The corporate cancellation debate: a framing analysis on Dutch-speaking media coverage on brand cancellation

The press coverage of brand cancellation might steer consumers’ perceptions and future behaviour. This research aims to examine how the Dutch-speaking online press reports on brand cancellations using a qualitative framing analysis. We focus on how frames are constructed by a combination of verbal and visual journalistic choices and what the role is of user-generated content in these. By attending to both linguistic and visual signification, the study adopts a social-semiotic lens to uncover how meaning is produced and circulated in coverage of brand cancellations. The results reveal that the Dutch-speaking press predominantly uses conflict and morality frames, with a broad, neutral to slightly negative tone. While perspectives from various stakeholders are included, coverage frequently lacks balance and the brand is represented as a victim and the audience as powerful. This lack of balance is mostly created by giving a prominent place to user-generated content criticizing the campaign. Beyond these descriptive findings, the study highlights how this routinized use of moral and conflict frames also contributes to the shaping of a mediated public sphere in which brand cancellations become recurring sites of moral debate, potentially diverting public attention away from other arenas of social struggle.