Environmentalists NGOs and the construction of the culprit: semiotic analysis

Abstract

Purpose – This article aims to analyse how environmentalist NGOs build the figures of guilty and\nevil businesses in texts published on the web sites of two ironic prizes. These texts are good examples\nof criticism based on reversing and analysing semiotic productions of organisations, like advertising\nand environmental reports, as a part of on-line environmentalist campaigns.\nDesign/methodology/approach – The article is based on textual semiotics and a semiotic-based\napproach to rhetoric; the methodology is qualitative and exploratory. A part of the text published on\nthe web sites of the two ironic prizes (Pinocchio and Angry Mermaid) are analysed in order to identify\ndifferent models and strategies of criticism.\nFindings – The article identifies a series of critical strategies: semantic/paradigmatic,\nsyntagmatic/meta-textual, referential, narrative and inter-textual criticisms. It underlines the fact\nthat on-line criticism is an anti-ideological semiotic action, which can be compared to some forms of\necological thought. Nonetheless, it is based on some forms of rhetoric and ideology, which can be\nanalysed with semiotic tools.\nResearch limitations/implications – This paper presents a qualitative, exploratory analysis of\ntwo cases: results cannot be directly generalized, but methodology and findings can be transferred to\nother cases (epistemological principle of transferability).\nPractical implications – Methods and results of this paper can help in enriching research on the\nrhetoric of environmental communication, and can integrate more quantitative approaches. Results\ncan suggest new approaches to business communicators, in order to avoid environmental criticism and\n“boomerang effects”.\nOriginality/value – The attempt to apply semiotics to the analysis of communication campaigns is\nrare and perhaps quite innovative. The approach can enrich the fields of PR and business\ncommunication studies, of rhetoric analysis and of environmental communication analysis.

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