Voting by Mouth: Media Attention and Environmental Governance

doi:10.21203/rs.3.rs-2606878/v1

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Voting by Mouth: Media Attention and Environmental Governance

https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-2606878/v1

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published 11 Sep, 2023

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External oversight is critical to enhancing environmental protection. In this paper, we investigate the implication of media attention on corporate environmental governance during the period 2011–2021 by taking China’s public companies as samples. The empirical results indicate that media attention can significantly and persistently amplify corporate environmental governance, and this result is stable after considering both endogeneity and a series of alternative robustness tests. Additionally, in areas with higher marketization and better rules of law environments, media attention can be better in favor of improving corporate environmental performance. Further analysis finds that media attention is favorable to corporate environmental governance through the "supervisory effect" mechanisms, including raising public awareness, improving internal management efficiency, as well as leveraging innovation to reduce environmental damage. The conclusions of this study provide empirical evidence for enhancing external supervision and corporate governance.

Media Coverage

Corporate Environmental Governance

External Supervision

Sustainable Development

A series of environmental problems have brought a range of implications on human survival, including health conditions and social security, which raise concerns in both academia and the general public(Seroka-Stolka & Fijorek, 2020), especially during periods of digitalization(Ramos-Meza et al., 2021). Given the tremendous environmental hazards, increasing governments worldwide set priorities for environmental protection to sustainable development(Yasin, Huseynova, & Atif, 2022), and the signing of the Copenhagen Accord in 2009 marked a consensus of responsibility in reducing greenhouse gases and addressing environmental issues in the world.

Prior studies mainly explored how to amplify environmental governance in the field of formal institutions, including legal regulation(Du, Li, & Wang, 2022), environmental auditing(Z. Xu, Dai, & Liu, 2022), etc. Still, few studies documented the implication of informal institutions on environmental governance. The informal system has a wide range of constraints and can implicitly influence the environmental governance behavior of economic participants by disciplinary supervision and internalization of transmission, which plays a supervisory role in the production process(Li et al., 2022). Given the monitoring role of the informal system, numerous developed countries have attached great importance to external informal systems in environmental governance, and introduced it as a complement to formal environmental governance, including environmental information disclosure and public participation, etc.

Media, as a typical informal institution, has been crucial in delivering the public's growing expectations for environmental governance in the context of digitalization(Dutta et al., 2021; Shan, Peng, & Wei, 2021). Numerous studies within the field of media have confirmed that media attention plays a governance role in alleviating information asymmetry, generating public pressure through reputation, as well as administrative intervention(Deephouse, 2000; Gentzkow & Shapiro, 2006; Su, Guo, & Song, 2022). In addition, some literature investigates considerably specific issues addressed by media attention in corporate governance, including corporate compliance(Khan & Sukhotu, 2020), corporate social responsibility(Berkan, Leonardo, & Stefano, 2021), and green innovation(Chen, Jin, & Li, 2022). In light of the media attention on environmental governance, related studies have focused on the perspectives of regional government governance(Xian Gao & Lee, 2017), corporate resource supply(Chae, McHaney, & Sheu, 2020), and industrial change(Ning, 2022).

However, the existing research on media attention and environmental governance still suffers from the following shortcomings: On the one hand, existing research fails to evaluate the mitigation of environmental pollution, which pays extra attention to environmental governance practices(Burke, 2022; Tang & Tang, 2016). On the other hand, previous findings lack empirical research evidence from developing countries. Existing studies have been analyzed mainly from the perspective of developed countries in this domain(Bansal & Clelland, 2004; Desai, 2014; Hoffman & Ocasio, 2001). The issue of environmental pollution in developing countries is particularly serious(Das, 2020), which are in the process of accelerating industrialization and integrating into the global economic system based on lower environmental pollution costs(Das, 2020; Dispensa & Brulle, 2003). To a large extent, it is essential to explore the implication of media attention on environmental governance in developing countries in regard to improving global environmental governance.

To bridge the research gaps, this paper employs China’s A-share public companies as samples and empirically tests the relationship between media attention and corporate environmental governance spanning from 2011 to 2021. We measure environmental governance in light of both governance behavior and environmental investment, and the number of media reports on the firm as a proxy for media attention. Then, the interaction of media attention on environmental governance is exploited to analyze the conducting cross-sectional analysis and plausible mechanistic exploration. After the empirical test, the mechanisms display that media can act as the "fourth power" independent of the legislative, administrative and judicial power, and play a "supervisory effect" to amplify environmental governance.

Our paper contributes to the literature in three aspects. First and foremost, we provide the first comprehensive evaluation between media attention and environmental governance by focusing on both environmental governance practices and pollutant abatement with a quantitative model. To our current knowledge thus far, the close paper to ours is Tang and Tang (2016) and Kong, Kong, and Wang (2020), which provide empirical results of the interactions between media attention and environmental governance behavior. Our paper investigates the implication of media attention on environmental governance, focusing not only on pollution control behavior, but also pollutant abatement.

Second, our results provide quantitative evaluations that media attention can generate supervisory effect in the field of environmental governance, which enriches the knowledge and understanding of informal institutions in corporate governance. Our quantitative results provide observations on how media attention can mitigate information asymmetry, perform reputation pressure, and administrative intervention, providing a reference for understanding the magnitude of media influence in curbing pollution emissions, and for future comparisons.

Finally, this paper provides substantial evidence that media attention can significantly affect environmental degradation in developing countries. Given the middle stages of industrialization and imperfect institutions, environmental pollution problems in developing countries are becoming increasingly severe, and are currently the focus of environmental management. However, previous findings are mainly focused on the developed countries and thus ignore critical developing economies. To address the gaps, we take developing countries into consideration and analyze the impact of media attention on environmental governance.

The remainder of this paper is organized as follows: Section 2 presents the theoretical analysis and hypotheses. Section 3 is the research design, including sample selection, variable settings and model construction. Section 4 reports empirical test results, including baseline results, robustness tests, and cross-sectional analysis. Section 5 provides further analysis to explore the possible implication mechanisms. The last section is a brief conclusion and provides policy implications.

2.1 Literature review

Prior studies have widely agreed that reporting and disclosing internal corporate occurrences is one of the media's primary roles(Benton & Frazier, 1976; Deephouse, 2000), which benefits from lowering the internal corporate behavior's opaqueness and information asymmetry(Durand & Vergne, 2015; Fang, Peress, & Zheng, 2014). Following the mechanism, a large body of research documents that media attention plays an essential role in corporate governance, including exposing corporate fraud(Dyck, Morse, & Zingales, 2010; Miller, 2006), forcing corporate managers to behave in an acceptable manner(Farrell & Whidbee, 2002), influencing governance decisions(Ang et al., 2021), etc. In particular, B. Liu and McConnell (2013) highlight that the level and the tone of media attention can compel managers to the sensitivity of firms' stock price reactions. Miller (2006) provides evidence that the press plays a role in uncovering accounting fraud and correcting corporate governance problems (Dyck, Volchkova, & Zingales, 2008; Rogers, Skinner, & Zechman, 2016). Tung Lam Dang et al. (2019) find that the media of positive news sentiment are associated with greater leverage adjustment speeds. Tung L Dang, Huynh, and Nguyen (2021) discover that media coverage is positively associated with firm value, which is stronger with weak institutional characteristics and fewer transparent information environments. These papers have stimulated numerous studies on whether and how media coverage affects corporate governance in the capital markets.

A recent strand of media attention literature has focused on the impact of green performance, including corporate social responsibility(Yu & Chi, 2021; Zyglidopoulos et al., 2012), development efficiency(Xin Gao et al., 2021; Sarbu, 2017), as well as green innovation(Chen et al., 2022; Dai, Shen, & Zhang, 2021). A modest minority of literature has begun to explore the role of media attention in environmental governance, which may be considerably salient as an information disseminator and agitator of corrective action. In this realm, Tang and Tang (2016) exploits that the media can exert an influence on firms’ pollution behaviors through the government’s and the public’s actions. Besides, Kong et al. (2020) explore that media attention can induce companies to exert additional effort in environmental protection as well. Burke (2022) identifies that the media can prompt the CEO to involve ESG issues by providing cues on their relative salience. A collection of literature has demonstrated the ability of media attention, as an external governance mechanism, can influence corporate environmental governance behavior.

While the aforementioned literature has furnished our consciousness of the visibility of media as an antecedent of corporate governance, to the best of our knowledge, it has primarily failed to highlight the media's concern about environmental pollution. Nonetheless, we still lack an exact understanding of how media exert an influence on corporate environmental governance in addition to the behavior, as there is a growing consensus that the media helps discipline managers, reduces information asymmetry, as well as creates pressure on firm behaviors. In addition, previous findings are mainly focused on developed countries, and empirical research evidence from developing countries is lacking. To address these research gaps, we analyze the impact of media attention on environmental governance from the perspectives of both environmental behavior and pollution emissions in developing countries.

2.2. Research hypothesis

In light of the current literature, it is clear that media attention plays a governance role through information asymmetry mitigation mechanisms, reputation mechanisms, market pressure mechanisms, as well as administrative intervention mechanisms(Pollock & Rindova, 2003). Combined with the above mechanisms, we believe that media attention amplifies corporate environmental governance by enhancing corporate management efficiency and innovation.

Media focused management enhancement mechanism. First, media attention, accompanied by a large amount of information disclosure, can promote corporate emissions reduction by alleviating the problem of proxy engagement between management and major shareholders(Aerts & Cormier, 2009; Bonsall IV, Green, & Muller III, 2020). In order to maintain a positive public image and gain the support of investors and other stakeholders, companies have a strong incentive to amplify corporate governance(Xin Gao et al., 2021), improve management efficiency and thereby reduce pollutant emissions to the environment. Second, the media can constrain the behavior of the company's internal controllers by revealing environmental hazards. Negative media coverage of environmental governance may lead to a decline in the share price and affect the operating performance. To avoid the public crises caused by environmental pollution problems, companies take observable measures to improve the quality of their corporate environmental governance and reduce pollutant emissions. An et al. (2022) investigate that professional managers subjected to negative media coverage will take action to alleviate the pressure of public opinion in society, maintain their public image, and gain the support of various stakeholders by ensuring the timeliness and reliability of information disclosure. Third, according to the reputation mechanism, media exposure of news about the company's environmental problems shall affect the personal reputation of shareholders and managers, negatively impacting daily social activities and the market competitiveness of future professional managers. To maintain growth prospects, professional managers shall actively take corporate governance actions to reduce environmental pollutant emissions and improve corporate environmental governance for the sake of preventing reputational damage.

Innovation mechanisms for media attention. Environmental governance requires reducing the pollutant hazards of the production process, whereas enhancing innovation capacity can form new production functions that can improve the efficiency of resource use and diminish pollutant emissions. Among the factors that influence innovation, media attention can alleviate financing constraints, gather talent elements, and provide elements of guarantee for enterprise innovation. On the one hand, a large amount of media coverage can reduce the unforgivable estimation risk for investors, increase the level of external stakeholders' evaluation of enterprises through the incremental effect of information, and thus increase the share price of enterprises, which is conducive to reducing the financing cost and alleviating the capital constraint of enterprise innovation. A large amount of capital injection provides the factor guarantee for enterprises to enhance their innovation capability, which is conducive to enhancing innovation. Media coverage, on the other hand, can trigger the synergistic effect of administrative sanctions. Media coverage of violations draws the attention of regulators, and the intervention of administrative authorities ultimately raises the administrative costs for offending companies, thus prompting these companies to enhance technological innovation, improve the effectiveness of resource utilization, and reduce harm to the environment.

Additionally, media attention may take a lengthy time to be reflected in corporate behavior, there may be a lag in reflecting environmental governance performance. Stone and McCombs (1981)、Wanta and Hu (1994) investigate that media coverage lags behind the supervision of corporate governance, and newspapers had a stronger long-term agenda-setting effect. Therefore, as an external pressure, the media can effectively supervise the company's behavior and actively assume environmental governance, which can make up for the deficiency of judicial protection to a certain extent.(Tung Lam Dang et al., 2019; Desai, 2014; Jiang et al., 2022). It is a governance mechanism besides judicial power, and this supervision role has a certain lag. Based on the above analysis, this paper proposes the following assumptions:

Hypothesis 1: Media attention can amplify enterprises’ environmental governance.

Hypothesis 2: The media pays attention to the role of corporate governance and has a lagging effect in influencing environmental governance.

The role of media in corporate governance is affected by institutional factors, including the market environment and the legal environment(Nissani, 1999; Su et al., 2022). Institutional elements impact the development of media organizations and institutions, which determine the quality of news coverage(Dispensa & Brulle, 2003). Superior quality media attention can act as an external governor of the company by exerting implications of information dissemination mechanism, reputation mechanism as well as administrative intervention mechanism(Kim et al., 2014). Government intervention and the completely competitive nature of the market can greatly amplify the role of the media in corporate governance. While the rule of law and marketization have developed significantly in developing countries, imbalances in institutional provision between regions remain, and public companies in different regions will face different institutional environments.

On the one hand, areas with better legal systems will possess a higher level of legal awareness and enforcement efficiency. Media organizations in this environment are more willing to take the initiative to play an "agenda-setting" role to disseminate information to the public and influence what the public and organizations think. Hence, the legal environment enhances the independence of media organizations and improves the accuracy of their reporting content(Su et al., 2022). Media attention can play a better governance role in areas with better legal environments.

On the other hand, the government, in regions with more market-oriented, has a lower tendency for government intervention in economic activities. In such cases, the government is unlikely to use administrative channels to interfere with media coverage. In addition, information released by the media, in regions with a strong degree of marketization, is disseminated more quickly, making the market response to the information more significant(Gentzkow & Shapiro, 2006). The most vital feature of the institutional environment is the significant differences in marketization between regions of developing countries. And this difference definitely affects the role of the media. Based on the above analysis, the following assumptions are proposed:

Hypothesis 3a: The effect of media attention on corporate environmental governance is more significant in regions with higher marketization.

Hypothesis 3b: The effect of media attention on corporate environmental governance is more significant in regions with a better legal environment.

This section describes the data sources, sets empirical models, affirms model variables, and summarizes the main variables used in our empirical analysis.

3.1 Sample selection

This study selects China's public enterprises as the study object from 2011 to 2021^∗. Media attention and environmental governance data are from the Chinese Research Data Services database(CNRDS). Data on financial indicators and corporate governance are all from the China Stock Market & Accounting Research database(CSMAR). The CSMAR database and CNRDS database are frequently used for research on corporate governance and environmental issues. To ensure the reliability of research conclusions, the samples were screened twice based on the following process: (1) excluding the observations of the financial industry; (2) excluding the companies of ST and * ST; (3) excluding missing values which can not be completed by alternative means; (4) To avoid the impact of extreme values, the main continuous variables in the paper are winsorized up and down 1%. Finally, we have obtained a total of 16647 observations.

3.2 Model specification

To examine the causal effects of media attention on environmental governance, we refer to Deephouse (2000), Heyes and Zhu (2019) and construct the following specification:

\(Environmen{t_{i,t}}={a_0}+{a_1}Medi{a_{i,t}}+\sum {Controls} +{\delta _j}+{\lambda _t}+{\mu _{i,t}}\) Eq. (1)

where i denotes a plant, and t denotes a year.\(Environmen{t_{i,t}}\) denotes environmental governance. \(Medi{a_{i,t}}\) denotes Media Attention, which is the explanatory variable of interest. the variables of \(Environmen{t_{i,t}}\) and \(Medi{a_{i,t}}\) are defined above. \({\delta _j}\)is the industry fixed effect. \({\lambda _t}\) is the year fixed effect. \({\mu _{i,t}}\)is the random perturbation term. \({a_1}\) is the core parameter of interest, and we speculate that it is significantly positive based on the theoretical analysis. The variable metrics in specification refer to the variable measures section.

3.3 Variable measurements

3.3.1 Environmental governance

We take advantage of three indicators to measure environmental governance. (1) Emiredu is used to identify whether the firm has taken initiatives to reduce the emissions of wastewater, air and solid waste emissions. Emiredu is taken as 1 if available, otherwise taken as 0. (2) Encert represents whether the company has environmental certification, if yes, takes 1, otherwise takes 0. (3) Inves represents the ratio of environmental investment to gross operating income. The expenditure of environmental protection includes investment in environmental protection technology and reform projects, pollution control inputs, environmental protection facilities renovation, operation and management, sewage charges payment, clean production, etc. A large number of scholars utilize the above dataset to study environmental governance(G. Liu et al., 2022).

3.3.2 Media attention

We utilize the number of negative reports about the company in online media as a proxy for media attention. The media attention to an event can be measured by the related coverage number of stories. In today’s business environment, companies face coverage from a broader set of sources, including local newspapers, social press, blogs, online news, and more. Therefore, there are two main ways to measure media attention in the existing literature: one is to use the number of times that a company's name is mentioned in the headlines of representative newspapers, and the other is to employ the number of news stories searched on the Internet engine to reflect the binding power of the media. Since the public coverage of the paper press is limited and no longer the main channel to understand the dynamics of social and economic life for the public, especially in the information age where the Internet is extremely popular, we take advantage of the number of negative online media reports and take the logarithm as a measure of the extent of media coverage in the benchmark regression. In the robustness test, we use the number of plants reported negatively in newspapers as a proxy variable.

3.3.3 Control variables

Referring to the practice of prior literature(G. Liu et al., 2022; J. Xu & Zheng, 2022), we control for the following factors that affect the performance of media attention and environmental governance. Specifically, the variables are as follows: enterprise size (Lnasset), asset-liability ratio (Leverage), return on total assets (Roa), the growth rate of fixed assets (PPE), cash flow from operating activities (Cash), operating revenue growth rate (Ope), company value (TobinQ), shareholdings of the top ten shareholders (Topten), ratio of independent directors (Indep), chairman and general Manager in one person (Dual), and management remuneration (Salary). Table 1 shows the specific definitions of variables in the specification.

Table 1

The definition of variables used in this paper.
Variables	Definitions
Dependent variables
Emiredu	Emiredu equals to 1 means that a plant implements measures to reduce the emissions of wastewater, air and solid waste, otherwise it equals to 0.
Encert	Encert equals to 1 represents that a plant has environmental certification, and equals to 0 otherwise.
Inves	The ratio of environmental investment to gross operating income.
Core explanatory variable
Media	The logarithm of numbers that a plant is negatively reported in online media.
Controls
Lnasset	The logarithm of assets.
Leverage	The book value of total liabilities divided by lagged total assets.
Roa	Net profit divided by total assets.
PPE	Capital expenditures divided by assets.
Cash	The ratio of cash flow from operations to total assets at the end of each year
Ope	The ratio of operating income from operations to total assets at the end of each year
TobinQ	(Total asset + Common shares outstanding × Closing price (Fiscal year) − Common equity − Deferred taxes)/Asset
Topten	Top 10 shareholders' shareholdings divided by total shares.
Indep	The number of Independent Directors divided by the total number of directors.
Dual	Dual equals 1, which means that the chairman and the general manager are the same person. Otherwise, Dual equals 0.
Salary	The logarithm of top three management payment

3.4. Summary statistics and correlations

Table 2 displays the descriptive statistics for variables in Eq. (1). The median of Emiredu is 1, and its average value is 0.806, which indicates that there are a large number of plants taking advantage of measures to reduce the emissions of wastewater, air, and solid waste. The median of Encert is greater than the mean, demonstrating that increasing enterprises are beginning to take environmental certification seriously for the sake of environmental protection. The median and mean of Inves are 0.014 and 0.136, respectively, and its standard deviation is 0.046, suggesting that most companies do not invest further in environmental protection and vary considerably among different companies. The mean of Media is 4.337 and the median is 4.407, indicating that China’s listed companies across different industries receive widespread media attention, and the sample distribution in the study is relatively uniform as well. All the remaining control variables are consistent with prior studies(J. Xu & Zheng, 2022).

Table 2

Descriptive statistics
Variables	Mean	SD	P10	Median	P90
Emiredu	0.806	0.395	0.000	1.000	1.000
Encert	0.745	0.436	0.000	1.000	1.000
Inves	0.136	0.046	0.080	0.014	0.195
Media	4.337	1.112	3.045	4.407	5.609
Lnasset	22.239	1.469	20.616	21.967	24.215
Leverage	0.418	0.214	0.140	0.406	0.713
Roa	0.039	0.064	0.001	0.040	0.104
PPE	0.203	0.164	0.023	0.165	0.441
Cash	0.169	0.134	0.041	0.131	0.357
Ope	0.219	0.402	-0.051	0.108	0.582
TobinQ	2.468	2.128	0.669	1.837	4.986
Topten	0.600	0.153	0.387	0.613	0.779
Indep	0.378	0.053	0.333	0.364	0.429
Dual	0.290	0.454	0.000	0.000	1.000
Salary	1.275	0.786	0.671	1.011	2.291

Table 3 reports Pearson and Spearman correlations matrix for the main variables. It can be seen from the table that media attention (Media) and corporate environmental governance (Emiredu, Encert, Inves) are significantly positive as predicted, which preliminarily verifies hypothesis 1 of this paper. The results of Cash, Ope, and TobinQ show that companies with stronger profitability and business capability are more inclined to environmental governance.

Table 3

Correlation coefficients for the main variables.
Variables	Emiredu	Encert	Inves	Media	Lnasset	Leverage	Roa	PPE	Cash	Ope	TobinQ	Topten	Indep	Dual	Salary
Emiredu	1	0.831^***	-0.030^***	0.092^***	-0.321^***	-0.179^***	0.055^***	-0.068^***	0.071^***	0.063^***	0.236^***	-0.009	0.039^***	0.127^***	-0.092^***
Encert	0.831^***	1	-0.038^***	0.119^***	-0.433^***	-0.238^***	0.067^***	-0.060^***	0.107^***	0.076^***	0.296^***	-0.038^***	0.019^**	0.153^***	-0.126^***
Inves	-0.031^***	-0.040^***	1	0.125^***	0.066^***	0.031^***	0.016^**	-0.005	0.003	0.039^***	-0.000	0.009	0.005	-0.006	-0.002
Media	0.063^***	0.091^***	0.135^***	1	0.186^***	0.118^***	0.010	-0.054^***	-0.001	0.113^***	0.083^***	-0.007	0.020^**	-0.015^*	0.000
Lnasset	-0.314^***	-0.459^***	0.070^***	0.216^***	1	0.560***	-0.161^***	0.065^***	-0.286^***	-0.034^***	-0.604^***	0.029^***	-0.044^***	-0.251^***	0.129^***
Leverage	-0.172^***	-0.236^***	0.035^***	0.107^***	0.558^***	1	-0.468^***	0.040^***	-0.431^***	-0.052^***	-0.538^***	-0.136^***	-0.012	-0.182^***	0.139^***
Roa	0.006	0.006	0.023^***	0.042^***	-0.055^***	-0.387^***	1	-0.058^***	0.341^***	0.397^***	0.392^***	0.287^***	-0.004	0.097^***	-0.143^***
PPE	-0.107^***	-0.107^***	-0.001	-0.053^***	0.110^***	0.088^***	-0.063^***	1	-0.293^***	-0.149^***	-0.133^***	0.013^*	-0.074^***	-0.082^***	0.003
Cash	0.085^***	0.122^***	0.002	-0.002	-0.282^***	-0.442^***	0.277^***	-0.316^***	1	0.183^***	0.290^***	0.146^***	0.020^***	0.091^***	-0.047^***
Ope	0.071^***	0.093^***	0.034^***	0.076^***	-0.074^***	-0.104^***	0.270^***	-0.154^***	0.219^***	1	0.181^***	0.221^***	0.003	0.101^***	-0.117^***
TobinQ	0.165^***	0.210^***	0.013^*	0.117^***	-0.444^***	-0.400^***	0.252^***	-0.171^***	0.240^***	0.174^***	1	0.045^***	0.068^***	0.211^***	-0.101^***
Topten	-0.014^*	-0.048^***	0.012	0.012	0.127^***	-0.122^***	0.261^***	0.020^**	0.153^***	0.200^***	0.057^***	1	0.043^***	0.065^***	0.032^***
Indep	0.038^***	0.020^***	0.007	0.032^***	-0.011	-0.002	-0.022^***	-0.069^***	0.019^**	0.001	0.069^***	0.034^***	1	0.098^***	0.262^***
Dual	0.127^***	0.153^***	-0.006	0.002	-0.235^***	-0.180^***	0.054^***	-0.106^***	0.108^***	0.101^***	0.161^***	0.057^***	0.097^***	1	-0.102^***
Salary	-0.092^***	-0.125^***	0.003	0.006	0.164^***	0.139^***	-0.092^***	0.044^***	-0.040^***	-0.072^***	-0.069^***	0.017^**	0.162^***	-0.112^***	1
Notes: Table 3 reports Pearson and Spearman correlations for variables in Eq. (1). Lower-triangular cells report Pearson's correlation coefficients, upper-triangular cells are Spearman's rank correlation. The variable definitions are presented in Table 1. *, and * indicate the statistical significance at the 1%, 5% and 10% significance levels, respectively.

^∗ The reason for choosing 2011-2021 period is that environmental responsibility variable data is collected only in 2011.

In this section, we offer empirical estimates of the interaction between media attention and environmental governance by utilizing data from China’s public companies. We begin our analysis by examining the magnitude of media attention. We then speculate whether there is a lagged effect on the implication of media attention on environmental governance by lagging the variable of interest. Finally, we examine the robustness of our IV approach and the empirical model more broadly.

4.1 Benchmark regression

Table 4 reports the correlation coefficients of media attention on corporate environmental governance in the regression analysis. As can be observed in column (1), the coefficient of Media on Emiredu is significantly positive at the 1% statistical level, suggesting that media attention is beneficial for guiding companies to implement measures to diminish pollutant discharge such as wastewater, pollutant gas as well as solid waste. The results are in line with those of Tang and Tang (2016). Column (2) displays that the coefficient of Media on Encert is significantly positive at the 5% statistical level, suggesting media attention can help motivate companies to amplify the environmental certification of their plants. Column (3) reports that the coefficient of Media on Inves is significantly positive at the 1% statistical level, indicating that every 1% increase in media attention motivates environmental investments by 0.5%. The empirical result shows that media attention helps force companies to amplify their environmental investments. In summary, we come to the conclusion that media attention can amplify environmental remediation, and hypothesis 1 of the paper is accepted.

The possible reason is that in China's capital market, the media can act as the "fourth power" independent of the legislative, administrative, and judicial powers. Through timely, accurate, and impartial reporting(Jacobson, Gruzd, & Hernández-García, 2020), it can play a supervisory role in the capital market(Hossain & Javakhadze, 2020), and under the pressure of external supervision(Marchand, Hennig-Thurau, & Flemming, 2021), enterprises can assume the responsibility of protecting the environment.

Regarding the control variables considered in the models, the company operation (Ope) is significantly positive, such that a greater level of profitability favors increased social and environmental practices. Furthermore, Topten is significant in the majority of the models proposed, implying that the usage of diversified shareholdings to enhance corporate oversight can improve environmental governance performance.

Table 4

Media attention and the environmental governance.
	(1)	(2)	(3)
Variables	Emiredu	Encert	Inves
Media	0.016^***	0.015^**	0.005^***
	(2.645)	(2.251)	(10.280)
Lnasset	-0.092^***	-0.146^***	0.002^***
	(-15.294)	(-22.576)	(5.280)
Leverage	0.031	0.070^*	0.004
	(0.822)	(1.652)	(1.450)
Roa	-0.163^**	-0.190^**	0.009
	(-2.318)	(-2.412)	(1.389)
PPE	-0.054	-0.042	0.003
	(-1.077)	(-0.747)	(1.025)
Cash	-0.013	-0.004	0.004
	(-0.309)	(-0.077)	(1.029)
Ope	0.060^***	0.078^***	0.002^**
	(7.798)	(9.417)	(2.425)
TobinQ	0.003	-0.004	0.000^**
	(1.152)	(-1.553)	(2.044)
Topten	0.100^**	0.094^*	-0.001
	(2.229)	(1.869)	(-0.184)
Indep	0.125	0.009	0.002
	(1.217)	(0.077)	(0.321)
Dual	0.012	0.014	0.001
	(1.049)	(1.171)	(0.670)
Salary	-0.014^*	-0.019^**	-0.000
	(-1.835)	(-2.348)	(-0.161)
Year fixed effects	Yes	Yes	Yes
Industry fixed effects	Yes	Yes	Yes
Cluster by firm	Yes	Yes	Yes
Intercept	2.678^***	3.874^***	0.058^***
	(20.624)	(28.336)	(6.007)
Adj-R²	0.178	0.290	0.0255
F	34.73	68.39	19.55
N	16,647	16,647	16,647
Notes: Table 4 reports estimated results based on Eq. (1). The variables are listed in Table 1. Robust t-Statistics are reported in parentheses. All variables are defined in Table 1. *, and * indicate the statistical significance at the 1%, 5% and 10% significance levels, respectively.

Table 4 provides the coefficient of benchmark regression that media attention can boost enterprises’ environmental governance, whereas Table 5 presents the correlation coefficients of the lag of media attention on corporate environmental governance to check whether media attention has lagging effects. Columns (1)-(3) report the magnitude of media attention on corporate environmental governance for lagged one period. The coefficient of L1Media on Emiredu and Inves are significantly positive at the 5% and 1% statistical levels, respectively. Whereas, the coefficient of L1Media does not respond significantly to Encert on statistical inference. One plausible explanation is that companies need to meet strict environmental standards to implement environmental certification, and the governance of media tends to diminish in the long run, which results in emerging the insignificant coefficient. Columns (4) to (6) display the magnitude of the two-period lag of media attention corresponding to the specification in Eq. (1), whose coefficients are typically consistent with ones lagged one period in light of significance. To sum up, media attention has a long-term effect on corporate environmental governance, and our hypotheses 2 and 3 are verified, respectively.

Table 5

Media attention and the lagging effect of the environmental governance
	(1)	(2)	(3)	(4)	(5)	(6)
Variables	Emiredu	Encert	Inves	Emiredu	Encert	Inves
L1Media	0.014^**	0.010	0.003^***
	(2.512)	(1.629)	(5.899)
L2Media				0.011^**	0.006	0.002^***
				(2.131)	(1.051)	(5.015)
Controls	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Year fixed effects	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Industry fixed effects	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Cluster by firm	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Intercept	2.659^***	3.851^***	0.050^***	2.645^***	3.840^***	0.048^***
	(20.579)	(28.364)	(5.246)	(20.482)	(28.355)	(4.969)
Adj-R2	0.178	0.289	0.0189	0.177	0.289	0.0178
F	34.63	68.43	14.25	34.47	68.48	13.60
N	16,647	16,647	16,647	16,647	16,647	16,647
Notes: Robust t-Statistics are reported in parentheses. The Controls in Table 5 include Lnasset, Leverage, Roa, PPE, Cash, Ope, TobinQ, Topten, Indep, Dual, and Salary. All variables are defined in Table 1. *, and * indicate the statistical significance at the 1%, 5% and 10% significance levels, respectively.

4.2 Robustness checks

4.2.1 Instrumental Variables

One concern for identification is that both media attention and environmental governance may have a reverse causation. While media attention can amplify environmental governance by creating external pressure, companies that take environmental governance gravely are likely to create a demonstration benefit that generates widespread media coverage, which our study is subject to empirical estimation bias deriving from reverse causality. To diminish endogenous interference and ensure the reliability of estimations, referring to Goldsmith-Pinkham, Sorkin, and Swift (2020) and Imbert et al. (2022), we take the interaction between the one-period difference term of media attention lagged one period and media attention in time as the instrumental variable, and employ the two-stage squares method (2SLS) for estimation.

We first test for instrumental variables before regression. An effective instrumental variable must satisfy two conditions: dependency and exclusivity. The P value of Anderson LM tests is 0.000, significantly rejecting the null hypothesis, indicating that the model does not have the problem of insufficient identification. It indicates that the selected instrumental variables are related to endogenous explanatory variables. The p-value of Sargan tests is 0.386, indicating that the tool variable selected in this paper is appropriate.

As is shown in Table 6, columns (1)–(3) report the coefficients of the 2SLS of media attention and environmental governance. The magnitude of Media on environmental governance (Emiredu, Encert, Inves) is significantly positive, respectively. The above results imply that the effect of media attention on environmental governance still exists after taking endogenous consideration.

4.2.2 Heckman Two-stage Analysis

A problem that should not be overlooked is the selection bias in our study samples, which makes the estimated coefficient of the variable of interest unreliable. Some unobservable missing variables may also determine media attention and corporate environmental responsibility performance. Considering this potential problem, we employ the Heckman model to analyze the impact of media attention on environmental governance.

As shown in Table 6, columns (3)-(6) display the coefficients of Heckman model estimation.

As reported in columns (1)-(2), the coefficients of IMR on Emiredu and Encert are significantly negative at the 1% statistical level, respectively, suggesting that it is particularly necessary to consider sample selection bias for our empirical specification. Additionally, the coefficients of Media on Emiredu and Encert are significantly negative at the 5% statistical level, respectively, implying that media attention can enhance environmental governance behavior after controlling for sample selectivity bias. Column 3 displays that the coefficient of media attention on environmental investment is significantly positive at the 1% statistical level after adding IMR to the model, implying that the media can still enhance corporate environmental investment after accounting for the sample bias. In summary, the coefficient of media attention on environmental governance is consistent with the basic results after accounting for sample selection bias.

Table 6

Endogenous treatment between media attention and environmental governance
	(1)	(2)	(3)	(4)	(5)	(6)
Variables	Emiredu	Encert	Inves	Emiredu	Encert	Inves
Media	0.017^***	0.015^**	0.004^***	0.015^**	0.014^**	0.005^***
	(2.824)	(2.299)	(9.452)	(2.544)	(2.177)	(10.240)
IMR				-0.312^***	-0.264^***	-0.005
				(-5.095)	(-4.848)	(-1.060)
Controls	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Year fixed effects	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Industry fixed effects	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Cluster by firm	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Adj-R2	0.101	0.195	0.0186	0.182	0.292	0.0255
F	34.81	68.38	17.83	31.80	63.18	18.34
N	16,647	16,647	16,647	16,647	16,647	16,647
Notes: Robust t-Statistics are reported in parentheses. The Controls in Table 6 include Lnasset, Leverage, Roa, PPE, Cash, Ope, TobinQ, Topten, Indep, Dual, and Salary. All variables are defined in Table 1. *, and * indicate the statistical significance at the 1%, 5% and 10% significance levels, respectively.

4.2.3 Remeasuring Media Attention

To enhance the reliability of the conclusions, we excluded the number of traditional newspapers and magazines about media coverage and re-examined employing Eq. (1). The reason for excluding reports in newspapers and magazines is that the popularity of the internet has led to a gradual decline in the traditional communication influence, and adding them to the variable measure may magnify the coefficient of media attention on environmental governance. The results are shown in columns (1)-(3) of Table 7. Columns 1 to 3 report a significantly positive coefficient of media attention on environmental governance, implying that media attention significantly affects environmental governance. The finding is consistent with the basic results.

4.2.4 Excluding the impact of network regulatory policy

China’s government emphasizes the importance of playing the role of government regulation of the market, and therefore enacts policies that can modify the trajectory of business management. In July 2020, China’s government promulgated the Inter-Ministerial Joint Conference System on Internet Market Supervision, which calls for strengthening the rule of law in the online market. To rule out the possibility that the policy influenced enhanced media coverage, we removed the sample for the year the policy was enacted and subsequent years, and the results are presented in columns 4 to 6 of Table 8. After excluding the sample for 2020 and subsequent years, the coefficient of media attention on environmental governance remains statistically significant and positive at the 1% level, which implies that our empirical results are robust.

4.2.5 Measuring environmental governance from the emissions side

We mainly consider the input side of environmental governance in the benchmark regression, including environmental governance behavior, environmental protection investment, etc. However, the result of environmental governance is emission reduction, which can also be used as a proxy for environmental governance. Next, we validate the environmental governance performance with a logarithmic measure of pollutant emissions, brought into Eq. (1), and the results are shown in column 7 of Table 7. As is shown in column 7, the coefficient of media attention on pollutant emissions is significantly negative at the 1% statistical level, which means that media attention can reduce pollutant emissions and damage to the surrounding environment. Through the test, we reconfirm that the baseline regression results are convincing.

Table 7

Other robustness check
	(1)	(2)	(3)	(4)	(5)	6)	(7)
Variables	Emiredu	Encert	Inves	Emiredu	Encert	Inves	Lnpollute
Netmedia	0.008^***	0.006^*	0.002^***
	(2.776)	(1.769)	(6.474)
Media				0.015^**	0.014^*	0.004^***	-0.007^***
				(2.348)	(1.920)	(9.215)	(-5.009)
Controls	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Year fixed effects	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Industry fixed effects	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Cluster by firm	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Intercept	2.712^***	3.888^***	0.064^***	3.159^***	4.339^***	0.057^***	-0.376^***
	(20.432)	(27.718)	(6.639)	(19.332)	(26.105)	(5.228)	(-10.011)
Adj-R2	0.177	0.289	0.0191	0.179	0.284	0.0247	0.567
F	34.60	68.53	14.22	35.31	64.92	15.87	225.6
N	16,647	16,647	16,647	12,599	12,599	12,599	16,647
Notes: Robust t-Statistics are reported in parentheses. The Controls in Table 7 include Lnasset, Leverage, Roa, PPE, Cash, Ope, TobinQ, Topten, Indep, Dual, Salary. All variables are defined in Table 1. *, and * indicate the statistical significance at the 1%, 5% and 10% significance levels, respectively.

4.3 Heterogeneity analysis

In this section, we examine the heterogeneity of media attention on environmental governance and explore the cross-sectional effects played by regional marketization and the rule of law.

4.3.1. Heterogeneity in marketization

We utilize the marketability index as the proxy for the degree of regional marketability (Marabi), and this metric has been used comprehensively in empirical research(Zeng, Li, & Huang, 2021). Columns (1)-(3) of Table 8 display the heterogeneity of media attention on environmental governance under different marketability. Column 1 reports that the coefficient of the interaction term (Marabi×Media) on Emiredu is significantly positive at the 5% statistical level, implying that the more marketable the location of firms, the more the media is able to increase environmental efforts. Column 2 displays that the coefficient of the interaction term (Marabi×Media) on Encert is significantly positive at the 1% statistical level, implying that media is more able to amplify environmental certification and enhance green development in places with elevated levels of marketization. Column 3 displays that the coefficient of the interaction term (Marabi×Media) on Inves is significantly positive at the 5% statistical level, implying that media can better play a monitoring role to amplify environmental investments in places with strong levels of marketization. In short, media is able to play a monitoring mechanism to enhance environmental remediation for business locations obtaining a freer market economy, which hypothesis 3 in our study is tested.

We argue that there is a complementary effect of media attention and marketization. In regions with a higher degree of marketing, the reputational and administrative mechanisms work better, and the media can generate superior-quality information. While the market is more responsive to information in such areas, media attention has a greater impact on environmental governance.

4.3.2. Heterogeneity in the legal environment

We choose the ratio of the number of cases closed and the total number of trials per year in the courts where the companies are located to measure the normative status of the social rule of law environment. The number of court cases is collected manually in the magic weapon of Peking University^①, which collects information on court proceedings in all regions of China. Columns 4–6 of Table 8 display the cross-section of media attention on environmental governance under different legal environments. Column 1 reports that the coefficient of the interaction term (Legal×Media) on Emiredu is significantly positive at the 1% statistical level, implying that the fairer legal environment where the company is located, the more the media can increase environmental efforts. Column 2 displays that the coefficient of the interaction term (Legal×Media) on Encert is significantly positive at the 1% statistical level, implying that media is better able to incentivize environmental certification where the rule of law environment is more stringent. Column 3 displays that the coefficient of the interaction term (Legal×Media) on Inves is significantly positive at the 1% statistical level, implying that the surveillance effect of the media can more definitely amplify environmental investments in areas with better-legalized environments.

Table 8

Heterogeneity analysis
	(1)	(2)	(3)	(4)	(5)	(6)
Variables	Emiredu	Encert	Inves	Emiredu	Encert	Inves
Media	0.002	-0.003	0.003^***	-0.004	-0.008^**	0.003^***
	(0.446)	(-0.508)	(3.404)	(-1.432)	(-2.571)	(3.922)
Marabi	-0.738^***	-0.924^***	-0.011^**
	(-17.469)	(-33.931)	(-2.382)
Marabi×Media	0.020^**	0.026^***	0.002^**
	(2.181)	(4.241)	(2.368)
Legal				-0.808^***	-0.993^***	-0.012^***
				(-23.338)	(-62.962)	(-2.933)
Legal×Media				0.022^***	0.022^***	0.002^***
				(2.865)	(5.136)	(2.906)
Controls	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Year fixed effects	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Industry fixed effects	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Cluster by firm	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Intercept	1.367^***	2.249^***	0.067^***	1.007^***	1.748^***	0.067^***
	(12.598)	(20.571)	(6.068)	(8.752)	(16.107)	(6.273)
Adj-R2	0.483	0.677	0.0260	0.585	0.824	0.0262
F	268.9	1361	19.35	352.6	3520	19.34
N	16,647	16,647	16,647	16,647	16,647	16,647
Notes: Given that the latest version of China’s provincial marketization index is available until 2020, we use the linear difference method to complement the missing values. Robust t-Statistics are reported in parentheses. The Controls in Table 8 include Lnasset, Leverage, Roa, PPE, Cash, Ope, TobinQ, Topten, Indep, Dual, and Salary. All variables are defined in Table 1. *, and * indicate the statistical significance at the 1%, 5% and 10% significance levels, respectively.

① Website: https://home.pkulaw.com.

This paper documents that media attention can enhance environmental governance, and this effect is more pronounced in areas with both greater marketization and a better rule of law environment in section 4. In this section, we explore the plausible mechanisms of the interaction of media attention on environmental governance.

The hypothesis proposes that media attention can raise public awareness of environmental protection, which creates external pressure on corporate governance. To maintain the company's image among the public, corporate executives, on the one hand, take measures to enhance the level of environmental management, amplify the efficiency of business operations as well as diminish the emission of pollutants from the company. On the other hand, executives pay attention to improving the innovation ability of the company, which can reduce the hazard of production to the environment and enhance the development ability of sustainability. In summary, it is increasing public awareness of environmental protection, improving corporate governance, and enhancing innovation that are plausible mechanisms for media attention to influence environmental governance.

We employ text analysis to construct indicators of corporate environmental awareness (Awareness). Specifically, we utilize the total number of environmental words appearing in companies' annual reports to reflect the importance of environmental protection, including "energy saving and emission reduction", "environmental protection strategy", "environmental protection concept", "environmental management organization", "environmental education", "environmental training", "environmental technology development" and "environmental audit". The appendix reports the number of environmental words in public companies. Referring to Ackerberg, Caves, and Frazer (2015), we undertake total factor productivity as a proxy for the efficiency of business operations (ADF). Furthermore, we measure innovation capability by the number of invention patent applications filed by a company each year. To diminish heteroscedasticity, we take the logarithm of the number of invention patents (invention). Figure 1. shows the univariate regression results for the media attention and mechanism variables.

Table 9 displays the possible mechanisms in the hypothesis of this paper. Column 1 shows that the coefficient between media attention and public environmental awareness is significantly positive at the 1% statistical level, implying that media attention can convey the environmental situation to the public, creating external pressure on corporate governance, which can amplify environmental governance efforts. Column 2 reports that the magnitude of media attention on total factor productivity is significantly positive at the 1% statistical level, implying that media attention can force companies to upgrade operational efficiency to reinforce environmental governance performance. Column 3 demonstrates that the coefficient of media attention on firm innovation is significantly positive at the 5% statistical level, implying that media playing a monitoring and push-back role can enhance innovation and provide technological support for amplifying environmental governance. In a word, the plausible mechanisms for our study are public environmental awareness, improving operational efficiency, as well as promoting innovation.

Table 9

Mechanism analysis
	(1)	(2)	(3)
Variables	Awareness	ADF	Invention
Media	0.064^***	0.060^***	0.026^**
	(4.312)	(4.919)	(2.353)
Controls	Yes	Yes	Yes
Year fixed effects	Yes	Yes	Yes
Industry fixed effects	Yes	Yes	Yes
Cluster by firm	Yes	Yes	Yes
Intercept	-1.742^***	-1.889^***	-0.875^***
	(-3.524)	(-4.422)	(-2.733)
Adj-R2	0.310	0.278	0.284
F	7.282	5.508	5.959
N	16,647	16,647	16,647
Notes: Robust t-Statistics are reported in parentheses. The Controls in Table 9 include Lnasset, Leverage, Roa, PPE, Cash, Ope, TobinQ, Topten, Indep, Dual, and Salary. All variables are defined in Table 1. *, and * indicate the statistical significance at the 1%, 5% and 10% significance levels, respectively.

6.1 Conclusions

This paper employs authoritative data from China’s public companies spanning from 2011 to 2021 to empirically investigate the implication of media attention on corporate environmental governance. Conclusions are as follows: (1) media attention can significantly amplify governance behavior, strengthen environmental investment, as well as improve environmental governance. After considering both endogeneity and a series of additional robustness tests, this result is consistent with the basic findings. (2) The cross-sectional analysis finds that media in areas with higher marketization can be better able to improve environmental governance performance compared to the lower one of the incorporation of the business. Additionally, in areas with better rule of law environments, media attention can better enhance environmental governance. (3) The mechanism analysis reveals that media can play a "supervisory effect" to actively fulfill environmental governance. Specifically, under the pressure of external supervision, media attention can improve environmental governance performance by raising public awareness, improving internal management efficiency, and leveraging innovation to reduce environmental damage.

6.2 Policy implications

Companies should not only consider the goal of profit maximization, but also focus on environmental improvement. And media attention invariably puts some pressure on enterprises and encourages them to take the path of sustainable development. Therefore, taking into account the findings, we make the following recommendations.

(1) Media can promote green civilization and advocate environmentally friendly production. On the one hand, it is recommended to create a free communication environment to guide the media to pay more attention to the corporate environmental conditions and disclose their environmentally damaging behaviors. On the other hand, the media should arouse public and stakeholder awareness of environmental protection and guide the importance of environmental protection. By evaluating corporate environmental management, enterprises shall be motivated to achieve sustainable development.

(2) Companies should actively implement environmental protection strategies and improve their technological innovation capabilities. Specifically, firms should increase investment in environmental protection, and achieve a shift from a sloppy economy to an intensive economy by improving innovation, which comes out of a sustainable development path that relies on technological progress and pollution reduction. Furthermore, companies should develop internal normative standards according to the IS014001 standard and do pollution prevention in advance. Stringent environmental standards not only reduce environmental abatement and strengthen employees' awareness of environmental protection, but also gain a good reputation among the public. To sum up, the media should focus on corporate emission reduction, strengthen environmental technology innovation, and achieve a win-win situation for both environmental performance and financial performance.

(3) Government departments should ensure that the law is perfect and effectively implemented, and that the market price mechanism is brought into play to reduce emissions. On the one hand, the government can scientifically rely on sewage charges to improve the environmental pollution hazard, and guide enterprises to take greater environmental responsibility. In addition, the standards for collecting sewage charges should be publicized in a timely manner and the deterrent effect of the law should be improved, including improving environmental monitoring efforts and increasing penalties that cause environmental pollution. On the other hand, government departments should be encouraged to disclose environmental information in annual financial statements and accept the supervision of the mass media, which encourages companies to implement clean production and green operations in production and reduce waste emissions.

6.3 Deficiencies and prospects

It is worth noting that this study also has some limitations. On the one hand, there are some limitations in measuring the impact of media attention on corporate behavior. Because the implication of media attention on corporate behavior may also be manifested in other aspects, especially in the tone of media coverage, the responses of listed companies to positive, neutral, and negative reports are entirely different. On the other hand, the empirical results of this paper show that voluntary disclosure of environmental governance information can effectively alleviate corporate financing constraints, but the economic consequences of voluntary disclosure of social responsibility information may not be limited to this. This paper does not study the economic consequences of other aspects. The empirical results of this paper suggest that media attention can influence environmental governance performance from within the firm, yet no external perspective is sought for possible plausible mechanisms, such as alleviating financing constraints and enhancing product competitiveness.

Author contribution: All the authors contributed to the study conception and design. The draft of the manuscript was written by Peihao Shi and Lihui Yin. Data collection, and analysis were performed by Peihao Shi and Chuanqing Wu. All the authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Funding: This work was supported by the National Social Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 22BJY037).

Data availability: The data of this study come from the Chinese Research Data Services database(CNRDS) and China Stock Market & Accounting Research database(CSMAR), which are frequently used for research on corporate governance and environmental issues.

Ethical approval: The submitted manuscript is original and has not been published elsewhere in any form or language.

Consent to participate: It is confirmed that this manuscript has been participated by all the co-authors.

Consent for publication: It is confirmed that the publication of the manuscript has been participated by all the co-authors.

Competing interest: The authors declare no competing interests.

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Voting by Mouth: Media Attention and Environmental Governance

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Abstract

Figures

1. Introduction

2. Literature Review And Research Hypothesis

3. Research Design

3.1 Sample selection

3.2 Model specification

3.3 Variable measurements

3.3.1 Environmental governance

3.3.2 Media attention

3.3.3 Control variables

3.4. Summary statistics and correlations

4. Empirical Results

4.1 Benchmark regression

4.2 Robustness checks

4.2.1 Instrumental Variables

4.2.2 Heckman Two-stage Analysis

4.2.3 Remeasuring Media Attention

4.2.4 Excluding the impact of network regulatory policy

4.2.5 Measuring environmental governance from the emissions side

4.3 Heterogeneity analysis

4.3.1. Heterogeneity in marketization

4.3.2. Heterogeneity in the legal environment

5. Further Discussions

6. Conclusions And Policy Implications

6.1 Conclusions

6.2 Policy implications

6.3 Deficiencies and prospects

Declarations

References

Supplementary Files

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