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ABSTRACT
Our study is intended to be an exploratory analysis based on a case study. Starting from a sample debate
articulated around a public issue, namely the corporate social responsibility (CSR), we apprehend the discourse
as an instrument of power deployed by actors in a conflict position. We take the ecological crisis caused by
British Petroleum (BP) in the Gulf of Mexico since April 20, 2010 as a case study, and the reaction of the
U.S. administration to intervene and reassure the public opinion alarmed by this crisis. In order to select our
corpus, we have identified two target populations of discourse, in this case the speech given by the U.S.
government (Obama's speech) and discourses representing the official opinion of BP (BP's press releases) dated
April 20, 2010 until September 19, 2010.
We considered any discourse occurring in a context of conflict symbolically as a power signs carrier and a
mobilizing instrument of power relations between the involved actors. We start from the hypothesis stating that
organizational and governmental discourses, studied and produced in a crisis context, are necessarily conflictual
discourses within the meaning of Windisch (1987). And we used the analytical framework developed by
Windisch (1987) to highlight the internal functioning of a confrontational speech seen as a vector of power and
legitimacy. In our research, we preceded the discourse analysis, the main method in our study, by a qualitative
content analysis. The use of content analysis aims to determine the various themes developed in the discourse,
examine how actors define the CSR topic and put the corpus in its own reality, by using the
HYPERRESEARCH qualitative content analysis software. In addition, by implementing the theoretical
assumptions and methodological tools from discourse analysis, we auscultated the performative legitimating
potential of discourses constructed and developed in a conflict communication context. We used the TROPES
text analysis software recognized as a textual analysis tool able to generate representative models of the corpus
structure and its thematic organization.
KEY CONCEPTS
Confrontational discourse, discursive strategies, CSR, legitimacy, power, tandem of government and enterprise