Research: Media Portrayals of Post-Rana Plaza CSR Initiatives for Worker Safety
New research shows how Global North and Global South media frame CSR in strikingly different ways after Rana Plaza.
Short Abstract
This paper by Professor Jette Steen Knudsen et al. compares how media in the Global North (UK and USA) and Global South (Bangladesh) evaluated the legitimacy of CSR initiatives after the Rana Plaza factory collapse in 2013 which killed more than 1,100 workers. The main CSR initiatives were the European Accord on Fire and Building Safety and the North American Alliance for Bangladesh Worker Safety. Based on content analysis of 541 articles, the study finds that UK/US media emphasized moral legitimacy, whereas Bangladeshi media focused on pragmatic legitimacy. Both contexts showed minimal coverage of worker perspectives. The findings highlight how divergent societal expectations complicate the establishment of universally legitimate supply-chain governance and expose the continued marginalization of worker voices in both media narratives.
Key findings
- Global North media framed the initiatives in moral terms, while South Asian media used a pragmatic, efficiency-focused lens.
- North–South differences appeared in timing, framing, and which governance actors were seen as legitimate.
- CSR governance was portrayed as moral progress in the North but as costly external pressure in the South.
- Worker perspectives remained largely absent, reinforcing the marginalization of labor in supply-chain governance.
- Conflicting North–South expectations highlight the difficulties in establishing universal supply-chain governance initiatives.