Corporate identity on the Web: The case of telecommunication companies in Ghana

Abstract

The corporate website is an offi cial communication medium for the construction of corporate identity. This study explores an important feature of corporate websites, the About Us section, within the framework of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) to establish how corporate identities are constructed, the discursive strategies used in constructing those identities and how ideology, hegemony and power inform the corporate identities and the discursive strategies used in enacting the identities. Data for the study are from the websites of the four leading telecommunication service providers in Ghana. The study has established that a glocalised corporate identity that is informed by Eurocentric capitalist ideology is constructed by the companies. The discursive strategies employed in enacting identity include the inverted pyramid structure of the narratives, interdiscursivity and binarity. It was also found out that the ideology that underpins the identities constructed created a power fl uidity that resulted in hegemonic paradox.