BY Messan Mawugbe (PhD)

1st July 2024.

Introduction

Are we reading or watching the news? No, I don’t think so! We rather consume
patches and shades of organised mental frames about events. Each frame is meant
to propel the mind towards a particular sense of meaning and truth. These frames
determine how the media expects society to think about a culture, corporate entity,
an issue or how consumers should think and relate to a particular brand in a
competitive business environment. The function of the media in directing how the
public mentally perceives an event or a narrative is referred to as media framing. In
its process, the media employs macro and micro framing perspectives on news
events and brand stories. First, macro framing is about the big picture a story
projects or in other words, the context within which the media presents a story or
an event. Micro framing on the other hand is about specific language choices the
media employs, the implications of the language, the tone of the language and its
invocation of associated mental images. It is therefore worthy of a note in knowing
how media framing could influence public perceptions about government and non-
government agencies. This article focuses on how trusted media such as
The Wall Street Journal’s media frames could throw different shades of public trust on
United States of America’s (USA) federal financial agency. That agency is none but
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) which is an independent agency
created by the Congress to maintain stability and public confidence in America’s
financial institutions and systems. (www.fdic.gov)

Significantly, the media’s presentation of media frames around the corporate
culture existing at the United States of America’s (USA) Federal Deposit Insurance
Corporation (FDIC) is likely to impact on trust, public perceptions and even direct
negative public sentiments towards the FDIC’s brand. Primarily, corporate cultural
values form an intrinsic part of a corporate’s belief systems which subsequently
drive growth and sustainable business and should be guarded and protected from
harmful media frames. The media as both consumers and workers remain sensitive
to corporates’ ethical cultures for their sense of belonging, trust, working-harmony,
personal health, professional career development, quality and ethical service
delivery.

Upholding ethical corporate culture remains important as “it shapes everything
from employee engagement to business success” (Rinaily Bonifacio, May 30, 2024)
since a “negative corporate culture can damage a brand’s reputation and loyalty”
(Jorgen Sunderberg, www.linkhumans.com) and hence perhapsthe need for a Wall
Street Journal’s investigation audited by the Law Firm Cleary Gottlieb Steen &
Hamilton on the corporate culture existing at the FDIC “found out that one in 10
employees at FDIC complained of sexual harassment, discrimination, other personal
misconduct in workplace” (Wall Street Journal, May 8, 2024)

Similarly, how the FDIC’s brand is frame by the media could lead to a reputational
deficit or gains among its stakeholders and the general public. It is against the
backdrop of corporate culture framing and its possible impact on brand confidence
and corporate success has this article employed media narrative analysis in
analyzing 324 story statements of 13 news articles in the Wall Street Journal for
May 2024 whilst FDIC constitute the study units. The inter coder validity of this
study is 85%. The study below revealed the framing contexts within which the FDIC
was portrayed before the public, citizenry, stakeholders and prospective
professionals interested in the FDIC corporate brand.

Framing The FDIC:

Globally, the media acts as an agent for social change. The media’s agenda is
therefore not gratifying itself in publishing negative stories about brands and
organizations but a media performing its civic responsibility in a public sphere by
mobilizing opinions towards the upliftment of moral and ethical values across all
spheres of human life. The media framed FDIC with a high degree of ethical
corporate culture abuses hinging on toxic working cultural values, sexual
harassment, sexualized working environment, bullying, racism, Superiors
misconducting themselves, patriarchal abuses and many more as seen in the figures
A and B.
The Public’s mental picture of FDIC could be influenced by the media’s frame of the
FDIC brand. The frames are not encouraging for positive working environment.
Corporate executives are inspired to uphold mechanisms and strategies that seek
to promote positive working environment and subsequently media frames of high
civic ethics. Strategic corporate brand story monitoring should be embraced as
efforts for managing their brand’s media frames. Media frames should be at the
apex of all brand health and brand equity management since it contributes
immensely to the trust the public repose in a brand.

It must also be emphasized that this article’s intent is to contribute to brands’ media
frame management without any political intent and should be perceived in the
context of understanding how the power of media frames if not checked, could
impact negatively on a brand’s health sustainability, consumer values and public-
trust.

Fig. A: – FDIC was framed within the following media frames:

This chart of (Fig. A) reveals the lingual contexts withing which the media framed
the FDIC.
Fig: B: – The Degree of FDIC media frames:

This chart of (Fig. B) reveals the degree of the media frames and its related
sentiments withing which the media framed the FDIC.

The Author: Messan Mawugbe (PhD)
Institute of Brands Narrative Analysis (IBNA)
Email: ibna@ibnareports.org
Mawugbe@ibnareports.org