Toyota and Social Responsibility

Corporate social responsibility has received much publicity the past half decade due to increased public interest in corporate world. Different experts claim the recession, multi-million dollar executive bonuses, the green movement, and global outreach encourage society to more closely analyze how large corporations "do their part" in the world.

Sonja Foss proposes a critical method called rhetorical schema. Schema is used to identify and evaluate an artifact's function. Function seemingly serves a collaborative role between purpose and effect, and sums up the action an image communicates. Using the schema, I hope to answer how the above Toyota Prius commercial functions as an example of corporate social responsibility.

A primary function to establish Toyota's reputation of environmental responsibility seems evident. Toyota vehicles claim and are commonly known for fuel efficiency and comfortable space, two things the commercial states via narrator. The commercial directly states another function:  "harmony between man, nature, and machine." The use of pleasant music and colorful animation promotes happy feelings among viewers as they watch the Prius travel down a winding road. We see various elements of nature - flowers, grass, and waterfalls - come to life as a sun rises in the background. All elements of nature, except for the city, sky, and road, are composed of people costumed accordingly to match that certain element. 

I think the visual elements communicate the identified functions effectively. The people acting as nature's elements position human life in direct correlation with its environment, and the Prius serves as a vehicle (literally) that maintains the harmony between the two. The bright colors, pleasant background music, and smiling faces of nature encourage viewers to think of the Prius' objective as maintaining harmony between the vehicles we drive and the environment our vehicles affect. The Prius gives "you more power, and more space." Therefore, "the world gets fewer smog forming emissions."

To summarize the two previous paragraphs, I think the commercial's functions are to a) establish both Toyota's credibility as a socially and environmentally responsible corporation, and b) more clearly define the relationship, as the commercial states, between man, nature, and machine. I judge the ethical foundation of Toyota's, specifically the Prius', functions as sound. Toyota has continuously worked to produce safe, comfortable vehicles that are eco-friendly. While the price of a Toyota Prius is subjective to opinion, Toyota maintains a positive reputation concerning vehicle life and quality, apart from brake issues two years ago. Coming from an environmentally conscious perspective, I appreciate the company's sensitivity to nature in manufacturing vehicles that do less harm to nature.

Football and politics.

 

As TV campaigning for local, state, and federal political offices recently finished, Kenneth Burke's notion of dramatism and pentadic analysis seem appropriate in critiquing the nature and motive of campaign messaging. 

Essentially, dramatism is defined by Burke as the understanding that we (humans) use language strategically to deal with life, and that language is a real and influential device of our world. In the formation of dramatism and pentadic analysis, Burke made two assumptions. First, the presence of motion, or the human's basic biological/animalistic components. Second, action, which exercises our capacity to do something with purpose, distinguishing action from purely animalistic motions. 

The artifact of this week's blog is a campaign commercial from South Dakota's Republican Senator, John Thune. In many eyes, Thune is a well-rounded, morally and financially conservative rumored to be a significant candidate for the 2012 presidential election. Thune served in Congress for six years before winning a seat in Senate, and remains there today. 

Aired in 2004, the commercial (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iTJFdDCPXKw&feature=related) directly opposed Tom Daschle, a Democrat competing for one the South Dakota Senate seats. Below are the five identified elements of Burke's dramatistic pentad:

Act:  political campaign for John Thune.

Scene:  the South Dakota 2004 elections for Senators

Agents: Tom Daschle (main), and John Thune

Agency:  a 1940s-esque football highlight reel

Purpose:  persuade South Dakota voters to make a decision/judgment about Tom Daschle, and vote for John Thune to be Senator

In Rhetorical Criticism, Sonja Foss suggests applying ratios to the elements to determine which element(s) is/are controlling or determining another. Regarding this commerical from Thune's 2004 campaign, the scene and purpose are the main terms. The scene - 2004 South Dakota Senate elections - establishes motive for Thune to campaign, therefore creating this commercial depicting Democrat Daschle as a "blocker" of policies and laws that would benefit the South Dakota population. The commercial uses a well-known setting or agency - highlight reel from a football game - to fulfill its purpose, a public statement working to impress a negative judgment about Daschle and persuade voters to vote instead for Thune. The purpose, persuading South Dakota voters that Daschle will block any beneficial bills, determines Daschle's representation in the commercial. Without the scene of 2004 elections and the goal to prevent a victory for Daschle, the commercial would have presented different elements, changing the act, agent, and agency identified in this critique.

Does the nice guy really finish last?

Communication theorist Kenneth Burke is recognized as the expert concerning dramatism, a notion that humans use language strategically to deal with life, resembling acts of drama. Derived from Burke's work with dramatism surfaces pentadic criticism, which focuses on five essential elements:  act (what took place), scene (background/context), agent (who's performing the act), agency (means of performing the act), and purpose (goal of the act). Once a critic has identified the five elements, they can then further analyze the artifact to locate its dominant term or idea everything else centers around. This blog will consist of a brief attempt to apply Burke's concept of dramatism and pentadic analysis to the film "Charlie Wilson's War." 

 

"Charlie Wilson's War", a 2007 picture directed by Mike Nichols and starring Tom Hanks, Julia Roberts, and Philip Seymour Hoffman, displays one of the most covert operations in U.S. history. The film tells the true story of Charlie Wilson, a congressman who collaborated with CIA members and other countries to save Afghanistan from communist Soviet Union invasions during the Cold War, a time when the U.S. was in a "neutral" position. 

Necessary for pentadic criticism is the initial identification and explanation of each element, in this case, from the movie-makers view. With those elements, I will attempt to answer what point or worldview the move maker works to get across.  

Act - well-intentioned, well-known, wealthy people working for the rescue of victims and citizens in Afghanistan suffering from violent and cruel attacks of the communist Soviet Union.

Scene - Afghanistan and the U.S.

Agent - Charlie Wilson, CIA operatives, and Joanne Herring, Charlie's friend that primarily encourages and arranges for him to address the issue in Afghanistan.

Agency - "Charlie Wilson's war"/ allied countries of the US, Pakistan, Israel, and Saudi Arabia helping the Afghan population through providing appropriate weaponry and training to Afghan guerrillas.

Purpose - point out the irony in the U.S. endangering relations with the Soviet Union to help Afghanistan during the Cold War, and suffering one of the worst terrorist attacks, led by Osama bin Laden and Afghanistan's Taliban, in 2001.

I propose the identified purpose as the film's dominant element, or goal for making this film. As identified, I think the movie maker's purpose for creating the film is centered around the irony of the U.S. and Afghanistan relations during the Cold War versus the 9/11 attacks. While watching "Charlie Wilson's War", I couldn't help but think how ironic the action of "Charlie Wilson's War" is. The country the U.S. took major risks and spending a total of $500 million dollars for during the Cold War houses the party that killed thousands of Americans two decades later in an extreme act of terrorism, and the country America finds itself in war with today.

This film encourages its audience to consider that no good deed goes unpunished. The U.S., with allied countries Pakistan, Israel, and Saudi Arabia, acts as the “good guy” in this film, helping a country find its way out of a terrible, defenseless situation against communist invasion. This film and its movie maker seem to support the conundrum that the nice guy will always, eventually, finish last, and asks the audience to consider and evaluate how much good resulted from helping Cold War Afghanistan. Different opinions concerning the situation of Charlie Wilson argue that the weapons provided to Afghanistan guerrillas during the Cold War laid the foundation for Osama bin Laden and the Taliban. Given the tragedy of the September 11 terrorist attacks, some say Charlie Wilson and the U.S. should have just stayed out of Afghanistan to begin with, rather than providing aid but wiping their hands clean of any after-math responsibility.  

Narrative and vision.

I spent last summer interning for Northrop Grumman (NG) Corporation, a global security provider. The corporate website states, "Northrop Grumman Corporation (NYSE: NOC) is a leading global security company whose 120,000 employees provide innovative systems, products, and solutions in aerospace, electronics, information systems, shipbuilding and technical services to government and commercial customers worldwide" (http://www.northropgrumman.com/).  

NG's major business involves work with military forces, designing and manufacturing missile detection systems, infra-red countermeasures, and large equipment, like aircraft carriers. Such products function to keep our military safe while maintaining an advantage in any war. Simply, war generates large portions of NG's overall profits.

This analysis seeks to identify the purpose in NG's mission statement, and how that purpose is achieved through use of certain elements. The following section quotes the vision/mission found on NG's website:

"Our vision is to be the most trusted provider of systems and technologies that ensure the security and freedom of our nation and its allies. As the technology leader, we will define the future of defense—from undersea to outer space, and in cyberspace.

We will —

·         Conduct ourselves with integrity and live our Company Values

·         Deliver superior program performance

·         Foster an internal environment of innovation, collaboration, and trust

In so doing, Northrop Grumman will become our customers' partner of choice, our industry's employer of choice, and our shareholders' investment of choice.”

Multiple objectives make up NG's narrated vision. Keeping America and its allies safe, leading the defense industry with innovation and superior performance, and gaining society's trust resonate as active events and themes guiding NG's mission. Some societal groups/individuals view war as wreckless, destructive, and irresponsible. The words integrity, trust, choice, security, and freedom support the objective to maintain/restore NG's reputation. Using positive or god-terms helps NG tell a story that says, "No, we're not a company that promotes war because it ensures business and profit. We're a corporation here to protect and secure our nation and its citizens." The company's mission promotes NG, and also invites national support for the war-fighting support NG offers the nation.

Considering coherence (internal consistency) and fidelity (identification or a shared experience/opinion between the audience and narrator), the mission of NG may be effective or inefficient depending on the audience. The coherence between the coporation and its customers or those it supports will probably be on the same page, because they are all working towards the same goal - to fight and eventually finish war(s) as the victor. The story lived by NG is represented in documents like the above vision/mission, and other messaging like the "Statement of Corporate Responsibility" found on their website.

NG's story and fidelity are rely on situation. Ideally, the utopia for the world would be the cease of all wars, eliminating any need for defense contractors. However, that currently isn't the case. Many countries do find themselves involved in wars, making the context of NG's narratives and business appropriate. 

While appropriate and necessary to protect our nation's citizens, opposition to corporations like NG is expected and happens. Society and NG may be living in the same story to a certain degree, but there are and will always be parts of the audience that disagree with NG's corporation-specific story. The situation NG's story currently resides in is contextually appropriate, but worldviews of audience members that both agree and disagree with NG's story will have different views of NG's story's fidelity.