ABSTRACT
This chapter addresses Duke Energy's efforts to respond to the coal ash issue to illustrate how designing strategically effective but also socially responsible messages presents a difficult challenge for such industries. It outlines the relationship between public relations and corporate social responsibility (CSR). It draws on constitutive rhetorical scholarship to show why designing strategically effective but also socially responsible messages present a difficult challenge for certain industries such as energy. The chapter analyzes one example of Duke Energy's CSR messaging to explain how it's professed values and its actions do not align. If stakeholder dialogue, integrity, and transparency are key components in being considered an ethically sound company, 2014 was a tough year for Duke Energy, the nation's largest utility. In February, coal ash, the toxic waste produced from burning coal in power plants to produce electricity, spilled from a retired power plant into the Dan River in Eden, North Carolina.
