This dissertation explores the role of the media in Initial Public Offerings in three
different ways: first, by relating an offering鈥檚 first-day return with the number of
news articles written about that firm during its book-building period. Second, by
classifying news articles as positive, neutral or negative and estimating the impact
of media hype on first-day returns. And third, by looking at the medium-term
performance of portfolios built on both media coverage and media hype. The
results show that, in line with previous findings, the number of news articles is
significantly related to first-day returns. Furthermore, the impact of each
additional monthly news article is significantly different depending on whether the
firm receives positive or negative media hype, as opposed to no hype. Finally, the
performance of IPO stocks differs considerably depending on both the amount of
media coverage and media hype over the first six months of trading