High Media Coverage Research Articles

Media Coverage and Sustainable Stock Returns: Evidence from China

This paper explores the relationship between media coverage and stock returns using monthly data of news reports from major Chinese newspapers. We find that firms with higher media coverage in the current month have higher sustainable stock returns in the following months over a one-year period compared with those with lower media coverage, which means that media coverage has a more significant and positive influence on sustainable stock returns in the markets, dominated by individual/immature investors. These results are largely robust to various robustness checks. Further empirical results demonstrate that in the Chinese stock market, a higher level of media coverage might cause higher sustained investor attention, which may drive up the buying pressure and thus lead to higher sustainable stock returns in the following year. Our results show that the effect of media coverage on stock returns depends on the characteristics of investors.

Does trade credit alleviate stock price synchronicity? Evidence from China

This paper investigates the effect of trade credit on stock price synchronicity for Chinese listed firms over 2007–2015. The results provide evidences that firms with more trade credit show lower stock price synchronicity, verifying the information content of trade credit in China. Further, media coverage and customer concentration have moderating effect on the relationship between trade credit and synchronicity. Higher media coverage may weaken the impact of trade credit on stock price synchronicity, but higher customer concentration which is the evidence of long-term supplier-customer relationship will facilitate the disclosure of trade credit's firm-specific information and strengthen the negative relationship between trade credit and stock price synchronicity. Our conclusions are robust to consider the endogeneity between trade credit and stock price synchronicity.

Geographic bias in the media reporting of aquatic versus terrestrial human predator conflicts and its conservation implications

Interactions or conflicts between humans and large predators occur globally, but an understanding of their spatial occurrence and associated media reporting remains limited. Media reach is now global and rapid, particularly through western news outlets and amplified by social networks. This has consequences for how the public perceive human-predator conflicts and in turn how this impacts species' conservation and management. To address this point, a literature search was undertaken to synthesize global records of predator-human conflicts followed be an assessment of media reporting of conflicts, for both aquatic (sharks) and terrestrial (lion, tiger, leopard, cougar, puma, bear spp.) species. We show that predator-human conflicts involving terrestrial mammals occur predominantly in developing" nations (>90%) while aquatic predator-human conflicts occur (65%) and are principally reported from developed nations. Moreover, media reporting of sharks is dominated by attacks on humans and sensationalized documentation of incidences compared to those involving terrestrial species. As a result, high media coverage of shark-human conflicts may lead humans to overestimate the risk of being attacked. We recommend increased communication between stakeholders to establish ground rules for media reporting of shark-human conflicts, better informed reporting of attacks, further research undertaken to understand the public's perception of media reporting of conflicts and continued investment in communication, education, and public awareness programs. Through these actions it will be possible to rebalance the public perception of sharks to promote understanding and value of their ecological role and to minimize human-shark incidents.

The Chinese Media Effect in Bull and Bear Markets

Current studies on the media effect fail to reach a consistent conclusion in a global setting. Lacking independence and highly controlled, the media functions differently in China and exerts unexpected influences on capital markets. Focusing on listed companies in China, the author analyzes the media effect on stock returns and further considers market states. Using a comprehensive database on firm-related news stories, stocks with high media coverage are found to possess higher stock returns, Jensen's alphas, and Daniel et al. [1997] adjusted returns over the 2007–2014 sample period. Moreover, the media effect is stronger in bull markets than in bear markets. The result is robust to model settings, alternative definitions of market states, estimation methods, portfolio formation, and sample selection. The study contributes to the literature by advancing the understanding of the Chinese media effect in bull and bear markets.

World Cancer Day As a Platform for Advocacy, Stakeholder Mobilization and Awareness Creation: The Experience of Uganda Cancer Society

Background: World Cancer Day (WCD) provides a platform to raise awareness. This year Uganda's commemoration was held at the Parliamentary grounds. Aim: To bring together Uganda's stakeholders through an inclusion approach to advocate for, share information and raise awareness on cancer while recognizing efforts made and appreciating challenges faced in the fight against the epidemic. Strategy: Partnership building was key. Partners involved were; Uganda Cancer Society (UCS), Uganda Cancer Institute (UCI), Ministry of Health, World Health Organization, media, Uganda Corporate League, interreligious council, Kampala Capital City Authority, Parliament of Uganda, Uganda Police and UCS member organizations. Program process: A committee was set up and a concept developed adopting the tri-process approach; “Before - During - After” for implementation of activities. Outcomes: The digital campaign was launched using the signs for change and the #WeCanICanUg. There was high media coverage; 3 major national stations Urban TV, NBS TV and NTV UG, one regional station-CGTN Africa, as well as online platforms such as; WHO Africa Web site, UICC World Cancer Day impact report, the Grape Vine, Chimp reports, and more than 5 YouTube media uploads as per our monitoring and surveillance efforts on reach and impact. The lighting of the Queen's way clock tower attracted many passersby and media coverage. In addition there was awareness creation in select churches (6) and mosques (2) on 4th and 2nd February respectively. The WCD ceremony was attended by over 400 guests and officiated by the Speaker of Parliament who doubled as chief walker. The 7.3 km match past attracted involvement of the community along the way. The Speaker called upon the government through Ministry of Health to inject more money into training of more cancer specialists to work on cancer patients. She also stated the need to have cancer services moved closer than just the regional centers but to every district referral hospital for cancer screening and cancer treatment. She pledged Parliament's unconditional support to work with civil society in the cancer fight. The Minister of Health committed to the full operationalization of regional cancer centers by 2019. She applauded the role of civil society through Uganda Cancer Society on the advocacy efforts stating that they had already started yielding good results . The event ended with the corporate league football competitions which were aimed at promoting healthy lifestyles through physical exercise. Notably was the match between the Parliamentary team and the UCI team. The winner was given a trophy marked WCD 2018. What was learned: The role of civil society through umbrella bodies like UCS plays a crucial role in cancer control as seen during through planning, mobilization, partnership building and execution of WCD activities. Creativity and innovation is key in generating stakeholder and public interest in cancer control activities like WCD.

Ana-Vation #FutureInTheirHands: The Power of Innovation, Robotics, and STEAM Education to Raise Awareness of Childhood Cancer in The Emirates

Amount raised: $50,000 (180,000 AED). Background and context: Ana, an Arabic word which means 'I' in English, is a childhood cancer initiative under Friends of Cancer Patients. Ana seeks to raise awareness about the 7 common warning signs of childhood cancer and highlight the importance of early detection, in the United Arab Emirates. In 2018, the Ana initiative launched a 3-year undertaking aimed at using S.T.E.A.M. education to roll out an annual school championship titled “Ana-vation”, a play on words between “Ana” and “innovation”. Ana-vation strategically launched in February during national innovation month, at the Sharjah Center for Astronomy and Space Sciences Planetarium. During the launch, media was invited to observe and 15 participating schools from around the country were briefed on the 4-month championship, electronic components, timeline and expected deliverables. The Ana initiative partnered with a start-up of young engineers to form the Ana-vation team. Students were preselected by their science teachers, to represent their school. Aim: Ana-vation aims to inspire young students to become future researchers, doctors, scientist and engineers, through using innovation and S.T.E.A.M education. The program also offers a bridge to aware parents and teachers, by sending home pamphlets. Strategy/Tactics: Ana-vation is a 4-month campaign (February to May) that rolls out with 15 schools across the Emirates. The program involves the science teacher at each school, who selects 10 students to participate in teams of two (5 teams per school, totaling 75 teams). They have to use the electronic components in the Ana-vation robotic kits and recyclable materials found around their homes, to create a robot to answer in the challenge: “Create an innovative solution to raise awareness about childhood cancer signs and symptoms”. Throughout the 4 months, Ana-vation will conduct workshops at each of the 15 schools to mentor and engage with the students and teach them to code, using basic programing language. Program process: Championship launch - February Training and evaluation roadshows - March Debugging workshops - April Championship and awarding ceremony - May Costs and returns: To cover the cost of the kits + launch event + 15 road show school visits + workshop + award ceremony = $50,000 (180,000 AED) total or $3300 (12,000 AED) per school. FOCP approached corporates to adopt and sponsor a school at $3300. What was learned: Ana-vation was well received by participating schools and sponsoring corporates. It received high media coverage on TV interviews and print media. Offered corporates CSR opportunities, publically associate with a good cause and offered employees volunteer opportunities, plus chance to mentor and engage with young students. FOCP partnered with Manipal University film students and faculty to produce a short documentary on Ana-vation, to be submitted to the Sharjah Children Film Festival in September, to further highlight awareness.

Bad News Bearers: The Negative Tilt of Financial Press

We show the financial press is more likely to cover firms with deteriorating performance. Our main tests illustrate the nature of the media's story selection process (i.e., what events to cover) and the usefulness of this selection process for forecasting firms' future earnings news and returns. We first show the media is approximately 11-to-19 percent more likely to cover a firm's earnings announcements if they convey poor performance. Similarly, in forecasting tests, greater media coverage predicts subsequently announced declines in firms' profitability and negative analyst-based earnings surprises. A simple long-short strategy betting against firms with high media coverage yields an average return of roughly 40 basis points per month, suggesting media coverage helps forecast future returns because the story selection process is titled toward novel negative events. Together, our findings highlight the usefulness of the media's coverage decisions in estimating expected returns, as well as a potential inference problem when researchers use media coverage to measure the extent of information dissemination and/or whether an information event occurred.

The soybean experiment \u20181000 Gardens\u2019: a case study of citizen science for research, education, and beyond

Key messageCitizen science, an approach that includes normal citizens in scientific research, holds great potential also for plant sciences and breeding and can be a powerful research tool to complement traditional approaches.Citizen science is an approach that includes normal citizens in scientific research, but has so far not been exploited by the various disciplines in plant sciences. Moreover, global threats challenge human well-being and science can provide solutions, but needs to leave the ivory tower in the mind of the broader public. In 2016, we performed the ‘1000 Gardens—the soybean experiment’ citizen science project, that aimed at finding citizens in Germany who would grow soybean lines in their own gardens and evaluate them for a range of traits related to adaptation and agronomic performance. Here, we describe details of this project, i.e. the recruitment, performance, and compliance of the citizen scientists. A total of 2492 citizen scientists volunteered for the project, but through the high media coverage a much broader audience than just the participants was reached. Our 1000 Gardens project was successful in collecting a scientifically unique data set with heritabilities ranging up to 0.60 for maturity date or 0.69 for plant height. Our results suggest that the citizen science approach holds great potential also for plant sciences and can be a powerful research tool to complement traditional approaches. Our project was also successful in raising public awareness about the importance of plant breeding and in communicating key messages on the manifold benefits of legumes for a sustainable agriculture to a broader public. Thus, citizen science appears as a promising avenue to demonstrate the value of breeding and science to the general public by including normal citizens in scientific research.

Using Pre-Listing Information to Mitigate Initial Public Offerings’ Long Run Underperformance: Evidence from Sri Lanka

The main channel of information dissemination for initial public offerings (IPO) in the pre-listing stage is the prospectus. Auditor fee and director emoluments are two types of information that investors know about in advance through the prospectus. Industry and media publicity are also in the focus of investors in the pre IPO stage. This study inquires whether such information can be used to form successful trading strategies in the long run. IPO stock portfolios have been constructed based on the above four types of information and their returns have been tested using four popular asset pricing models to answer the above question. The findings confirm that long only strategies are successful with regard to all four types of information while long and short strategies are proved to be a failure. The findings also reveal that portfolios consisting of non-finance stocks, stocks with high media coverage, high audit fees and high director fees tend to provide the highest returns compared to other IPO stock portfolios. Hence, this study provides useful insights to investors, regulators and other professionals in the Sri Lankan capital market.

Media Coverage and IPO Pricing Around the World

We study how media coverage impacts pricing of IPOs around the world. Higher media coverage in the pre-IPO period leads to lower IPO initial returns. The effect is mitigated in countries with better financial reporting quality, greater shareholder rights protection, and more stringent media censorship, and for IPOs “certified” by reputable intermediaries, while it is amplified in countries with higher levels of media penetration and media trust. Further, IPOs with higher pre-IPO media coverage have lower ex-post price revision volatility. Our findings suggest that higher pre-IPO media coverage reduces information asymmetry among investors, leading to less underpriced IPOs.

Les néonaticides dans la presse française : 357 décès suspects de 1993 à 2012

Les néonaticides sont devenus rares rendant malaisée la collecte de données judiciaires. Une base de presse a été constituée sur vingt ans afin de tirer parti de la médiatisation de ces affaires, regroupant 357 décès suspects de nouveau-nés sur la période 1993-2012. Cinq résultats ont émergé de cette analyse. Les circonstances de la découverte de l’infraction sont essentielles tout au long de la procédure. Ces affaires sont fortement médiatisées et on assiste sur la période à une « fin » de l’anonymat et de la présomption d’innocence. Une constante historique toujours d’actualité est la non-mise en cause des pères. L’explication par le déni de grossesse s’amplifie autour de l’affaire Courjeault, pour ensuite s’estomper. Les explications de la mère et sa personnalité ont une influence déterminante sur la peine prononcée.

Evaluating Google, Twitter, and Wikipedia as Tools for Influenza Surveillance Using Bayesian Change Point Analysis: A Comparative Analysis.

BackgroundTraditional influenza surveillance relies on influenza-like illness (ILI) syndrome that is reported by health care providers. It primarily captures individuals who seek medical care and misses those who do not. Recently, Web-based data sources have been studied for application to public health surveillance, as there is a growing number of people who search, post, and tweet about their illnesses before seeking medical care. Existing research has shown some promise of using data from Google, Twitter, and Wikipedia to complement traditional surveillance for ILI. However, past studies have evaluated these Web-based sources individually or dually without comparing all 3 of them, and it would be beneficial to know which of the Web-based sources performs best in order to be considered to complement traditional methods.ObjectiveThe objective of this study is to comparatively analyze Google, Twitter, and Wikipedia by examining which best corresponds with Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) ILI data. It was hypothesized that Wikipedia will best correspond with CDC ILI data as previous research found it to be least influenced by high media coverage in comparison with Google and Twitter.MethodsPublicly available, deidentified data were collected from the CDC, Google Flu Trends, HealthTweets, and Wikipedia for the 2012-2015 influenza seasons. Bayesian change point analysis was used to detect seasonal changes, or change points, in each of the data sources. Change points in Google, Twitter, and Wikipedia that occurred during the exact week, 1 preceding week, or 1 week after the CDC’s change points were compared with the CDC data as the gold standard. All analyses were conducted using the R package “bcp” version 4.0.0 in RStudio version 0.99.484 (RStudio Inc). In addition, sensitivity and positive predictive values (PPV) were calculated for Google, Twitter, and Wikipedia.ResultsDuring the 2012-2015 influenza seasons, a high sensitivity of 92% was found for Google, whereas the PPV for Google was 85%. A low sensitivity of 50% was calculated for Twitter; a low PPV of 43% was found for Twitter also. Wikipedia had the lowest sensitivity of 33% and lowest PPV of 40%.ConclusionsOf the 3 Web-based sources, Google had the best combination of sensitivity and PPV in detecting Bayesian change points in influenza-related data streams. Findings demonstrated that change points in Google, Twitter, and Wikipedia data occasionally aligned well with change points captured in CDC ILI data, yet these sources did not detect all changes in CDC data and should be further studied and developed.

Publicity, economics and weather – Changes in visitor numbers to a European National Park over 8 years

Regular visitor counts within National Parks are commonly used as an indicator for their “economic success”. The Swiss National Park celebrated its centenary in 2014 with correspondingly high media coverage. It was therefore of interest to what extent this increased publicity translated into an increase in visitor numbers and thus into economic benefits for local communities. Based on visitor counts over five automatic slab sensors buried under footpaths over eight consecutive seasons (2008–2015), we examined visitation patterns with respect to economic (exchange rate between Euro and Swiss Franc) and social/institutional factors, weather and media coverage. Month was the most important predictor of visitor numbers, followed by exchange rate, temperature, precipitation, holidays and media coverage. Peak visitor numbers occurred during the red deer rut in September. Visitation increased with increasing value of the Euro against the Swiss Franc, increasing temperature and media coverage, and decreasing precipitation. Positive responses to increasing temperatures were most pronounced in the colder month of October, and negative responses to precipitation were weakest when temperatures were high. The exchange rate between Euro and Swiss Franc had its greatest effect during mid-season and also modified sensitivity of visitors to weather. During high media coverage of the park, visitors were less sensitive to precipitation. However, our results show that even high media coverage around a special event cannot compensate for external factors which cannot be influenced; particularly an unfavourable economic situation has far greater effects on visitation rates and thus the local economy around a protected area. Management implicationsWe show that variation in visitor numbers to the Swiss National Park is mostly determined by month, the economic situation in Europe (i.e. the exchange rate between the Euro and the Swiss Franc) and air temperature. Economic, social/institutional factors, weather and media coverage interact in determining visitor numbers. The results are likely applicable to most protected areas which at the same time represent expensive tourist destinations; although public relations by the park management in such areas cannot make up for a poor overall economic situation, targeted advertising efforts can at least modify hikers’ sensitivity to adverse weather conditions.

Statin use impacted by high media coverage?

Statin use impacted by high media coverage?

Impact of statin related media coverage on use of statins: interrupted time series analysis with UK primary care data

Objective To quantify how a period of intense media coverage of controversy over the risk:benefit balance of statins affected their use.Design Interrupted time series analysis of prospectively collected electronic data...

Social Media, News Media and the Stock Market

We contrast the impact of traditional news media and social media coverage on stock market volatility and trading volume. We develop a theoretical model of asset pricing and information processing, which allows for both rational traders and a variety of commonly studied behavioural biases. The model yields several novel and testable predictions about the impact of news and social media on asset prices. We then test the model’s theoretical predictions using a unique dataset which measures coverage of individual stocks in social and news media using a broad spectrum of print and online sources. Stocks with high social media coverage in one month experience high idiosyncratic volatility of returns and trading volume in the following month. Conversely, stocks with high news media coverage experience low volatility and low trading volume in the following month. These effects are statistically and economically significant and robust to controlling for stock and time fixed effects, as well as time-varying stock characteristics. The empirical evidence on news media is consistent with a market in which some traders are overconfident when interpreting new information. The evidence on social media is consistent with Tetlock’s (2011) “stale news” hypothesis (investors treat repeated information on social networks as though it were new) and with a model where investors’ perceptions are subject to random sentiment shocks.

A Firm-Specific Study of the Impact of Media Coverage on Capital Flow

This study aims to investigate whether and how firm-specific media coverage can impact the capital flow decisions of investors in China’s stock market. The media dataset includes articles about 42 listed financial companies that were published in three major securities newspapers from 2004 through 2013. A multidimensional perspective analysis is chosen to capture both the amount and content sentiment of media coverage. Specifically, the quantity model is built to investigate the impact of article amount on capital flow, while the quality model aims to capture the difference in media impact between positive news and negative news. In order to control the unobserved heterogeneity of firms, fixed effects model is employed. Our empirical analysis demonstrates that media coverage can significantly influence the capital flow decisions of investors; this holds for both the quantity aspect and the quality aspect. The quantity model shows that after controlling for risk factors such as size and book-to-market ratio, more capital flow will be allocated to the high-return stocks with high media coverage. The quality model finds that stocks with positive media coverage will be allocated more capital flow than those with negative media coverage, given an identical stock return. Furthermore, a simple but effective identification strategy is constructed to explore the mechanism behind this media coverage and capital flow relationship. Our results suggest that the information view does not offer sufficient explanation power; instead media coverage tends to be more about “attention-grabbing” than conveying information.DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5755/j01.ee.27.1.12237

Media Content and Stock Returns: The Predictive Power of Press

This paper examines whether tone (positive and negative) and volume of firm-specific news media content provide valuable information about future stock returns, using UK news media data from 1981–2010. The results indicate that both tone and volume of news media content significantly predict next period abnormal returns, with the impact of volume more pronounced than tone. Additionally, the predictive power of tone is found to be stronger among lower visibility firms. Further, the paper finds evidence of an attention-grabbing effect for firm-specific news stories with high media coverage, mainly seen among larger firms. A simple news-based trading strategy produces statistically significant risk-adjusted returns of 14.2 to 19 basis points in the period 2003–2010. At the aggregate level, price pressure induced by semantics in news stories is corrected only in part by subsequent reversals. Overall, the findings suggest firm-specific news media content incorporates valuable information that predicts asset returns.

Does Limited Attention Constrain Investors’ Acquisition of Firm‐specific Information?

AbstractAccording to the framework outlined in Peng and Xiong (), attention‐constrained investors tend to process more market‐ and sector‐level information. We empirically test this theory. We find that firms with higher media coverage have lower contemporaneous stock return synchronicity. Such an effect is robust to analyses within size deciles, inclusion of firm fixed effects, estimation using a matched sample, and a two‐stage least squares approach. The effect becomes less pronounced during the financial crisis period when both the quantity and quality of firm‐specific information decrease. Further, the attention from media coverage has a spillover effect on the firm's industry peers without media coverage. Finally, investors of firms with higher media coverage are more efficient in incorporating future firm performance into current stock prices. Collectively, our findings support the theory in Peng and Xiong () that investors increase their acquisition of firm‐specific information when a firm captures their attention.

Does a Nearby Murder Affect Housing Prices and Rents? The Case of Sydney

We measure the impact of murders on prices and rents of homes in Sydney. We find that housing prices fall by 3.9 per cent for homes within 0.2 miles of the murder in the year following the murder, and weaker results in the second year after a murder. We do not find any effects of murders on rents. Higher media coverage and being located closer to the murder (within 0.1 mile) have no additional effect on prices. Taken together, our findings suggest that proximity to a murder affects nearby property prices, particularly in the first year after the incident.