Authors : Francis Kim

Volume/Issue : Volume 11 - 2026, Issue 3 - March

Google Scholar : https://tinyurl.com/mzmbsv

Scribd : https://tinyurl.com/yja38b93

DOI : https://doi.org/10.38124/ijisrt/26mar716

Note : A published paper may take 4-5 working days from the publication date to appear in PlumX Metrics, Semantic Scholar, and ResearchGate.

Abstract : This study examines how audiences interpret corporate-led empowerment initiatives within contemporary digital culture. Drawing on capability theory, opportunity structure analysis, cultural sociology, and scholarship on neoliberal governance, this study analyzes 175 extended written responses to Dove’s Self-Esteem initiative. Findings reveal that empowerment is framed as morally necessary yet structural contingent. Although participants praise symbolic inclusion and emotional resonance, they consistently invoke institutional mediators—parents, schools, and communities— as prerequisites for impact. Structural inequality thus emerges not as explicit denunciation but as background architecture shaping empowerment’s reach. A subset of respondents further critiques the campaign for individualizing systemic harms, reflecting tensions between recognition and redistribution. The study reconceptualizes corporate empowerment as a form of market-mediated development embedded in unequal cultural and institutional fields.

Keywords : Opportunity Structures; Cultural Sociology; Symbolic Recognition; Structural Inequality; Youth Self-Esteem.

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