Abstract
Nickel downstreaming has become a public agenda that brings together industrial development narratives with environmental concerns, public health, governance, employment, occupational safety, and social impacts. This study analyzes the agenda-building process within the corporate communication strategy of PT Indonesia Weda Bay Industrial Park (IWIP) when responding to nickel downstreaming issues in the media. The study employs a descriptive qualitative approach and a case study method. Data were collected through in-depth interviews with four IWIP communication practitioners; content analysis of JATAM and Mongabay as the context for external issue agendas; 13 IWIP owned-media posts; 152 media placement publications; and corporate communication documents from January to July 2025. The findings show that IWIP's agenda-building process consists of six interconnected stages: monitoring external issue agendas, mapping issue substance and escalation, selecting the response agenda, coordinating cross-functionally and validating data, constructing corporate issue attributes and messages, and distributing them through owned media and media placement. The company does not respond directly to every issue but selects issues based on relevance, impact, organizational authority, data readiness, and communication risk. Owned media sustains the corporate agenda through representations of activities and programs, while media placement broadens reach and situates issues within the contexts of downstreaming, occupational safety, employment, sustainability, and development. The findings indicate that corporate responses to media issues are not merely message-delivery activities, but a selective, data-based, non-confrontational, and long-term corporate agenda-building process.