Embedding a Social Cause in News Features: The Effects of Corporate Sponsorship and Localization on Audience's Attitudes Toward Nonprofit Coverage

The current two studies, one testing college students and the other testing adults, showed nearly identical comparative effects of news features about either a nonprofit organization alone or about that same nonprofit but sponsored by a commercial company. There were two exemplars of nonprofit and commercial company pairings, and each was presented as "localized." That is, the nonprofit and commercial company were located in the same city as the respondents or nonlocalized. Surprisingly, there was almost no indication that the commercial sponsor damaged positive responses, but there was some indication that under the localized condition, there was more negativity toward the commercial sponsorship. The elaboration likelihood model and attribution theory provide theoretical space for understanding these effects.