Friend or faux: Testing the perceived authenticity of corporate socio-political activism messages on Instagram through the lens of Black Lives Matter

Abstract

Corporations frequently use social media platforms to vocalize their social stance as part of their corporate socio-political activism (CSA) initiatives (Parcha & Kingsley-Westerman, 2020). This study employed an electronic experiment using a between-subjects, posttest-only experimental design with a control group to examine the effects of Instagram posts on perceived authenticity of CSA activities. The findings of this study provide further evidence that corporations engaging in CSA can help build and maintain relationships with their external and internal publics (Park & Jiang, 2020). However, these results also provide evidence of how this form of signaling can pose a threat to authenticity, and damage relationships, due to it being seen as performative and inauthentic, especially among individuals who don’t have positive attitudes toward the issue, or CSA in general (Leong, 2021; Gaither, Austin, & Collins, 2018).