Sewing Responsibility: Media Discourse, Corporate Deviance, and the Rana Plaza Collapse

Abstract

On the morning of April 24, 2013, Rana Plaza, an eight-story building housing five garment factories collapsed killing 1,129 workers and injuring 2,500. It quickly emerged that U.S.- and European-based retailers were sourcing items produced at Rana Plaza. This paper takes the Rana Plaza collapse as a case study of how media discourse constructs ideas about corporate deviance, responsibility, and risk management in the global supply chain. Guided by the crime news frame and global risk governance, newspaper articles from the U.S. and Bangladesh are used for a content analysis. This paper expands the literature of corporate crime and global risk governance to include the fast fashion industry. We find little evidence that either country discusses Rana Plaza as corporate deviance or the criminal condemnation of corporations. We find evidence that global risk governance is nationalized, as U.S. papers shift blame away from U.S. corporations and onto Bangladesh.