Market driven media brands: Supporting or faking high journalistic quality?

Abstract

According to New Institutional Economics, media brands are not only a means of differentiation and valuable resources, but also institutional arrangements that allow media companies to profit from the production of high quality journalism. From this perspective, media brands promise journalism of high quality, and media brand reputation provides an economic incentive to produce it. However, it remains unclear whether a gap between the promise of quality from media brands and the product would be recognized and whether the possible reactions of the audience would be threatening to media management. According to Neoinstitutionalism, a media brands' promise of quality might be a way to cope with both market and societal expectations in order to achieve legitimacy. From this perspective, it is highly probable that media brands are only giving the appearance of high quality journalism.