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Media as nonmarket influencer in international business

Yadong Luo¹; Anlan Zhang²; Tony Fang³

¹ University of Miami · ² Lee Shau Kee School of Business and Administration, Hong Kong Metropolitan University, Hong Kong, China · ³ Stockholm University

Media has emerged as a powerful yet under-theorized force shaping the nonmarket environments of multinationals (MNEs), particularly amid intensifying geopolitical tensions and ideological polarization. Drawing on mass communication theory, we conceptualize media, encompassing both institutional news media and social media platforms, as a distinct nonmarket influencer that actively constructs legitimacy, propagates geopolitical narratives, and accelerates public sentiment across borders. We develop a framework that explicates the pathways through which media reconfigures nonmarket influences facing MNEs, including legitimacy arbitration, geopolitical narrative, sentiment cascades, and shaping liabilities of foreignness and origin across interconnected home, host, and global arenas. We advance media literacy as a form of corporate soft power that enables MNEs to sense media-driven threats, seize narrative opportunities, and reconfigure communication structures as part of an integrated nonmarket strategy and corporate diplomacy. By repositioning media as a constitutive force rather than a peripheral communication channel, we present a foundation for understanding how MNEs develop their capacity to anticipate media-driven risks, manage legitimacy across borders, and adapt nonmarket strategies under geopolitical and ideological uncertainty.

DOI

10.1057/s41267-026-00887-2

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