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This article examines the framing of immigrants in nineteenth-century New York City. A content analysis of local and national newspapers on the Lower East Side of the borough of Manhattan that included the infamous Five Points neighborhood demonstrates that the contemporaneous media narratives constructed a discourse of fear and contempt about residents of the area by emphasizing their alleged vice-ridden lifestyle. This discourse framed immigrants as a threat to the existing social order and diagnosed their moral failings on their cultural alienation. We argue that this process can be seen as an example of the exercise of symbolic power that sought to maintain existing social and cultural hierarchies by denigrating the disadvantaged sections of the population.

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The purpose of this chapter is to examine how a multinational enterprise (MNE) makes sense of the ‘wicked problem’ of corporate social responsibility (CSR).

We analyse the single case of an acknowledged leader in CSR, Unilever. We undertake an interpretive textual analysis of how Unilever has accounted for its progress towards greater social and environmental responsibility in its annual social and environmental reports published between 2000 and 2012.

We identify enduring themes as well as what has changed in this 12-year period. We conclude that while Unilever has made definite progress, becoming more confident and ambitious in its plans and achievements, it potentially runs the risk of reducing CSR to a ‘tame problem’ that can be solved through technical solutions that offer win-win solutions and do not challenge the economic theory of the firm.

We show the value of using the perspective of ‘wicked problems’ to understand the complexity of the CSR challenge facing the MNE.

We suggest that the current approach of measuring CSR progress has limitations and potentially negative side effects.

Our chapter offers a novel conceptualisation of CSR, as well as empirical evidence of CSR as a process of corporate sensemaking in the face of ‘wicked problems’.

Felicitous writing is enormously important. However, the art of writing well is rarely addressed by marketing scholars. This paper seeks to argue that the marketing academy has much to learn from historiography, a sub‐discipline devoted to the explication of historical writing.

Although it is primarily predicated on published works, this paper is not a conventional literature review. It relies, rather, on the classic historical method of “compare and contrast”. It considers parallels between the paired disciplines yet notes where marketing and history diverge in relation to literary styles and scientific aspirations.

It is concluded that marketing writing could benefit from greater emphasis on “character” and “storytelling”. These might help humanise a mode of academic communication that is becoming increasingly abstruse and ever‐more unappealing to its readership.

If its argument is accepted by the academic community – and, more importantly, acted upon – this paper should transform the writing of marketing. Although the academic reward systems and power structures of marketing make revolutionary change unlikely, a “scholarly spring” is not inconceivable.

The paper's originality rests in the observation that originality is unnecessary. All of the literary‐cum‐stylistic issues raised in this paper have already been tackled by professional historians. Whether marketers are willing to learn from their historical brethren remains to be seen.

Simon Cowell, the impresario behind The X Factor, a popular television talent show, has often been compared to P.T. Barnum, the legendary nineteenth century showman. This paper aims to examine the alleged parallels in detail and attempts to assess this “Barnum reborn” argument.

Putative parallels between the impresarios are considered under the aegis of two long‐standing, if contentious, historical “theories”: time's cycle and the great man thesis.

Seven broad similarities between the showmen are identified: vulgarity, hyperbole, rivalry, publicity, duplicity, liminality and history. In each case, the arguments pro and con are explored, as is humanity's propensity to personify.

In accordance with the iconic literary critic Harold Bloom, who “strikes texts together to seek if they spark”, this paper strikes two celebrated showmen together to generate historical sparks.