TY - JOUR
T1 - Buffering Negative News
T2 - Individual-level Effects of Company Visibility, Tone, and Pre-existing Attitudes on Corporate Reputation
AU - Jonkman, Jeroen G.F.
AU - Boukes, Mark
AU - Vliegenthart, Rens
AU - Verhoeven, Piet
PY - 2020/3/3
Y1 - 2020/3/3
N2 - Building on the agenda-setting theory, this study investigates the effect of corporations’ visibility and tone in news coverage on reputation. More specifically, we examine the buffering role that prior reputation may have for the potential damaging impact of news coverage. Providing a stringent test of causality, data from an automated content analysis of Dutch online and print newspaper coverage (N = 5,235 articles) were linked to individual responses from a three-wave panel survey (N = 3,270 respondents) with repeated measurements of corporate reputation (12 organizations). The analyses show that mere exposure to corporations negatively affects reputation, whereas tone has a positive effect on reputation. It is furthermore shown that the effect of negative news is three times larger than the effect of positive news. Finally, in accordance with research on buffering effects of corporate reputation, we demonstrate that negative news is less influential for people holding more positive existing reputational attitudes.
AB - Building on the agenda-setting theory, this study investigates the effect of corporations’ visibility and tone in news coverage on reputation. More specifically, we examine the buffering role that prior reputation may have for the potential damaging impact of news coverage. Providing a stringent test of causality, data from an automated content analysis of Dutch online and print newspaper coverage (N = 5,235 articles) were linked to individual responses from a three-wave panel survey (N = 3,270 respondents) with repeated measurements of corporate reputation (12 organizations). The analyses show that mere exposure to corporations negatively affects reputation, whereas tone has a positive effect on reputation. It is furthermore shown that the effect of negative news is three times larger than the effect of positive news. Finally, in accordance with research on buffering effects of corporate reputation, we demonstrate that negative news is less influential for people holding more positive existing reputational attitudes.
U2 - 10.1080/15205436.2019.1694155
DO - 10.1080/15205436.2019.1694155
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85077072796
SN - 1520-5436
VL - 23
SP - 272
EP - 296
JO - Mass Communication and Society
JF - Mass Communication and Society
IS - 2
ER -