Reciprocal influence? Investigating implicit frames in press releases and financial newspaper coverage during the German banking crisis

Abstract

This study investigates the interrelation of implicit frames in press releases by the two largest German banks (Deutsche Bank, Commerzbank) and the German financial media from 2007 until 2013. Findings suggest that an increase in the salience of certain frames in press releases by German banks resulted in a decrease of that same frame in the financial media the subsequent months. Furthermore, time series analyses indicate that the banks adopted frames that were present in the media the previous month. The results imply a resistance of German financial media towards the frames used by Deutsche Bank and Commerzbank.

Framing Sustainable Finance: A Critical Analysis of Op-eds in the Financial Times

“…Framing can generally be defined as “selecting and highlighting some facets of events or issues, and making connections among them so as to promote a particular interpretation, evaluation, and/or solution” (Entman, 1993, p. 54). Using Entman’s definition, corporate communication research has investigated in various ways how corporations make use of framing strategies in their communication to present themselves in a specific light that is assumed to be beneficial for their reputation or image among the public (Mitra, 2011; Strauß & Vliegenthart, 2017; Tengblad & Ohlsson, 2010; Wickman, 2014). Either such frames are directly communicated via corporate communication tools (e.g., advertisement, press releases, speeches) to the respective target audience, or the frames are indirectly being placed in various channels such as the news media, for example, via quotations, interviews, or op-eds.…”

Implicit frames of CSR: The interplay between the news media, organizational PR, and the public

“…As fruitful as the agenda approach has been, most notably to understand questions that are central in the study of public relations, scholars have convincingly argued for extending this approach to also consider more specific elements of communication, such as issue attributes and their connections (second-and third-order agenda setting, see e.g., Carroll, 2016, and framing e.g., Strauss & Vliegenthart, 2017). In this paper, we follow the framing approach, which has become one of the mainstream ways to study communication content and effects in a wide variety of situations (Scheufele & Tewksbury, 2007).…”

“…Different from explicit frames, implicit frames cannot be easily detected with the aid of a manual content analysis because they are not observable manifestations (Hellsten et al, 2010). This does not imply that implicit frames cannot be used deliberately by the communicator or that there are no strategic considerations underlying the use of implicit frames, but rather that they are subtler and have a context-dependent emphasis on certain aspects of a topic (see also Strauss & Vliegenthart, 2017). This study focuses on implicit frames rather than explicit ones, since most of the frames that are applied in the public sphere are not explicit (Hellsten et al, 2010).…”

“…Public relations materials are an important, and easy accessible resource for the news media (Carroll, 2011;Davis, 2000;Kiousis et al, 2006), and might seriously impact the actual content of media coverage, most notably due to journalists' limited time and resources (Lee, 2016). Previous studies have proven that this is true for the agenda building influence of PR on the media agenda (e.g., Kiousis et al, 2006;Lee & Riffe, 2017), as well as for which issues are covered (Strauss & Vliegenthart, 2017).…”

“…This is based upon the idea that issues come and go in cycles (Downs, 1972) and hypes (Vasterman, 2005). Therefore, in order for a press release to be adopted by the media, organizational PR should frame information in their press releases in such a way that it fits previously presented information in the media (see also Strauss & Vliegenthart, 2017). Following this reasoning, organizations should understand the news values that journalists rely on, to be able to get their message across (Carroll, 2011).…”