How Do Media Companies Gain Legitimacy? An Experimental Study on the (Ir)Relevance of CSR Communication

Abstract

Due to structural changes in the media industry, the topic of CSR has gained more and more attention among media companies. Our research question was whether media companies can gain legitimacy through CSR disclosures. There is reason to assume that CSR disclosures both directly increase and indirectly decrease a media company's legitimacy. On one hand, CSR is regarded as a means of strengthening legitimacy; on the other hand, stakeholders might become skeptical and distrust disclosures about generous deeds. The experimental study detailed here considers both possibilities by using five CSR disclosures of a fictional media company as the stimuli, ranging from low-to high-communicated CSR engagement (single-factor between-groups design, 274 participants). According to the results of the Structural Equation Model (SEM), both assumptions are incorrect: CSR is not the crucial factor in determining whether or not stakeholders perceive a media company as legitimate, but rather its corporate credibility. Many media companies struggle for economic survival, leading to cost-cutting programs and market concentration. Although media companies strive to adapt new business models, they are accused by critics of increasingly neglecting their unique obligation to strengthen democratic processes through quality journalism (e.g., Kaye & Quinn, 2010; Levy & Nielson, 2010; Russ-Mohl, 2011). Hence, news media companies are in danger of losing legitimacy (Tolvanen, Olkkonen, & Luoma-aho, 2013). Strategic communication might prove useful as an antidote to this. In general, as Falkheimer (2014, p. 124) states, "the main driving force behind the increased interest in strategic communication is the organizational need of legitimacy to operate in the late modern society." The body of strategic communications knowledge includes how organizations can present themselves "in society as a social actor" (Hallahan, Holtzhausen, van Ruler, Verčič, & Sriramesh, 2007, p. 27). It is striking that the topic of "corporate social responsibility" (CSR) has gained more and more attention among media companies (Altmeppen, 2011; Bardoel & d'Haenens, 2004; Trommershausen, 2011). Many media companies have adopted the practices of CSR communication (Hou & Reber, 2011; Ingenhoff & Koelling, 2012). For example, although The Economist is notorious in campaigning against CSR, with the magazine publishing many critical articles about this issue (Guthey, Langer, & Morsing, 2006, pp. 42-45), The Economist Group makes extensive CSR claims on their corporate webpage: "As an international company, we conduct business in many different markets around the world. In the countries in which we operate, we abide by local laws and regulations. We make an active contribution to local charities by charitable giving" (The Economist Group, 2015). This raises the research question: Can media companies gain legitimacy through CSR disclosures?

How Do Individuals Judge Organizational Legitimacy? Effects of Attributed Motives and Credibility on Organizational Legitimacy

“…Several legitimacy measures assess industry legitimacy (Chung, Berger, & DeCoster, 2016; Elsbach, 1994; Finch et al, 2015). 2 To the best of our knowledge, only two studies have proposed an organizational legitimacy scale (Bachmann & Ingenhoff, 2017; Massey, 2001). However, Massey (2001) included items measuring credibility in his legitimacy scale.…”

“…However, Massey (2001) included items measuring credibility in his legitimacy scale. Thus, to measure organizational legitimacy as distinct from credibility, we adapted the legitimacy scale from Bachmann and Ingenhoff (2017) and added one item from Massey (2001), which we directly identified as a legitimacy question. In addition, one item was added, which was phrased as follows: “ZERTO Corporation complies with the norms and values of German society” (see Table B1 in Appendix B).…”

Fairness, legitimacy and the regulation of home-sharing platforms

“…To assess moral legitimacy on an organizational level (see online supplement A, Table A), we adopted a scale by Jahn et al (2020), who had based their scale on Bachmann and Ingenhoff (2017). We slightly adapted the scale to the UK context and extended it by adding two items ("HomeShareCo is beneficial to the UK" and the reverse coded item: "I want HomeShareCo to close down") and dropping one item.…”

A Badge of Honor?

“…When exhibiting social accountability, not to react "can be understood as an illegitimate evasion and a transgression of norms" (Ekström 2009, 681). Since news content is the basis for the social legitimacy attributions of the audience (Bachmann and Ingenhoff 2017), news outlets provide themselves a platform for legitimacy defense. They can implement verbal legitimation strategies into their news content.…”

“…His tweets attack the conduct and the product of news media. Since news content is the major source for news outlets' performance and legitimacy assessments by society (Bachmann and Ingenhoff 2017), such attacks could damage the addressed news outlets' legitimacy. At the same time, news content is an efficient vehicle for strategic management of the legitimacy of a news outlet and thus can be used to defend legitimacy.…”