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Developing a New Measure of Media Reputation

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Abstract

This study developed a new composite measure of media reputation combining media favorability, media visibility, and recency. It showed that this new measure had superiority over the measure of media favorability in predicting corporate reputation, and local newspapers were a better news source to measure media reputation than elite newspapers. This study was based on the content analysis of 2817 news articles from two elite newspapers and many local newspapers in the United States.

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Notes

  1. To search the news articles in the local newspapers, the following search method was used: Click “News” button on the left side of the homepage of Lexis-Nexis academic, then, click “Newspapers and Wires” button, then, select both “US Newspapers and Wires” and “Small Town Papers (US),” then, enter the search terms and click “Search” button, and finally click “Newspaper” button. The results were the news articles about the sample corporations in the U.S. newspapers. The national newspaper—The USA Today—and the elite newspaper—The New York Times—were excluded from the results manually.

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Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank Reputation Institute for providing the RepTrak® Pulse index data, and Dr. Guido Berens and the anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments and suggestions to improve the quality of this article.

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  1. Department of Media Arts, University of North Texas, 1155 Union Circle #310589, Denton, TX, 76203-5017, USA

    Xiaoqun Zhang

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  1. Xiaoqun Zhang
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Correspondence to Xiaoqun Zhang.

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Zhang, X. Developing a New Measure of Media Reputation. Corp Reputation Rev 21, 71–83 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41299-018-0043-x

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