Exposure of valenced fake news frames to country brand equity and the role of news credibility in this process

Novoselova Olga V. (), Simon Judit (), Kemény Ildikó (), Zhu Kai (), Csobán Katalin (), Balogh Andrej () and Dávid Lóránt Dénes ()
Additional contact information
Novoselova Olga V.: Corvinus University of Budapest, Budapest, Hungary
Simon Judit: Corvinus University of Budapest, Budapest, Hungary
Kemény Ildikó: Corvinus University of Budapest, Budapest, Hungary
Zhu Kai: Hubei University, Wuhan, China
Csobán Katalin: University of Debrecen, Debrecen, Hungary
Balogh Andrej: Hungarian University of Agriculture and Life Sciences, Godollo, Hungary
Dávid Lóránt Dénes: Hungarian University of Agriculture and Life Sciences, Godollo, Hungary John von Neumann University, Kecskemet, Hungary

Management & Marketing, 2023, vol. 18, issue 2, 145-171

Abstract: The stronger capacity of falsehood to diffuse in comparison with the truth pushes researchers to identify fake news effects on the formation of country brand equity due to the distant and intangible nature of this notion. To explore this exposure, valenced framing theory is applied as a suitable framework where credibility and cognitive image are checked to be mediators in this relationship. This study adopted a perceived and projected image approach for online survey design, and a quantitative method was applied. The results depict that fake news frames have an indirect effect on a country’s brand equity mediated by news credibility and cognitive image toward the country. We show that news credibility and cognitive image function as sequential mediators, meaning that the level of believability and cognitive preconceptions about a certain country directly affect country brand equity. Moreover, this study demonstrates that negatively framed fake news can affect all dimensions of country brand equity negatively, whereas positive fake news frames do not change people’s perceptions significantly. According to the outcomes, we proved that the level of credibility is significantly influenced by the type of valenced fake news frame as well. We discuss the implications of the findings and future research directions in the field of fake news and country brands.

Keywords: news credibility; valenced frames; fake news; country brand equity; frame effect; cognitive image; China (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1515/mmcks-2023-0009 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:vrs:manmar:v:18:y:2023:i:2:p:145-171:n:1

DOI: 10.1515/mmcks-2023-0009

Access Statistics for this article

Management & Marketing is currently edited by Alina Mihaela Dima

More articles in Management & Marketing from Sciendo
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Peter Golla ().