Drawing upon case study research investigating the Irish Health Service Executive’s (HSE) response to a fake news attack on their human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination campaign, we argue that responses to fake news should be analyzed from a legitimacy perspective. A model for emotional legitimacy management is proposed in which the HSE and a third-party collaborate to (a) connect with the emotional aspects of the issue; (b) leverage emotions to build vicarious legitimacy; (c) transfer the third-party’s legitimacy to the HSE; and (d) emotionally activate the public. This study contributes to fake news and legitimacy management by moving beyond fact-checking and debunking strategies. We suggest a framework centered on legitimacy in which emotions are used to counteract fake news. Finally, we emphasize the importance of third-party vicarious legitimacy building and the transfer of this legitimacy to the organization.
AllcottH.GentzkowM. (2017). Social media and fake news in the 2016 election. Journal of Economic Perspectives, 31(2), 211–236. https://doi.org/10.1257/jep.31.2.211
2.
AlvessonM.WillmottH. (2002). Identity regulation as organizational control: Producing the appropriate individual. Journal of Management Studies, 39(5), 619–644. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-6486.00305
3.
Barberà-TomàsD.CastellóI.de BakkerF. G. A.ZietsmaC. (2019). Energizing through visuals: How social entrepreneurs use emotion-symbolic work for social change. Academy of Management Journal, 62(6), 1789–1817.
4.
BenklerY.FarisR.RobertsH. (2018). Network propaganda: Manipulation, disinformation, and radicalization in American politics. Oxford University Press.
5.
BergerP. L.LuckmannT. (1966). The social construction of reality: A treatise in the sociology of knowledge. Sociological Analysis, 28(1), 55–56. https://doi.org/10.2307/3710424
6.
BerthonP. R.PittL. F. (2018). Brands, truthiness and post-fact: Managing brands in a post-rational world. Journal of Macromarketing, 38(2), 218–227. https://doi.org/10.1177/0276146718755869
7.
BitektineA. (2011). Toward a theory of social judgments of organizations: The case of legitimacy, reputation, and status. Academy of Management Review, 36(1), 151–179. https://doi.org/10.5465/amr.2009.0382
8.
BitektineA.HaackP. (2015). The “macro” and the “micro” of legitimacy: Toward a multilevel theory of the legitimacy process. Academy of Management Review, 40(1), 49–75. https://doi.org/10.5465/amr.2013.0318
9.
BrigidaM.PrattW. R. (2017). Fake news. The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, 42(November), 564–573.
10.
BundyJ.PfarrerM. D. (2015). A burden of responsibility: The role of social approval at the onset of a crisis. Academy of Management Review, 40(3), 345–369. https://doi.org/10.5465/amr.2013.0027
11.
BursteinP. (2021). The impact of public opinion on public policy. Princeton Readings in American Politics, 56(1), 325–345. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv1mjqv11.20
12.
CappellaJ. N.MaloneyE.OphirY.BrennanE. (2015). Interventions to correct misinformation about tobacco products. Tobacco Regulatory Science, 1(2), 186–197. https://doi.org/10.18001/trs.1.2.8
Carrasco-FarréC. (2022). The fingerprints of misinformation: How deceptive content differs from reliable sources in terms of cognitive effort and appeal to emotions. Humanities and Social Sciences Communications, 9(1), 1–18. https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-022-01174-9
15.
CastellóI.EtterM.Årup NielsenF. (2016). Strategies of legitimacy through social media: The networked strategy. Journal of Management Studies, 53(3), 402–432. https://doi.org/10.1111/joms.12145
CastellóI.Lopez-BerzosaD. (2023). Affects in online stakeholder engagement: A dissensus perspective. Business Ethics Quarterly, 33(1), 180–215. https://doi.org/10.1017/beq.2021.35
18.
CastellóI.LozanoJ. (2011). Searching for new forms of legitimacy through corporate responsibility rhetoric. Journal of Business Ethics, 100(1), 11–29.
19.
CohenJ.FungA.BernholzL.LandemoreH.ReichR. (2021). Democracy and the digital public sphere. In BernholzL.LandemoreH.ReichR. (Eds.), Digital technology and democratic theory (pp. 23–61). University of Chicago Press.
20.
CoombsW. T. (1995). The development of guidelines for the selection of the “appropriate” crisis-response strategies. Management Communication Quarterly, 8(4), 447–476.
CoombsW. T.HolladayS. J. (2002). Helping crisis managers protect reputational assets: Initial tests of the situational crisis communication theory. Management Communication Quarterly, 16(2), 165–186. https://doi.org/10.1177/089331802237233
CornelissenJ. P.MantereS.VaaraE. (2014). The contraction of meaning: The combined effect of communication, emotions, and materiality on sensemaking in the Stockwell shooting. Journal of Management Studies, 51(5), 699–736. https://doi.org/10.1111/joms.12073
25.
CrijnsH.ClaeysA. S.CaubergheV.HuddersL. (2017). Who says what during crises? A study about the interplay between gender similarity with the spokesperson and crisis response strategy. Journal of Business Research, 79, 143–151.
26.
DeephouseD. L.SuchmanM. (2008). Legitimacy in organizational institutionalism. In GreenwoodR.OliverC.SuddabyR.Sahlin-AnderssonK. (Eds.), The SAGE handbook of organizational institutionalism (pp. 49–77). Sage. https://doi.org/10.4135/9781849200387.n2
27.
DeitelhoffN. (2009). The discursive process of legalization: Charting islands of persuasion in the ICC case. International Organization, 63(1), 33–65. https://doi.org/10.1017/S002081830909002X
28.
de VaujanyF. X.VaastE. (2016). Matters of visuality in legitimation practices: Dual iconographies in a meeting room. Organization, 23(5), 763–790. https://doi.org/10.1177/1350508416640923
29.
DomenicoG.Di SitJ.IshizakaA.NunanD. (2021). Fake news, social media and marketing: A systematic review. Journal of Business Research, 124, 329–341. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2020.11.037
30.
EckerU.HoganJ. L.LewandowskyS. (2017). Reminders and repetition of misinformation: Helping or hindering its retraction?Journal of Applied Research in Memory and Cognition, 6, 185–192.
31.
EckerU.LewandowskyS.ChadwickM. (2020). Can corrections spread misinformation to new audiences? Testing for the elusive familiarity backfire effect. Cognitive Research: Principles and Implications, 5(1). https://doi.org/10.1186/s41235-020-00241-6
32.
EckerU.RoozenbeekJ.LindenS.Van Der TayL. Q.CookJ.OreskesN.LewandowskyS. (2024). Misinformation remains a threat to democracy. Nature, 630(June), 29–32.
33.
EtterM.RavasiD.ColleoniE. (2019). Social media and reputation formation. Academy of Management Review, 44(1), 1–63.
34.
EvansV.GreenM. (2006). Cognitive linguistics: An introduction. Edinburgh University Press.
GioiaD. A.CorleyK. G.HamiltonA. L. (2013). Seeking qualitative rigor in inductive research: Notes on the Gioia methodology. Organizational Research Methods, 16(1), 15–31. https://doi.org/10.1177/1094428112452151
38.
GrahamJ.HaidtJ.KolevaS.MotylM.IyerR.WojcikS. P.DittoP. H. (2013). Moral foundations theory: The pragmatic validity of moral pluralism. In OlsonJ. M. (Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology (1st ed., Vol. 47). Elsevier. https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-407236-7.00002-4
39.
GylfeP.FranckH.LebaronC.MantereS. (2016). Video methods in strategy research: Focusing on embodied cognition. Strategic Management Journal, 37, 133–148. https://doi.org/10.1002/smj
40.
HaackP.PfarrerM. D.SchererA. G. (2014). Legitimacy-as-feeling: How affect leads to vertical legitimacy spillovers in transnational governance. Journal of Management Studies, 51(4), 634–666. https://doi.org/10.1111/joms.12071
41.
HabermasJ. (2022). Reflections and hypotheses on a further structural transformation of the political public sphere. Theory, Culture & Society, 39(4), 145–171.
42.
HahlO.KimM.Zuckerman SivanE. W. (2018). The authentic appeal of the lying demagogue: Proclaiming the deeper truth about political illegitimacy. American Sociological Review, 83(1), 1–33. https://doi.org/10.1177/0003122417749632
43.
HarracáM.CastellóI.GawerA. (2023). How digital platforms organize immaturity: A sociosymbolic framework of platform power. Business Ethics Quarterly, 33(3), 440–472.
44.
HartP. S.NisbetE. C. (2012). Boomerang effects in science communication: How motivated reasoning and identity cues amplify opinion polarization about climate mitigation policies. Communication Research, 39(6), 701–723. https://doi.org/10.1177/0093650211416646
45.
JahngM. R. (2021). Is fake news the new social media crisis? Examining the public evaluation of crisis management for corporate organizations targeted in fake news. International Journal of Strategic Communication, 15(1), 18–36. https://doi.org/10.1080/1553118X.2020.1848842
46.
JarvisL. C.GoodrickE.HudsonB. A. (2020). Where the heart functions best: Reactive–affective conflict and the disruptive work of animal rights organizations. Academy of Management Journal, 62(5), 1358–1387. https://doi.org/10.5465/amj.2017.0342
47.
JasperJ. M. (1998). The emotions of protest: Affective and reactive emotions in and around social movements. Sociological Forum, 13, 397–424. https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1022175308081
48.
JasperJ. M. (2012). Choice points, emotional batteries, and other ways to find strategic agency at the microlevel. In ManeyG. M.Kutz-FlamenbaumR. V.RohlingerD. A.JeffG. (Eds.), Strategies for social change (pp. 23–42). University of Minnesota Press.
49.
JolleyD.DouglasK. M. (2017). Prevention is better than cure: Addressing anti-vaccine conspiracy theories. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 47(8), 459–469. https://doi.org/10.1111/jasp.12453
50.
JosephC.HaidtJ. (2006). The moral mind: How 5 sets of innate moral intuitions guide the development of many culture-specific virtues, and perhaps even modules. The Innate Mind, 3, 367–392.
51.
KendeouP.ButterfussR.KimJ.Van BoekelM. (2019). Knowledge revision through the lenses of the three-pronged approach. Memory & Cognition, 47, 33–46.
52.
KimA.DennisA. R. (2019). Says who? The effects of presentation format and source rating on fake news in social media. MIS Quarterly, 43(3), 1025–1039. https://doi.org/10.25300/MISQ/2019/15188
53.
KimA.MoravecP. L.DennisA. R. (2019). Combating fake news on social media with source ratings: The effects of user and expert reputation ratings. Journal of Management Information Systems, 35(3), 931–968. https://doi.org/10.1080/07421222.2019.1628921
54.
KimS. J.ChenK. (2024). The use of emotions in conspiracy and debunking videos to engage publics on YouTube. New Media and Society, 26(7), 3854–3875. https://doi.org/10.1177/14614448221105877
55.
KostovaT.ZaheerS. (1999). Organizational legitimacy under conditions of complexity: The case of the multinational enterprise. Academy of Management Review, 24(1), 64–81.
56.
KozinetsR. V. (2015). Management netnography: Axiological and methodological developments in online cultural business research. In CassellC.CunliffeA. LGrandyG. (Eds.), The SAGE handbook of qualitative business and management research methods (pp. 1–22). SAGE.
57.
LawrenceT. B.SchlindweinE.JalanR.HeaphyE. D. (2023). Organizational body work: Efforts to shape human bodies in organizations. Academy of Management Annals, 17(1), 37–73. https://doi.org/10.5465/annals.2021.0047
58.
LefsrudL.GravesH.PhillipsN. (2016). Analyzing visual rhetoric in organizational research. In ElsbachK.KramerR. (Eds.), Handbook of qualitative organizational research: Innovative pathways and methods (pp. 225–237). https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315849072
59.
LewandowskyS.EckerU.SeifertC. M.SchwarzN.CookJ. (2012). Misinformation and its correction: Continued influence and successful debiasing. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, Supplement, 13(3), 106–131. https://doi.org/10.1177/1529100612451018
60.
LewandowskyS.OberauerK.GignacG. E. (2013). NASA faked the moon landing-therefore, (climate)science is a hoax: An anatomy of the motivated rejection of science. Psychological Science, 24(5), 622–633. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797612457686
61.
LewandowskyS.van der LindenS. (2021). Countering misinformation and fake news through inoculation and prebunking. European Review of Social Psychology, 32(2), 348–384. https://doi.org/10.1080/10463283.2021.1876983
62.
LokJ.CreedW. E. D.DeJordyR.VoronovM. (2018). Living institutions: Bringing emotions into organizational institutionalism. In GreenwoodR.OliverC.SuddabyR.Sahlin-AnderssonK. (Eds.), The SAGE handbook of organizational institutionalism (pp. 591–620). Sage. https://doi.org/10.4135/9781446280669.n23
63.
LópezA. (2022). Gaslighting: Fake climate news and big carbon’s network of denial. In Fowler-WattK.McDougallJ. (Eds.), The Palgrave handbook of media misinformation (pp. 159–177). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-11976-7_11
64.
MartelC.PennycookG.RandD. G. (2020). Reliance on emotion promotes belief in fake news. Cognitive Research: Principles and Implications, 5(1), 47. https://doi.org/10.1186/s41235-020-00252-3
65.
MassaL.TucciC. L.AfuahA. (2017). A critical assessment of business model research. Academy of Management Annals, 11(1), 73–104. https://doi.org/10.5465/annals.2014.0072
66.
McCarthyL.GlozerS. (2022). Heart, mind and body: #NoMorePage3 and the replenishment of emotional energy. Organization Studies, 43(3), 369–394. https://doi.org/10.1177/0170840621994501
MishinaY.BlockE.MannorM. (2012). The path dependence of organizational reputation: How social judgment influences assessments of capability and character. Strategic Management Journal, 33(5), 459–577. https://doi.org/10.1002/smj
69.
MoravecP. L.MinasR. K.DennisA. R. (2019). Fake news on social media: People believe what they want to believe when it makes no sense at All. MIS Quarterly, 43(4), 1343–1360. https://doi.org/10.25300/MISQ/2019/15505
NessJ.Summers-EfflerE. (2018). Emotions in social movements. In SnowD. A.SouleS. A.KriesiH.McCammonH. J. (Eds.), The Wiley Blackwell companion to social movements (pp. 411–428). Wiley. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781119168577.ch23
72.
O’KeefeT. (2014). My body is my manifesto! SlutWalk, FEMEN and femmenist protest. Feminist Review, 107(1), 1–19.
PollockT. G.LashleyK.RindovaV. P.HanJ. H. (2019). Which of these things are not like the others? Comparing the rational, emotional, and moral aspects of reputation, status, celebrity, and stigma. Academy of Management Annals, 13(2), 444–478. https://doi.org/10.5465/annals.2017.0086
76.
PriesterJ. R.PettyR. E. (2003). The influence of spokesperson trustworthiness on message elaboration, attitude strength, and advertising effectiveness. Journal of Consumer Psychology, 13(4), 408–421.
77.
ReineckeJ.AnsariS. (2021). Microfoundations of framing: The interactional production of collective action frames in the occupy movement. Academy of Management Journal, 64(2). https://journals.aom.org/doi/abs/10.5465/amj.2018.1063
78.
ScottW. R. (2008). Institutions and organizations. Sage.
79.
SnowD. A.BenfordR. D. (1988). Ideology, frame resonance, and participant mobilization. International Social Movement Research, 1(1), 197–217.
80.
StraussA.CorbinJ. (1998). Basics of qualitative research: Techniques and procedures for developing grounded theory (2nd ed.). Sage. https://doi.org/10.1177/1350507600314007
SuddabyR.BitektineA.HaackJ. A. (2017). Legitimacy. Academy of Management Annals, 11(1), 451–478.
83.
SuddabyR.GanzinM.MinkusA. (2017). Craft, magic and the re-enchantment of the world. European Management Journal, 35(3), 285–296. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.emj.2017.03.009
TayL. Q.HurlstoneM. J.KurzT.EckerU. (2022). A comparison of prebunking and debunking interventions for implied versus explicit misinformation. British Journal of Psychology, 113(3), 591–607. https://doi.org/10.1111/bjop.12551
86.
TostL. P. (2011). Legitimacy judgments. Academy of Management Review, 36(4), 686–710.
87.
VisentinM.PizziG.PichierriM. (2019). Fake news, real problems for brands: The impact of content truthfulness and source credibility on consumers’ behavioral intentions toward the advertised brands. Journal of Interactive Marketing, 45, 99–112. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.intmar.2018.09.001
88.
VoronovM.VinceR. (2012). Integrating emotions into the analysis of institutional work. Academy of Management Review, 37(1), 58–81. https://doi.org/10.5465/armr.2010.0247
89.
WallaceE.BuilI.de ChernatonyL. (2012). Facebook “friendship” and brand advocacy. Journal of Brand Management, 20, 128–146.
90.
WalterN.TukachinskyR. (2020). A meta-analytic examination of the continued influence of misinformation in the face of correction: How powerful is it, why does it happen, and how to stop it?Communication Research, 47(2), 155–177. https://doi.org/10.1177/0093650219854600
91.
WoolthuisR. K.NooteboomB.de JongG.FaemsD. (2014). Roles of third parties in trust repair: Lessons from high-tech alliances for public trust. In HarrisJ. D.MoriartyB.WicksA. C. (Eds.), Public trust in business (pp. 290–325). Cambridge University Press.
92.
YinR. K. (2009). Case study research: Design and methods (4th ed.). Sage. In BickmanL.RogD. J. (Eds.), Essential guide to qualitative methods in organizational research (Vol. 5, Issue 5). Sage. https://doi.org/10.1097/FCH.0b013e31822dda9e
93.
ZanoniP.ThoelenA.YbemaS. (2017). Unveiling the subject behind diversity: Exploring the micro-politics of representation in ethnic minority creatives’ identity work. Organization, 24(3), 330–354. https://doi.org/10.1177/1350508417690396
