The so-called war-on-woke is a daily tussle in some media, with most shots fired by publications very much on the political right.

This week, the latest battle seems to have reached a new stage. A flurry of media commentary pieces and spotlights on corporate change have appeared, mostly offering some balanced questioning on whether woke-as-we-know-it has had its day.

In other words, whether woke is broke(n).

The Times pulled out all the stops with a leader piece entitled 'Woke is waning: was it ever more than a fad?' and its author opined: “I do not by any means believe that the 'woke' movement is over. But it is remarkable how quickly passions fade. A sober 'statistical analysis' in the Economist finds that 'woke opinions and practices are on the decline'."

The piece concludes: “I suspect the fiery revolutionary phase is over.”

In some ways like ESG, woke’s underlying problem is that it’s an undefined movement and so wide open to pot-shots. A good intention that on paper seems difficult to take issue with, but that given its fast-reaching consequences and implications for many is laid bare to use as a political football.

Defining and framing woke is a job that has been left to its advocates and its detractors in equal measure. A recent YouGov survey concluded that Britons are split, perhaps predictably, on what woke really means. One in seven tied it to ‘awareness of political and social issues’, but one in 10 linked it with “people who are offended by everything”.

The Times questioned whether it is ultimately a fad, a term more often associated with the likes of hula hoops, fidget spinners and the ice bucket challenge. What woke stands for, in its broadest yet undefined sense, is surely far more than that given the underlying intentions, such as to tackle social injustices that date back over centuries.

Yet you wouldn’t know it, given some of the media pieces in recent days.

Yes there are the type of headlines that we’ve come to expect. ’The days of woke bullies and their hate campaigns are coming to an end’ in the Daily Telegraph. ‘Stop funding the woke and the stupid’ in Fox News. ‘NASA staff are apparently leading a woke backlash’ in the Daily Mail. And GB News getting on its high horse about the “woke” Jaguar rebrand.

But the nature and tone of media coverage goes well beyond the traditional right wing titles.

Vox covered President-elect Trump’s vow to off-ramp “woke generals”. The Independent carried Elon Musk’s view that the Gladiator 2 film is woke. City AM asked whether Gen Z is (yes, grammar flaw in headline) too woke to work.

The Independent even outlined why the humble sandwich is now the new woke war front line.

There was corporate action, or retrenchment, too. The Telegraph seized on Walmart’s decision not to carry a couple of products and branded it a “woke crackdown” then followed up in similar fashion on decisions by Amazon and Target. Although the same publication also outlined that UK companies are typically standing firm on DEI policies compared to some US counterparts, in a piece that aimed to frame woke squarely and narrowly as DEI.

‘‘Woke’ didn’t lose the US election: the patrician class who hijacked identity politics did," proclaimed a Guardian comment piece, which lamented that “out in the real world, what the people want was never respected or advocated for with any leadership, consistency and conviction. The fight never started.”

I’m not sure it was ever meant to be a “fight”, or there was ever any kind of battle plan. Woke as we read and hear about it has turned into a political stick that’s used to beat opponents who have planted themselves in either political camp. The rest of us probably shake our heads in wonder from time to time, but also wish things had played out differently, for societal good.

For companies, woke commitments seem to be entangled in a series of public battles, in a war that will have no winner. Their challenge is to work out what they and their stakeholders think is right and appropriate, and both listen to the noisy mood music while avoiding being swayed by it.