The Saliency of Second Level Agenda-setting Theory Effects on the Corporate Reputation of Business Organizations in Nigeria

Abstract

This paper examines how business news reports on the activities of business organizations in Nigeria set agenda for the opinions, attitudes and perceptions of their stakeholders. Content analysis of business newspapers and semi-structured interviews were employed to test the validity of four theoretical propositions on the second level agenda-setting effects. The authors' findings confirm existing theories that the amount of news coverage received by a corporation connects positively to public awareness and perception of the corporation; that the amount of news coverage dedicated to specific attributes of some business organizations in Nigeria connects to the proportion of the stakeholders who define the corporation by these attributes; that the more media cover specific corporate attributes from a positive perspective, the more positively will the general public perceive these attributes; and that the more negative that the media coverage is for some specific corporate attributes, the more negative will the general public perceive those attributes.