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This study proposes and tests the credible brand model (CBM), which explicates the effects of customer-based brand equity and ideological congruency on audiences’ perceptions of the credibility of news media outlets and the believability of their messages. Data from a survey and an experiment probing respondents’ perceptions of two media outlets (CNN and Fox News Channel) were analyzed with structural equation modeling. The data showed strong support for the CBM.

The media in Africa are often indicted for being partly responsible for the conflicts and tensions in the continent, and the role of the radio in escalating the 1994 genocide in Rwanda is frequently cited in support of this indictment. This article examines newspaper reports of the post 2007 presidential election violence in Kenya and finds a contrast to the Rwandan 'model'. Although the newspapers analysed did not provide any forewarning about the impending crisis, they relentlessly published news stories and house editorials that addressed peace-building in the country. The authors suggest that the Kenyan example raises two main issues: (a) the media can play functional roles in de-escalating conflicts in Africa; and (b) reporters should be society's moral witnesses, not 'objective' bystanders, who watch and report on the collapse of humanity.

This study explores the effects of audience members' ideological views on their perceptions of the customer-based brand equity (CBBE) of cable news networks. Aaker's (1991) and Keller's (2002) conceptualizations of CBBE were used to create a brand equity measure while respondents' attitudes toward contentious policy issues and political personalities were used to create an ideology index on the liberal-conservative continuum. Respondents' ideological views didn't affect their perceptions of the CBBE of CNN and MSNBC. In contrast, ideology had significant effects on audience perceptions of the CBBE of Fox News Channel.

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