Message framing for social identity – Scholar Q&A with Duli Shi

May 31, 2023 • Jonathan McVerry

Companies making socially conscious decisions and sharing prosocial messaging has become a big part of business. Scholar Duli Shi, assistant professor at New Mexico State University, focuses her research on these corporate communication strategies. She says organizations can help people, especially marginalized groups, through their prosocial tactics. Her work aims to fine-tune the ways for-profit entities can do that. Shi and Sangwon Lee, assistant professor at New Mexico State University, are leading a study that will examine the effects of message framing and the endorser on different social groups, specifically how different groups respond to a company’s corporate social advocacy messaging. The Page Center-funded project, Shi and Lee’s first as scholars, is part of the 2023 research call on prosocial communication.

What is prosocial communication and how does it fit within your research?

We often consider nonprofit organizations in prosocial communication, mostly because we believe that type of organization serves the community. For-profit organizations can also do things to promote social issues too. Corporate social responsibility involves lots of actions from companies, like employee volunteer programs and support for disaster aid. Other than corporate social responsibility, companies also share information about sociopolitical issues and their efforts on these issues. During such communication processes, the public learns what’s going on. So, we want a better understanding of how these messages possibly change people’s perceptions of sociopolitical issues when achieving organizational goals. How can companies be best evaluated regarding their communication process, so they are truly prosocial?

Can you share the origin of your Page Center study?

This whole project is an extension of my dissertation. I have been examining all different companies’ social media messages – when they talk about their stances on different societal issues, such as race relations, LGBTQ issues, and immigration rights. I found that, in the corporate social advocacy context, companies are talking a lot about contentious issues. Scholars and practitioners are paying more and more attention to these issues, but one part is missing – what components and what kinds of messages work best?

I have been studying all these companies and their messages a lot. Sometimes people don’t care that much, but sometimes they do. That’s the part I am so intrigued by. That’s my strong passion. I want to understand how people’s group membership affects their perception of the messages. And I learned in my dissertation that a lot of those processes are very subconscious. People don't even recognize or realize they are using their social identities to process the information.

How does message framing fit into this project?

Framing can work differently for different groups of people. I check a lot of companies and their current CSA messages, and I find that they will usually say, “If you do this, we will have a better world,” but sometimes they say, “Stop doing this for a better world.”  A famous example is Nike’s “Just this time, don't do it.” It’s different. And a big part of this project is social identities, so I'm curious how this message framing works on people differently.

In my dissertation, I found that people from different social groups process information very differently. For example, when we talk about Black Lives Matter, people from the African American group process information very differently than other groups. Their needs and social expectations are so different. They're impacted by their social identities. Different message frames can guide different parts of the information processing for these different groups of people.

If a company focuses on one group, is it counterproductive versus trying to reach everyone or the largest audience possible?

I think that's exactly what practitioners should consider when they're taking stances on sociopolitical issues: Who do you want to talk to? A lot of their messages are similar to each other. Every time they take stances on issues, they don't differentiate between different groups and maybe they should. Maybe they should consider who they are talking to and who benefits. What is the company standing for? I don't think there is a “general public.” People believe in different things and consider things differently. It’s inevitable that people have different responses.

Can you share your plan for the project?

There are several stages to the project. We will be doing two pilot studies. The first will help choose two different sociopolitical issues to use, one highly salient issue and one moderately salient issue. The second pilot study will make sure the messages work the way we conceptualized, which is the manipulation check. Then, there are two main studies.

There will be two separate data collection processes with two issues. For each main study, four conditions will be created – gain vs. loss and celebrity vs. peer. We assign all these participants randomly into one of those four conditions and show them a CSA message. We will then ask about their self-efficacy, identification with the company, and their emotional reactions. We are very interested in the type of emotions they have when seeing those messages. Then we want to know to what extent do they identify with the company. It’s a lot of steps, but we will get to see how people and groups see information differently.

How does Page Center support help your project succeed?

It helps with the data collection. I highly appreciate this opportunity because it’s hard to get funded for social scientific studies like this. Especially recently, data collection fees are increasing so I appreciate the financial support from the Page Center. Also, the blogs and the Roundtables [discussions with the Page Center advisory board], I like the whole process. The more we talk about it – especially from the practitioner’s perspective – gives me chances to reflect on this whole project and really think it through. How can I provide more practical implications for practitioners? How does this project relate back to reality? It's amazing to have those kinds of conversations. The interactive communication is so valuable.