Finding the Tipping Point: When Heterogeneous Evaluations in Social Media Converge and Influence Organizational Legitimacy. Issue 1 (January 2023)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Illia, Laura; Colleoni, Elanor; Etter, Michael; Meggiorin, Katia
• Is Part Of: Business and society. Volume 62:Issue 1(2023)
• Page Start: 117
• Page End: 150
• Publication Date: 2023-01
• Subjects: convergence -- heterogeneity -- news media -- organizational legitimacy -- social media -- tipping point -- Twitter; Industries -- Social aspects -- Periodicals; Industrial sociology -- Periodicals; Business ethics -- Periodicals; 306.3
• DOI: 10.1177/00076503211073516
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0007-6503

Abstract

Can citizens impact the broader discourse about an organization and its legitimacy? While social media have empowered citizens to publicly question firms through large volumes of online evaluations, the high heterogeneity of their evaluations dilutes their impact. Our empirical study applying a threshold vector autoregressive model (TVAR) analysis of 2.5 million tweets and 1, 786 news media articles tests the condition by which the heterogeneity of online evaluations converges and influences the broader media discourse. Although social media evaluations do not initially influence media legitimacy, they become influential after reaching a tipping point of refracted attention, which is created by high volume and convergence of individual evaluations around few aggregative frames. Thus, social media storms may influence the broader discourse about an organization when this discourse converges and reaches a tipping point, rather than merely through the massive participation of citizens.