Using public relations to gain legitimacy in an emerging market: Nanotechnology firms and the news media

This thesis provides an initial examination of how firms created in or moving into an emerging market use public relations to legitimize their actions and policies to make them appear useful and responsible to their stakeholders. While past studies have focused largely on news coverage and public perception of emerging markets, this investigation centers on organizations' use of press releases to communicate their activities and set the media agenda about these markets. These ideas are examined in the emerging market of nanotechnology. This study finds that news coverage of diversified firms and non-diversified firms contained very similar themes. Non-diversified firms received a higher than expected proportion of business-themed news coverage whereas diversified firms received a higher proportion of research-themed coverage.