Abstract
This chapter focuses on the role of the news media in the creation, maintenance, or disruption of business legitimacy. The chapter first introduces the concept of legitimacy in organization theory and describes the evolution of new institutionalist approaches to legitimacy. The chapter then turns to the role of the news media, which are often seen as a conduit for public opinion with respect to business. Recent scholarship has come to question this passive view and has begun to examine how news media per se exert an influence on business and public opinion. Drawing on research on agenda setting and mediatization, the chapter argues that the news media should be viewed as an independent political institution, embodying particular values and beliefs and playing an active role in the preservation or challenging of organizational legitimacy.
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Kjær, P., Blach-Ørsten, M. (2019). Journalism and Business Legitimacy. In: Rendtorff, J. (eds) Handbook of Business Legitimacy. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-68845-9_4-1
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