Faces of companies: Personalization of corporate coverage in crisis and non-crisis periods

Abstract

Journalists need to make complex economic issues comprehensible for their readers. One possibility to do so is using personalization and putting company representatives (e.g. CEO, spokesperson) instead of the company as an organization in the focus of their work. Especially in times of crisis, the use of personalization could increase because crises are often associated with great uncertainty and complexity. Therefore, this study examines personalization in corporate coverage during crisis and non-crisis periods. To this end, we analyzed the coverage of four different German print media before, during, and after six selected corporate crises using a quantitative content analysis. The study shows that journalists focus more on internal stakeholders of companies at times of crisis compared to non-crisis periods. In general, the internal stakeholders journalists focus on are the CEOs as well as members of the board and supervisory board. Interestingly, in times of crisis, the coverage about the CEO declines, whereas the members of the board and supervisory board receive more attention.

People want to see people? Personalization on Facebook as a tool for corporate communications

“…It is particularly interesting to observe that the topic of corporate crisis was very rarely presented. This contradicts the assumption in research that personalization is particularly strong in times of crisis (Denner et al. , 2021; Eisenegger, 2010).…”

“…For the content analysis, we relied mostly on existing studies (e.g. Brettschneider and Vollbracht, 2011; Denner et al. , 2021; Van Aelst et al.…”

“…For the content analysis, we relied mostly on existing studies (e.g. Brettschneider and Vollbracht, 2011;Denner et al, 2021;Van Aelst et al, 2012). The codebook contained formal and content-related categories.…”

“…In personalization research, it is assumed that especially crises lead to personalized communication. It is easier to blame a single person than a complex organization (Denner et al, 2019(Denner et al, , 2021. Moreover, a content analysis of media reporting on large German companies shows that news related to the CEO often included topics like corporate strategy as well as corporate acquisitions and mergers (Brettschneider and Vollbracht, 2011).…”

“…There are various studies looking at personalization in corporate coverage (e.g. Brettschneider and Vollbracht, 2011;Denner et al, 2021Denner et al, , 2018Park and Berger, 2004), but only few studies investigate how organizations use personalization in their external communication (e.g. Talanow, 2015;Thummes and Malik, 2015).…”