Critical discourse analysis of fast fashion companies' legitimation strategies on Instagram

Abstract

In this article, we examine how fast fashion companies attempt to build legitimacy for their actions through social media marketing communications. The data are sourced from Lindex’s and H&M’s Instagram posts to explore how sustainability claims are related to the discursive legitimation strategies of authorization, rationalization, moral evaluation, and mythopoesis. In our critical discourse analysis, we show how visual and verbal components participate in the construction of these discursive legitimation strategies. Our findings allow us to advance discussions of fast fashion as a market institution by critically addressing the role of fast fashion companies and the ways in which they aim to legitimize this unsustainable business model by harnessing sustainability claims. By analyzing visual and verbal components as a part of the discursive construction of legitimacy, our research adds empirical detail to conceptualizations of the mediating role of social media in perpetuating the harmful practices of the fashion industry.