Media in the context of corporate social responsibilities : the case of Lebanon -

Abstract

The concept of Corporate Social Responsibility goes back to the 1950’s, acquiring throughout the years more importance in all businesses around the world. The media industry started to integrate CSR practices, yet due to the differentiations in defining CSR activities from sustainable activities to ethical responsibilities, it is complicated to define the CSR concept among the global media channels, and it is more complex to define it in the Lebanese context. Although, many researchers have been studying the topic of CSR, very few studies have covered the status of CSR in the media. In Lebanon, the concept of CSR remains an unknown and unclear concept, therefore any research that aims to study the relevance of CSR in the country or in any Lebanese sector like the media will be difficult to obtain. In addition, the media sector is highly dependent on the governmental rules and regulations, that's why Lebanese media institutions do not find the urge or necessity to go beyond what is required or to offer services that surpass their own interests, not even for humanitarian reasons. This study was designed to discover how Lebanese media institutions deal with CSR initiatives and the resemblance between such initiatives and the strategic philosophy of those media institutions. Additionally, the study questions whether the Lebanese media institutions have made CSR part of their strategic philosophy and how they are communicating CSR inside and outside their organizations. In order to complete the current study, the first step was to conduct an extensive literature review to summarize earlier studies and findings in the CSR context. The second step was to investigate the current situation of Lebanese media institutions in terms of CSR. Thus, this research used qualitative semi-structured interviews as empirical method. The collected data was analyzed at a later stage. The findings in this thesis show that even though Corporate Social Responsibility is not a new topic, media companies in Lebanon, have not fully