Trends in Corporate Social Responsibility Among Public Service Media in Europe

Abstract

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is the voluntary commitment taken over by companies in social, economic, and environmental terms. The aim is to counteract impacts generated by their activity. While the concept is genuinely linked to the private sector, this self-regulated system has been steadily introduced in some European public service media. Indeed, CSR is one of the mechanisms to face the challenges of the sector, both the financial crisis and the lack of trust. Seven public service media from the European Union are reporting—via their websites—on their CSR strategies. Annual reports on their performance are issued by the German ZDF, the Spanish RTVE, the Portuguese RTP, the British BBC, the Irish RTÉ, the Finnish YLE, and the Italian RAI. Also, four other corporations—VRT and RTBF from Belgium, FT from France, and DR from Denmark include a section on corporate social responsibility on their annual reports. The aim of this paper is to know which of the trends in CSR are dominant among public service media in Europe, namely economy, environment, and society. The content analysis of corporate reports is the method used for the research