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

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.