(No) Personalization of corporate coverage – A content analysis of German print media over 25 years

Since the 1990s, media coverage of economic issues has become increasingly complex. Personalization, shifting the focus from organizations to individuals, helps journalists simplify content and make it more relatable. While personalization in political news coverage has been widely studied, research on corporate news remains limited. Existing research that observes an increase in personalization over time often focuses on CEOs, short time periods, or single media outlets. This study examines personalization in corporate news across a 25-year period using a content analysis of multiple print media. It investigates two sub-dimensions of personalization, individualization and privatization, and assesses how media characteristics (article style, length, and media type) and actor characteristics (gender, leadership position) shape the coverage. Results show that leadership position, article style, media type, and article length are significantly associated with the frequency of actor mentions and mentions of their personal lives and personal characteristics. Overall, there has been no increase in individualization and portrayal of individuals in images in corporate news coverage over time; however, there has been a slight increase in privatization.