Corporate Social Responsibility in Brazil: The Role of the Press as Watchdog*

IN ITS 22 JANUARY 2005 EDITION, THE BRITISH WEEKLY THE ECONOMIST declared: 'The movement for corporate social responsibility has won the battle of ideas'. Similarly, a study published by the Economist Intelligence Unit that same month revealed that a large number of companies (1,500) supported the

These findings point to the fact that corporate social responsibility (CSR) has become an increasingly important item on the agenda of companies, society and nation-states. Thus, contrary to other subjects that are not yet widely disseminated or understood, this paper proceeds on the assumption that CSR is a permanent fixture of public sphere discussions, to use the term coined by Habermas (1984).

The general consensus that CSR today represents an additional variable to consider in capitalist systems requires that we not simply recognise that the topic is a permanent place fixture of the public agenda-we must understand how it appears and is presented in public discourse.