MORSe seminar: Media Heterogeneity in Response to a Scandal in an Organizational Field
Istituto di management e organizzazione
Data d'inizio: 14.04.2016
Data di fine: 15.04.2016
A seminar by Marco Clemente (Aalto University).
April, 14th
12:30pm-2pm, Room PC04, Lugano Campus
Abstract: In this paper, we address two problems ignored in the field of management and organizational studies. First, are media homogenous in reporting events? Second, how do media modify their reporting behaviors after a scandal? We relax the assumption that media act in concert to serve the needs of the field overall, such as help reducing uncertainty and establishing trust. Inspired by works from communication or political science, we propose a heterogeneous approach to media where each media outlet caters to its audience, thus showing bias. We investigate how a scandal in a field affects this media bias depending on its entanglement with the actors involved in the scandal. Our empirical context is the Calciopoli scandal that affected the Italian football league in 2006. We find that, after the scandal, non-entangled media outlets increased their attention and bias, while the entangled newspaper did not change the level of attention nor bias, as if the scandal never happened. We contribute to management and organizational studies by showing the role media outlets play in repairing their respective audiences' identity. This study calls for more research into the impact of media heterogeneity, and market-mediators heterogeneity in general, in organizational phenomena.
