Benjamin, Scott and Reger, Rhonda K. and Pfarrer, Michael D. (2012) Media Coverage of US Wind Power Plants: Does it Generate Electricity? Proceedings of the New Frontiers in Management and Organizational Cognition Conference. ISSN 978-1-909561-01-4

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Abstract

This paper focuses on how media coverage influences innovation adoption. Specifically, we examine the effects of news media: (1) attention, (2) tenor (or affective content), (3) diversity of issues and (4) specific content areas on the likelihood and speed of adoption of wind power plants in the US. The theory developed in this paper suggests that news media both affects and reflects the cognitive appraisals of various primary stakeholders as they seek to make sense of the value of a proposed innovation. We add to the nascent infomediaries research literature in four important ways: providing additional empirical evidence for decreasing returns to media attention, examining the effect of specific content areas, providing further empirical evidence of the importance of tenor alone and in interaction with content, and demonstrating the effect of media on a new dependent variable not previously studied in media effects on market outcomes research. This study adds to the innovation literature by highlighting an important non-market actor, the media, on the diffusion of innovations, and to the managerial and organizational cognition literature by suggesting that affective content (emotions) and specific aspects of content (cognition) on the part of third party infomediaries is associated with innovation diffusion.

Item Type:	Article
Keywords:	Media Coverage; US Wind Power Plants; Managerial and Organizational Cognition;
Academic Unit:	Faculty of Social Sciences > School of Business
Item ID:	4057
Depositing User:	Professor Robert Galavan
Date Deposited:	07 Jan 2013 16:42
Journal or Publication Title:	Proceedings of the New Frontiers in Management and Organizational Cognition Conference
Publisher:	National University of Ireland Maynooth
Refereed:	Yes
URI:	Publisher
Use Licence:	This item is available under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial Share Alike Licence (CC BY-NC-SA). Details of this licence are available here

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