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Does firm's silence drive media's attention away?

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  • Mansouri, Sasan

Abstract

In this study, using a comprehensive dataset on business media coverage and textual analysis of the discussions in firms' quarterly earnings conference calls, we show that firms whose management fail to satisfy the demand for information, ceteris paribus, receive less media coverage. Poor information environment hurts the information-creation capacity of the media, while such an environment does not show a similar association with the media's information-dissemination role. Furthermore, this association is more prominent for the professional business media, compared to their nonprofessional counterparts such as blogs and alternative articles. Our results add nuance to the literature on media coverage bias by showing that the coverage of the firms is mainly driven by the supply-side factors, i.e. the factors affecting the suppliers of the coverage, rather than being demand-driven.

Suggested Citation

  • Mansouri, Sasan, 2021. "Does firm's silence drive media's attention away?," VfS Annual Conference 2021 (Virtual Conference): Climate Economics 242433, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    • Handle: RePEc:zbw:vfsc21:242433
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    non-answers; conference calls; media coverage; non-professional business media;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D82 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Asymmetric and Private Information; Mechanism Design
    • G14 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Information and Market Efficiency; Event Studies; Insider Trading
    • G30 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - General

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