I agree that it does all depend on the situation. If you look at politics, bad publicity does not impede the ability of a politician to get reelected. That is all about name recognition. If you look at what happened in American politics, the bad publicity does not impact politicians negatively because it all depends on where that negative publicity is reported. The same holds true for positive information. If it is not reported where the people can see it, it is not known.

1-, where do you see the disconnect on why bad publicity does not impact overall public approval?

It also depends on the consumer's intent and how they value information. If the consumer cannot tell the different between marketing pieces, white papers, and news articles, it will limit the impact of of negative publicity. It is quite easy to dress up PR items as news. If bad publicity is met with "that is just the way those people are...," bad news does not impact anything.

The other aspect is in the use of social media, where good publicity can quickly turn into negative publicity through the use of bots and trolls.

2- so the question remains, is good publicity really impactful? Conversely, does negative publicity negatively impact companies?