Visual aspects of CSR reports: a semiotic and chronological case analysis

Resumo

This paper presents a semiotic analysis of the CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) reports published by the French oil and gas company Total between 2004 and 2013. This diachronic analysis focuses on the visual dimension of the reports, and is aimed at understanding the visual rhetoric developed in these texts, its components and its evolution. How the images and visual layout of the reports contribute to the definition of meaning and to the valorisation of the firms and of their CSR actions? The result of the analysis is a list of different “phases” of the evolution of this visual rhetoric, and a typology of visual images. This analysis is a contribution to the exploration of the visual aspect of corporate CSR communication.