Not One and The Same: Published Opinion as a Poor Predictor of Public Opinion

According to agenda-setting theory, the media determine what we have to think about and how we have to think about it. While there is ample evidence that this holds true in social and political contexts, our analysis advises caution when drawing conclusions about the reputation of companies from media reports. We analyze news media coverage on corporate social responsibility (CSR) regarding ist impact on the reputation of companies listed on the former German DAX30 from 2005 to 2011. As in many other cases, not (CSR) facts are decisive, but how those facts are perceived by stakeholders. Although it is tempting to believe that the news media has an impact on how the public assesses corporations, in particular their reputation, our exploratory study reveals that news media coverage of CSR-related activities does not drive reputation perceptions in a notable manner. Clear patterns of reputation increase or decrease following positive or negative media reports cannot be identified. Hence, we advocate against using news media data as a substitute for reputation surveys due to poor predictive capabilities.