Exposure of valenced fake news frames to country brand equity and the role of news credibility in this process

Abstract The stronger capacity of falsehood to diffuse in comparison with the truth pushes researchers to identify fake news effects on the formation of country brand equity due to the distant and intangible nature of this notion. To explore this exposure, valenced framing theory is applied as a suitable framework where credibility and cognitive image are checked to be mediators in this relationship. This study adopted a perceived and projected image approach for online survey design, and a quantitative method was applied. The results depict that fake news frames have an indirect effect on a country’s brand equity mediated by news credibility and cognitive image toward the country. We show that news credibility and cognitive image function as sequential mediators, meaning that the level of believability and cognitive preconceptions about a certain country directly affect country brand equity. Moreover, this study demonstrates that negatively framed fake news can affect all dimensions of country brand equity negatively, whereas positive fake news frames do not change people’s perceptions significantly. According to the outcomes, we proved that the level of credibility is significantly influenced by the type of valenced fake news frame as well. We discuss the implications of the findings and future research directions in the field of fake news and country brands.