Agenda-setting effects of television news coverage on perceptions of corporate reputation

Abstract

[ACCESS RESTRICTED TO THE UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI AT REQUEST OF AUTHOR.] This thesis applies agenda setting as a general theory of mass communication in a TV business news setting and is an empirical investigation of the agenda setting effects of TV business news coverage on the public perceptions of corporate reputation. The study uses the Annual Reputation Quotient SM study, a public opinion poll on corporate reputations, for selecting 20 companies each year from 2002 to 2004. The study analyzes effects on corporate reputation produced by the appearance of those companies in three main evening newscasts: NBC Nightly News, CBS Evening News, ABC World News (previously known as World News Tonight) from 2002 to 2004 for the ten-month time period from January 1 to October 15 of each year. In the study, it is hypothesized that three media coverage related variables, the amount,the tone, and the dimensions of the media coverage, are associated with different magnitudes of changes in corporate reputation. Findings provide support of the first-level agenda setting and second-level affective attribute agenda setting effects of TV business news.