Barbara M. Miller

Community Stakeholders and Marketplace Advocacy: A Model of Advocacy, Agenda Building, and Industry Approval

Often considered a controversial form of communication, issue advocacy moves beyond the traditional realm of promoting an organization’s image, product, or service, into efforts to influence a legislative outcome or a public policy debate (e.g., Cutler & Muehling, 1989; Nelson, 1984; Sinclair & Irani, 2005). Marketplace advocacy, a type of issue advocacy, seeks to protect a company’s market by influencing public policy, such as Getty Oil’s ‘‘Something to Think About’’ series to restrict government regulation on economic activities (Gandy, 1982). Although a variety of organizations use this form of communication, including government and nonprofit political groups, many of these campaigns are initiated by organizations promoting risk-related products such as coal, oil, gas, tobacco, and pharmaceuticals. Some researchers suggest that marketplace advocacy may be an effective means of both image building and influencing policy, because of its ability to persuade without seeming to do so. Its simplistic nature, often appealing to commonly shared values, belies its potential to distract attention from serious questions about public issues (Bostdorff & Vibbert, 1994). Moreover, the blurred line between editorial content, PSAs, and paid advocacy has

Community Stakeholder Responses to Advocacy Advertising

Focus group research was used to examine how community stakeholders, a group with local industry experience, responded to coal industry advocacy messages. The stakeholders expressed beliefs about both the advertiser and the coal industry, and while their knowledge led to critical consideration of the industry campaign, they also expressed a desire to identify with positive messages about their community. Applying a postpositivist research perspective, a new model is introduced to integrate these beliefs in terms of advertiser trust and industry accountability under the existing theoretical framework of persuasion knowledge. Agent and topic knowledge are combined in this model based on responses to the industry advocacy campaign. In doing so, this study integrates a priori theory within a new context, extending the current theoretical framework to include an understanding of how community stakeholders—a common target for marketplace advocacy—interpret industry messages.

Digging Deeper: Crisis Management in the Coal Industry

This study explores crisis management/communication practices within the coal industry through the lens of high reliability organization (HRO) concepts and sensemaking theory. In-depth interviews with industry executives and an analysis of an emergency procedures manual were used to provide an exploratory examination of the status of crisis management within this industry, a context in which crisis management/communication may be viewed as an opportunity to improve existing negative perceptions or generate more favorable attitudes among stakeholders. Findings suggest that although companies place great emphasis on the technical response to a crisis, the lack of crisis communication components in overall planning strategies prevents some companies from being able to adequately respond to a crisis situation.

Response to Marketplace Advocacy Messages by Sponsor and Topic within the Energy Industry: Should Corporations or Industry Trade Groups Do the Talking?

Marketplace advocacy campaigns often arise in response to burgeoning societal concerns, especially those faced by energy industries. These campaigns may be launched by a single sponsor or by an industry trade group representing the collective interests of the industry sector. Using focus groups, this research explored how lay audiences with little knowledge of the topic being advocated responded to similar energy-focused marketplace advocacy messages when presented by a corporation versus an industry trade group, research which has potentially significant implications for how corporations allocate communication resources as well as for environmental groups attempting to combat certain industry initiatives. Specifically, this study explored audience response to marketplace advocacy messages when communicated via a corporation versus an industry trade group in two common contexts: (1) ads designed to build support for an industry category and (2) ads designed to build support for a specific, controversial industry initiative. Findings were analyzed through theoretical frameworks in persuasion knowledge and attribution theory. A model is introduced that integrates these perceptions and highlights the studys key findings.

Audience Response to Values-based Marketplace Advocacy by the Fossil Fuel Industries

A form of issue advocacy, marketplace advocacy campaigns often arise in response to burgeoning societal concerns, especially those faced by energy industries. Although these campaigns may include brief and selective references to corporate activities, most campaigns place a much stronger emphasis on commonly shared societal values. This study examines audience response to values-based environmental marketplace advocacy messages by the fossil fuel industries through a series of focus groups. Four instrumental values were identified in campaign videos (innovation, community, resilience, and patriotism), and the terminal value of pragmatism, especially as it relates to environmental issues, was identified as a result of identification with one or more of the instrumental values. The findings are discussed through the lens of extant research on marketplace advocacy and organizational values as well as Habermass theory of refuedalization, shedding light on the ways corporations appeal to commonly held societal values in an effort to generate support for a given industry.

Commenter anonymity affects reader perceptions

An experiment examines how attributes of reader comments about online news stories affect perceptions of the story as well as readers’ intentions to share it. Attributes of both the comment and the commenter play a role in how and whether readers will react to the story.