The Tower of Babel: Communication between dominant culture and subculture in the financial industry

Capstone Supervisor: Dr. Terry Flynn
Second Reader: Professor Josie Cassano Rizutti
Chair: Professor Dr. Alex Sevigny

Degree Granted: January, 2024

Melodie’s research aimed to create an understanding of how the proliferation of online participatory spaces in recent years has significantly altered the manner in which organizations interact with their publics. In the financial sector, communications professionals are contending with a unique public; a financial subculture, assembling in online spaces and composed of cryptocurrency traders and devotees, ‘finfluencers,’ Reddit forums and other members, who are now operating with their own norms, language, and agenda. This paper explores the characteristics of this subculture, it’s fluid nature and counter-culture origins, and seeks to position it amongst existing literature on subcultures and within communications frameworks.

The author conducted five interviews with communications and public relations professionals employed in the financial sector who were either aligned with the dominant culture, the subculture, or both, to explore the relationship between the two groups and what communications strategies are being employed to bridge the divide.

Findings show that while various communications campaigns and tactics are being employed with moderate success by the dominant culture organizations and their public relations professionals, there is insufficient consideration of the paradigm of the subculture with its agenda to subvert, disrupt, and overtake the financial systems of the dominant culture.