Media positioning: comparing organizations’ standing in the news

Abstract

Purpose-Visibility in the media is considered important for organizations, as it is alleged to affect their reputation, public legitimacy, and stakeholder relations. Strategies for media relations often discern corporations, public organizations, and non-governmental organizations (NGOs). The media attention for those organizations is, however, often studied in isolation. The purpose of this paper is to introduce the concept of media positioning to compare media coverage for corporations, public organizations, and NGOs. Design/methodology/approach-A quantitative content analysis of the media coverage of 61 Dutch organizations was conducted. The comparison focused on three aspects of media positioning: prominence, context, and evaluation. Findings-Public organizations and corporations were most similar, whereas corporations and NGOs differed most strongly in their media positioning. Corporations appeared most prominently in the media. While corporations and public organizations were more often related to organizational issues, NGOs were more often linked to substantial issues and received more positive coverage. Originality/value-Insight into the content, amount, and tone of organizational media coverage is crucial for the formulation of public relations strategies by corporate communication professionals. The analysis shows whether and how the prominence, context, and evaluation differs among corporations, public organizations, and NGOs. The findings shed light on institutional factors that affect the visibility of different types of organizations, thus enabling future scholars in the field of visibility analyses in corporate communication to refine theories on drivers and characteristics of media coverage regarding different types of organizations.

Employee Engagement Among Public Employees: Exploring the Role of the (Perceived) External Environment

“…Gamson et al (1992) argued that what is reported in media is a reflection of reality, which is then socially constructed and decoded idiosyncratically by readers and viewers. This influence serves an agenda-setting function and informs how the general public comes to view and evaluate social issues (McCombs & Shaw, 1972;Myers & Caniglia, 2004;Wonneberger & Jacobs, 2017).…”

“…The coding strategy involved identifying the key elements of each article. Each article was coded based on its source (NYT or Washington Post), where it appeared (front page or elsewhere, Editorial, Op-Ed) (Wonneberger & Jacobs, 2017), key themes (Personnel, Leadership, Policy Issue, Specific Legislation, and Regulation/Agency Program), and whether its coverage was generally positive, neutral, or negative. Specific criteria were developed to determine the general sentiment toward agencies, following guidelines established in prior management and mass communication research (Deephouse, 2000;Weber, 1990).…”

Family Offices and Institutional Change in Europe: A Comparative Analysis

“…These newspapers regularly report on family offices. To be included in the sample, an article should have at least one mentioning of the term "family office" in the body text (Hoffman, 1999;Wonneberger & Jacobs, 2017). The spatial differences of newspaper coverage reflect the varying importance of family offices across the chosen countries.…”

“…From an institutional perspective, the tone of media coverage is revealing concerning the social approval of an organization (Graf-Vlachy et al, 2019). We examined whether family offices were framed favorably or unfavorably based on incidents affecting their reputation (Panico, Raithel, & Michel, 2014;Wonneberger & Jacobs, 2017).…”

“…We assessed media prominence by asking whether or not "family office" was the primary topic in an article (Wonneberger & Jacobs, 2017). To identify critical incidents, we captured data on functional issues, i.e., corporate ability or internal problems, and external issues, i.e., pertinent topics in society or challenges in the external environment (Hoffman, 1999;Panico et al, 2014;Wonneberger & Jacobs, 2017).…”