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Speaking Truth to Power: Twitter Reactions to the Panama Papers

Author

Listed:
  • Dean Neu

    (York University)

  • Gregory Saxton

    (York University)

  • Jeffery Everett

    (York University)

  • Abu Rahaman Shiraz

    (University of Calgary)

Abstract

The current study examines the micro-linguistic details of Twitter responses to the whistleblower-initiated publication of the Panama Papers. The leaked documents contained the micro-details of tax avoidance, tax evasion, and wealth accumulation schemes used by business elites, politicians, and government bureaucrats. The public release of the documents on April 4, 2016 resulted in a groundswell of Twitter and other social media activity throughout the world, including 161,036 Spanish-language tweets in the subsequent 5-month period. The findings illustrate that the responses were polyvocal, consisting a collection of overlapping speech genres with varied thematic topics and linguistic styles, as well as differing degrees of calls for action and varying amounts of illocutionary force. The analysis also illustrates that, while the illocutionary force of tweets is somewhat associated with the adoption of a prosaic and vernacular ethical stance as well as with demands for action, these types of voicing behaviors were not present in the majority of the tweets. These results suggest that, while social media platforms are a popular site for collective forms of voicing activities, it is less certain that these collective stakeholder voices necessarily result in forceful accountability demands that spill out of the communication medium and thus serve as an impulse for positive social change.

Suggested Citation

  • Dean Neu & Gregory Saxton & Jeffery Everett & Abu Rahaman Shiraz, 2020. "Speaking Truth to Power: Twitter Reactions to the Panama Papers," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 162(2), pages 473-485, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:jbuset:v:162:y:2020:i:2:d:10.1007_s10551-018-3997-9
    DOI: 10.1007/s10551-018-3997-9
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    Cited by:

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    2. Dean Neu & Gregory D. Saxton, 2024. "Twitter-Based Social Accountability Callouts," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 189(4), pages 797-815, February.
    3. Muhammad Azizul Islam & Chris J. Van Staden, 2022. "Modern Slavery Disclosure Regulation and Global Supply Chains: Insights from Stakeholder Narratives on the UK Modern Slavery Act," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 180(2), pages 455-479, October.
    4. Bryl Lukasz & Supino Enrico, 2022. "Sustainability Disclosure in Social Media – Substitutionary or Complementary to Traditional Reporting?," Journal of Intercultural Management, Sciendo, vol. 14(3), pages 41-62, September.
    5. Gregory D. Saxton & Dean Neu, 2022. "Twitter-Based Social Accountability Processes: The Roles for Financial Inscriptions-Based and Values-Based Messaging," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 181(4), pages 1041-1064, December.
    6. Gregory D. Saxton & Charlotte Ren & Chao Guo, 2021. "Responding to Diffused Stakeholders on Social Media: Connective Power and Firm Reactions to CSR-Related Twitter Messages," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 172(2), pages 229-252, August.
    7. Mayank Kejriwal, 2021. "On using centrality to understand importance of entities in the Panama Papers," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 16(3), pages 1-17, March.

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