CONTEXTUAL AUTHENTICITY AND MULTIMODAL MEANING CONSTRUCTION IN WORKPLACE CARBON-NEUTRAL CAMPAIGNS: A PSYCHOLINGUISTIC STUDY OF GENERATION Z EMPLOYEES

Abstract

Corporate sustainability campaigns increasingly employ multimodal communication to promote Carbon Neutral (CN) initiatives, yet limited research has examined how Generation Z employees construct meaning from these messages in workplace settings. This study investigates Generation Z employees' perceptions of a Carbon Neutral campaign video from a psycholinguistic perspective. A qualitative descriptive approach was employed in a Japanese multinational manufacturing company in Indonesia. Data were collected through multimodal discourse analysis, pre- and post-campaign surveys involving 89 employees, and semi-structured interviews with Generation Z employees. The findings indicate that authentic workplace representations, including real employees and production settings, generate stronger cognitive engagement than animated or AI-generated content. Educational background also influences meaning construction, with university graduates demonstrating conceptual reasoning, while high school graduates tend to adopt procedural reasoning. Although the campaign significantly improved participants' understanding of Carbon Neutral concepts, it produced only limited behavioral change, functioning primarily as an awareness reinforcement mechanism. This study highlights contextual authenticity as a key psycholinguistic factor in multimodal meaning construction and suggests that workplace sustainability campaigns should integrate authentic contexts with participatory communication strategies to enhance Generation Z engagement.