Abstract
To better understand the media as a stakeholder we study the media influences and the types of actions used by firms to manage this stakeholder. A hegemonic approach to the subject argues that the media is part of an economic, political, social, and cultural struggle. Accordingly, different stakeholders and classes compete for dominance and attempt to impose their visions, interests, and agendas on society as a whole. Firms, along with other groups, struggle for social dominance by disseminating images through the media. By means of stakeholder management and organizational response literature we show that given the dependency on the media’s accountability, answerability, and credibility, firms implement either strategic actions or fire-fighting actions. Evidence is brought from foreign firms in the traditional media business (print, radio, television) in the Netherlands, context characterized by freedom of the press, opinion, and information.
Highlights
In collecting and transferring information to the public, as means of mass communication, the media has become an influential actor within society and a pivotal stakeholder within the socially, culturally, politically enmeshed business context
To establish which type of action each firm uses, we compared its score on fire-fighting with its score on strategic actions; we considered the firms having a fire-fighting score higher than 0.5 to be implementing fire-fighting actions and coded them as 0; we considered the firms with a strategic score higher than 0.5 to be implementing strategic actions and coded them as 1
Few experts would dispute the overall influence of the media, relatively few studies on the stakeholder management perspective focus on the importance of the media as a stakeholder and its influence on the organizational behavior of firms (Deephouse, 2000; Baron and Diermeier, 2007)
Summary
In collecting and transferring information to the public, as means of mass communication, the media has become an influential actor within society and a pivotal stakeholder within the socially, culturally, politically enmeshed business context. The media strongly influences public opinion formation and knowledge creation and diffusion. It is influential in the business community (Kuhn, 2008). Considering this influential stakeholder and managing the media can be of paramount importance for firms’ social and financial performance. The media “can affect the achievement of an organization’s objectives” (Freeman, 1984: 46) and has the ability to influence the firm’s behavior, direction, process, and outcomes
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