This study focuses on the implicit framing of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) in the interplay between the news media, organizational public relations (PR), and the public. The aim of the study is to investigate the multidirectional causal relationships between these three domains in terms of the use of implicit frames. An automated content analysis of Dutch newspaper articles and organizational press releases is employed. In addition, Google Trends data is examined in order to determine implicit frames of CSR among the public. Monthly level Vector Autoregression (VAR) analyses show different effects across frames. Overall, in line with our expectations, results show positive effects of the news media on the public and of organizational PR on the news media. Moreover, contrary to expectations, we found a negative effect of the public on the news media and mixed results with regard to the effect of the public on organizational PR. Investigating the multidirectional relationships between the news media, organizational PR, and the public provides insights into how theyas a domainaffect and get affected by each other in their communications.
Older workers face problems in the labor market due to dominant beliefs about their abilities: they are perceived as reliable, trustworthy, and loyal, but also as less adaptable, less motivated, and less capable compared to younger workers. The mixed beliefs about older workers resonate with the stereotype of older people in society according to the Stereotype Content Model (SCM) of being warm but less competent and are reflected in news and corporate media. The present study contributes by approaching stereotypes about older workers’ employability from a communication perspective. The study examines which requirements are communicated by employers in job advertisements targeting older job seekers, compared to those in job advertisements targeting general job seekers. This is done by using automated content analysis to inductively identify prominently advertised requirements, and to examine how these align with the older workers’ stereotype. Additionally, interviews with recruitment experts are conducted to provide explanation and interpretation. Findings reveal that the persistent idea about older workers performing well on so-called soft abilities and poorer on so-called hard abilities is reflected in job advertisements targeting older job seekers, as these represent requirements related to hard abilities to a lesser extent, whereas abilities related to customer service are more often requested. The mixed beliefs about older workers are reflected in the expert perspective of recruiters too, although with some optimism that older workers’ soft abilities fit well with employers’ need for a social and responsible workforce. The study contributes to insights regarding the SCM and framing theory.
Social media are increasingly important in the news menu of media users. Differences in news production processes between traditional and social media may lead to differences in how political and social issues are depicted, and this may, eventually, have consequences for the information that reaches citizens about an issue. Against this background, this study compares content across the two media types to examine whether and how the framing of a sociopolitical issue differs between newspaper articles and posts on social media. The empirical analyses are based on a content analysis of newspaper articles (n = 414) and social media messages (n = 2,771) conducted in the context of the socially contested issue of raising the retirement age in the Netherlands. Findings suggest that different content production processes can still lead to similar outcomes as both media types emphasize problems with (instead of solutions to) the retirement age issue. Our findings also confirm differences across traditional and social media, although these differences are substantially relatively small. While traditional news media emphasize conflict-related frames more often than social media, social media present more frame diversity in solutions.
As aging populations put pressure on pension systems worldwide, pension reforms have dominated the (political) agenda in many countries for years. The media are essential information providers on such hotly debated issues. By selecting and highlighting certain aspects of an issue and glossing over others, also known as framing, news media can propagate a particular interpretation of the issue to the public. This study therefore approaches pension reform from the perspective of the media by examining how news frames of pension reform (i.e., responsibility frame and justice frame) influence how citizens perceive and respond to pension reform. Findings of an online survey-embedded experiment (N = 762) show that citizens who encountered a news frame that emphasized individual or collective responsibility for pensions showed a stronger preference for this type of responsibility; however, this effect was only positive if news media also framed individual or collective responsibility for pensions as just. In fact, exposure to an unjust frame leads to more negative attitudes toward the specific form of responsibility. Regarding individual differences, lower-educated people are more strongly impacted by the responsibility frame than higher-educated people. The strength of framing effects did not differ among citizens of different ages or levels of solidarity, nor between citizens who received the frames via their primary mode of news use and the ones exposed to a less preferred mode of news use. This study shows the importance of news framing in shaping citizens’ attitudes toward pension reforms, suggesting that media coverage matters in the public debate on pensions.
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