Misinformation: Do success stories distort reality?

Mojca Svetek  |  13 December  2023

Entrepreneurs are held in high esteem – they are seen as inspiring, dynamic, and bold. In the public’s mind, entrepreneurs are visionaries like Steve Jobs, daring risk-takers like Richard Branson, and mavericks like Elon Musk. However, the fact of the matter is that these figures are far from representative of the average entrepreneur – who is of no interest to the mainstream media.

Join us in this episode to explore:

  • Three rules by which the media swears;
  • To what extent media practices distort perceptions;
  • How media depicts entrepreneurs in contrast to executives;
  • How media portrays women in entrepreneurship.

Research articles:

  • Fischer, E., & Reuber, A. R. (2014). Online entrepreneurial communication: Mitigating uncertainty and increasing differentiation via Twitter. Journal of Business Venturing, 29(4), 565-583.
  • Gerbner, G., & Gross, L. (2017). Living with television: The violence profile. In The Fear of Crime (pp. 169-195). Routledge.
  • Nadin, S., Smith, R., & Jones, S. (2020). Heroines of enterprise: Post-recession media representations of women and entrepreneurship in a UK newspaper 2008–2016. International Small Business Journal, 38(6), 557-577.
  • Price, M., Legrand, A. C., Brier, Z. M., van Stolk-Cooke, K., Peck, K., Dodds, P. S., … & Adams, Z. W. (2022). Doomscrolling during COVID-19: The negative association between daily social and traditional media consumption and mental health symptoms during the COVID-19 pandemic. Psychological Trauma: Theory, Research, Practice, and Policy, 14(8), 1338–1346.
  • Shrum, L. J. (2009). Media consumption and perceptions of social reality: Effects and underlying processes. In J. Bryant & M. B. Oliver (Eds.), Media Effects (3rd ed., pp. 66-89). Routledge.
  • Soroka, S., Fournier, P., & Nir, L. (2019). Cross-national evidence of a negativity bias in psychophysiological reactions to news. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 116(38), 18888-18892.
  • Suárez, J. L., White, R. E., Parker, S. C., & Jiménez-Mavillard, A. (2021). Entrepreneurship bias and the mass media: Evidence from big data. Academy of Management Discoveries, 7(2), 247-265.
  • Tata, A., Martinez, D. L., Garcia, D., Oesch, A., & Brusoni, S. (2017). The psycholinguistics of entrepreneurship. Journal of Business Venturing Insights, 7, 38-44.
  • Veciana, J. M., Aponte, M., & Urbano, D. (2005). University students’ attitudes towards entrepreneurship: A two countries comparison. The International Entrepreneurship and Management Journal, 1, 165-182.
  • Zillmann, D. (2002). Exemplification theory of media influence. In J. Bryant & D. Zillmann (Eds.), Media Effects (2nd ed., pp. 69–95). Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.