s discourse was mentioned to emphasize the benefits of both professional teams and communities.