From Homo Economicus to Homo dialogicus: Rethinking social media use in CSR communication

• This article explores how social media can help CSR efforts.
• We argue that the old metaphor of CSR is based on an economic model. We propose a new metaphor of CSR: Homo Dialogicus.
• The paper provides both conceptual and practical ways to re envision CSR and social media.

This essay explores corporate social responsibility (CSR) communication through social media. Today, corporations across the world enact CSR campaigns and use social media as one tool to tell their story of social responsibility. Yet, social media's strength as a relationship-building tool is not being realized as CSR activities are often communicated unidirectionally. This essay suggests alternative ways of thinking about social media in CSR. The essay offers a framework for using social media that goes beyond the one-way, monological, Homo Economicus based practices that characterize current social media use in CSR. The perspective proposed, Homo Dialogicus, focuses on interactive communication practices, that will help organizations move forward in building ethical organization–public relationships via social media.