What is Corporate Social Responsibility? - InnoTrain CSR

Communication of CSR
6.8. Basic principles of Web 2.0 for the communication of CSR
In short
The public perception of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) of a company
can be strongly influenced and controlled on the internet as a result of the
evaluation by communities. With Web 2.0, information about companies is no
longer only determined by these companies themselves. Internet users such as
customers, consumers or institutionalised stakeholders are effectively using
social media platforms, forums and blogs to publish information, opinions and
evaluations about corporate activities, brands and products. In doing so, the
power of internet users is mainly in the high local as well as global degree of
networking.
Therefore, a growing number of companies are specifically expanding their
marketing and communication strategy with Web 2.0. In the same way as the
mass of non-commercial users, they are networking to form opinions, maintain
relationships and for advertising purposes or CSR campaigns on constantly
growing platforms like Facebook which has several hundred million members
alone. Some "CSR 2.0 players" are using own CSR platforms and find or
network their CSR reporting with social media fans, comrades-in-arms and
multipliers on Web 2.0. However, companies have become more vulnerable
because critics and counter-campaigns are capable of mobilising a high
number of stakeholders very quickly.
Learning targets
� Get to know possibilities of interactions by companies and internet users on
Web 2.0
CSR learning contents
While the classical communication consisted of the sender-recipient model, Web 2.0
is based on a "many-to-many" communication strategy: the recipients of a message
are at the same time senders of messages by automatically directing them to
persons in their network of contacts. However, the term Web 2.0 is not so much
describing a new type of technology, but rather a different use with respect to the
socio-technical approach. With Web 2.0, the website operator (e.g. a company) and
its information supply are no longer in the foreground as evolutionary step of the
internet. In fact, internet users are actively participating in the development and
The project "InnoTrain CSR" is organized by GILDE GmbH and has been funded with support from the European Commission. This publication reflects the
views only of the author, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein. 12/2010
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