No news is good news? Press coverage and corporate public affairs management

Being in the public eye puts pressure on an organization's Public Affairs (PA) function. This study finds that firms more closely covered by the press tend to be more forceful in promoting their own position on social issues (social buffering). Press coverage is not associated with greater corporate efforts to comply with societal expectation (social bridging). Overall, press coverage is weakly associated with lowered perceived corporate public affairs performance. (C) 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.