Abstract:

The paper looks at literature on how people interpret negative publicity and uses a wide ranging review of the latest psychological and cognitive research to put findings into the context of the human mind. Primary research was conducted to investigate a contemporary case study of how negative publicity plays out in the online environment for a real brand (a new restaurant in Cape Town's internationally renowned culinary scene). The researchers find that the patterns of online behaviour corresponds with what literature predicts, providing firm support for the research reviewed and synthesised within this paper.