The Influence of Negative Newspaper Publicity on Corporate Image in the Netherlands

Abstract

Due to a new press policy, the Dutch equivalent of the District Attorney's office actively spreads information about its suspicions of illegal behavior. Newspa pers, which are still a dominant form of news in the Netherlands, publish these suspicions. This will probably harm the suspected person's or company's image. This study addresses three questions. First, how severe is the damage caused by negative publicity in a Dutch regional daily? Second, are Dutch newspaper readers sensitive to the tone of certainty with which the accusations are expressed? Third, how lasting are any of these effects? In a field experiment, 448 readers of regional dailies, differing widely in age and education level, read either an actually published newspaper article on a possible bribery scandal, a more objective rewrite of this article, or some neutral information on the com pany s activities. Results show that the corporate image was seriously damaged by negative publicity. The more categorical the accusations were, the more damage there was. More than two weeks after reading the article, damage to the image was still present.

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Amin, A. (1996). An exploratory study of interorganizational defamation: An organizational impression management perspective. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Mississippi.

Argenti, P.A. (1994). Corporate communication. Homewood, IL: Irwin.

Baesler, E.J. , & Burgoon, J.K. (1994, October). The temporal effects of story and statistical evidence on belief change. Communication Research, 21(5), 582-602.

Bakker, P. , & Scholten, O. (1997). Communicatiekaart van Nederland [Communication map of the Netherlands]. Houten/Diegem: Bohn Stafleu Van Loghum.

Benoit, W.L. , & Czerwinsi, A. (1997, September). A critical analysis of USAir's image repair discourse. Business Communication Quarterly, 60(3), 38-57.

Cohen, J. (1977). Statistical power analysis for the behavioral sciences (rev. ed.). New York: Academic Press.

Dennis E.E. , & Merrill, J.C. (1996). Media debates: Issues in mass communication. White Plains, NY: Longman.

Ericson, R.V. , Baranek, P.M. , & Chan, B.L. (1987). Visualizing deviance: A study of news organizations . Milton Keynes: Open University Press.

Fern, E.F. , & Monroe, K.B. (1996). Effect-size estimates: Issues and problems in interpretation. Journal of Consumer Research, 23, 89-105.

10.

Hartley, J. (1982). Understanding news. London : Methuen.

11.

O'Keefe, D.J. (1990). Persuasion: Theory and research. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.

12.

Paul, J. , & Strbiak, C.A. (1997, April). The ethics of strategic ambiguity. The Journal of Business Communication, 34(2), 149-159.

13.

Renkema, J. (1984). Text linguistics and media: An experimental inquiry into coloured news reporting. In W. van Peer & J. Renkema (Eds.), Pragmatics and stylistics (pp. 317-372). Leuven: Acco.

14.

Ross, D.L. , & Benson, J.A. (1995, October). Cultural change in ethical redemption: A corporate case study. The Journal of Business Communication , 32(4), 345-362.

15.

Rossiter, J.R. , & Percy, L. (1987). Advertising and promotion management. New York: McGraw-Hill.

16.

Tyier, L. (1992, April). Ecological disaster and rhetorical response: Exxon's communications in the wake of the Valdez spill. Journal of Business and Technical Communication, 6(2), 149-171.