virtual sources: organized interests and democratization by the web

The Social Science Journal 41 (2004) 543–558

Virtual sources: organized interests anddemocratization by the Web

Clyde Brown∗, Herbert WaltzerDepartment of Political Science, Miami University, Oxford, OH 45056, USA

Abstract

Journalism advertorials, a form of outside lobbying by organized interests, are directed at membersof the working press to influence the news they produce to create a favorable policy and public opin-ion environment in which organized interests can pursue their objectives. Political actors, includingorganized interests, adapt to changes in communication technology. Research has shown a precipitousdecline in the number of advertorials in the two most prominent professional journalism periodicals.However, organized interests continue to care how they are portrayed in the press. We hypothesize thatorganized interests have adapted and now use journalist friendly Web sites to assist the working press.We examined the Web to see if 368 organized interests (classified into five types) that sponsored 2,510advertorials between 1985 and 2000 had Web sites, and whether those sites contained Media Centers andnine other features that would serve journalists in the production of news stories. We found almost allorganized interests had Web sites, most had Media Centers (economic organized interests utilized themmore than other types), and organized interests with Media Centers provided more journalist-friendlyelements than sites without Media Centers. We found parity among the five types of organized interestsin terms the number of elements provided and their overall friendliness to journalists. We conclude thatthe organized interests migrated to the Web, contributing to a more level playing field among sectors oforganized interests.© 2004 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction

The players in politics adapt to changes in communication technologies and techniques,and they readily exploit innovations perceived to be more effective than those in recent vogue.Government agencies and officials, political parties and politicians, candidates and campaignorganizations, and organized interests and lobbyists will reach for the tools they think most

∗ Corresponding author. Tel.: +1 513 529 2014.E-mail address: [email protected] (C. Brown).

0362-3319/$ – see front matter © 2004 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.doi:10.1016/j.soscij.2004.08.012

544 C. Brown, H. Waltzer / The Social Science Journal 41 (2004) 543–558

persuasive and cost-effective in reaching target audiences. In this study we examine the cur-rent use by organized interests of the World Wide Web (Web) in their continuing efforts tocommunicate with publics, the press and policymakers. Our central focus is the utilization ofthe Web by interest organizations to link to journalists and to offer them the organization’sexpertise, information and views on issues of public policy—in sum, to offer themselves as“virtual sources.” In addition to investigating whether organized interests have such Web sites,we develop and apply a measure of “journalist-friendliness” with a catalogue of ten elementsthat make such sites useful to journalists. Finally, we ask whether the use of the Web continuesthe well-documented historic bias in the interest group pressure system in favor of business orwhether it is a democratizing force, leveling the playing field of organized interest politics.

2. Background

In previous research (Brown & Waltzer, 2002; Brown, Waltzer & Waltzer, 2001) we reportedon the advertorials appearing on the “Op-Ed” page ofThe New York Times(The Times), and intwo major professional journalism publications,The American Journalism Review (AJR)andThe Columbia Journalism Review (CJR). While the frequency of “Op-Ed” advertorials inTheTimesremains undiminished, there has been a dramatic decline in their appearance on the pagesof the journalism publications. This puzzled us. Surely organized interests are no less interestedtoday in influencing what appears in print and on the air about them and their policy concernsthan they were 10 or 15 years ago. The onset of the downward trend in running advertorialsin AJRandCJRpredates the creation of the Web so it alone cannot explain the decline but westrongly suspect it is a major cause now, representing a shift in tactics by organized interests.We test our conjecture by examining whether organized interests that sponsored advertorialsin AJRandCJRnow have Web sites, and do these sites cater to journalists by offering directaccess to the personnel and resources of the organization?

We start with vocabulary. Organized interestsor interest organizationsare nonparty orga-nizations that seek on a regular basis to influence government policy and its implementation.The term includes “not only associations such as trade associations, unions, professional as-sociations, and environmental groups that have individuals or organizations as members, butalso politically active organizations such as universities, hospitals, public law firms, and, es-pecially, corporations that have no members in the ordinary sense” (Schlozman & Tierney,1986, p. 10).Advertorials, named for the editorial-like form of these paid advertisements,are sponsored messages in the media by organized interests to create a favorable environ-ment to pursue their respective goals. They are distinguished fromcommercial advertisementsthat promote the sale of goods and services. The major categories of advertorials are: (a)imagewhich attempt to create a favorable climate of public opinion, (b)advocacywhichexplicate the interest’s goals and views on controversial public issues, and (c)journalismwhich are directed explicitly at members of the working press. Each category has severaltypes (Brown & Waltzer, 2002, p. 252). Of primary interest are three types of journalismadvertorials: (1)source onlywhich volunteer the sponsoring organizations to the press as anauthoritative source on specific topics, (2)award which announce competitions for excel-lence in journalism on specific topics and the winners, and (3)fellowshipwhich publicize

C. Brown, H. Waltzer / The Social Science Journal 41 (2004) 543–558 545

the availability to journalists of fellowships, grants and seminars on specific topics and thewinners.

Advertorials are paid advertisements by organized interests that we read, see and hear in themass media every day. The principal targets of advertorials in the elite press are policymakers,opinion leaders, and active publics. In the mass, regional, and local media the primary targetis the general public. Advertorials placed in press periodicals are designed to reach journalistswho write and produce the news, analysis, commentary and editorials read, seen and heard bymass and elite publics. The objective is to be a “definer” of the stories in the news media, andthereby to influence mass and elite publics. Most of the advertorials appearing in the journalismreviews are press-specific; they offer the organization’s expertise as authoritative sources tojournalists, announce award competitions for story excellence, and advertise fellowships forjournalists in policy areas of concern to the interest. The fundamental goal is to influencepublic and official opinion and behavior, and thereby to create a favorable environment ofpublic opinion and policy in which the interest organization can pursue its primary objectives.Reaching and influencing the news media is instrumentally central to such a campaign.

Advertorials are a form of outside lobbying. Political scientists (Kollman, 1998; Nounes,2001) distinguish between “inside lobbying,” which is direct access to and contact with policymakers and implementers, and “outside lobbying,” which involves efforts to bring constituentand public opinion pressures to bear on decision-makers. Outside lobbying is designed toinfluence public opinion and the policy process. The policy process is conceptualized com-monly as having problem identification, agenda setting, policy adoption, implementation andevaluation stages (Dye, 1987). Although lobbying the press has the potential to affect allstages of the policy process, it is most likely to play a major role in problem identifica-tion and agenda setting. Advertorials, as a technique of outside lobbying, join such prac-tices as mobilizing group members and the public, organizing letter-writing campaigns, andprotesting. Often, outside lobbying campaigns include efforts to influence what appears inthe news. To do that, an organization and its spokespersons must be known and accessible toworking journalists so as to be sought out for reliable and responsive answers to questions,for pithy quotes and “sound bites” that “flesh out” and enliven stories, and for eye-catchingvisuals.

There has been little systematic study of advertorials in general and even less on the effortsby organized interests specifically to obtain access and influence by offering their expertise andviews to journalists and news organizations.1 But news coverage and content affect the politicalfortunes of organized interests because the media are important shapers of public opinion. Thedaily competition for the attention of the major news media is fierce, and interest organizationswant to be players in the decisions regarding what is printed and aired. Organized interestscare whether stories affecting them “make the news.” They care about what picture of realityis presented, how problems are defined, how they and other interests, especially opponents,are portrayed (i.e., “good guys” or “bad guys”), and what policy alternatives are presented andhow they are evaluated. Organized interests, therefore, must take the news media seriously andhave an effective strategy for linking to the press to be players in shaping news and commentaryabout issues in which they have a stake. Because news items have legitimacy that advertisingdoes not, the objective is to be used by reporters as a “reliable source” and to have the “story”that appears be as close as possible to the story the organization “tells.”


Journalists rarely have the training, time or expertise for research. They usually rely on anarrow range of sources for expertise-based information, analysis and commentary (Blumler& Gurevitch, 1986). In the production of news, the source-reporter relationship is crucial. It is asymbiotic relationship: journalists receive information for the publicity they offer sources. In-terest organizations and their spokespersons want to be often visited entries in the “Rolodexes”and electronic address books of journalists, especially those who are highly visible and wellrespected. But all organized interests do not have equal resources, with the business sectorleading the pack; therefore, the playing field is not level in the competition to gain media inkand airtime.

3. Advertorials in AJR and CJR

AJRandCJRare the major reviews of journalism criticism (Boylan, 2000). CJR, the oldestof such periodicals, is published six times per year. The average paid circulation per issue ofCJRfor the second half of 2000 was 21,116, with an estimated 2.2 readers per copy.AJR ispublished 10 times a year with an average per issue circulation for the last half of 2000 of26,427, with an estimated 1.9 readers per copy.CJR’s2001 rate for a full-page black and whiteadvertisement is $6,380, sliding down to $1,490 for one-sixth page. The cost of a black andwhite full-page advertisement inAJR is $6,399; one-sixth page, $1,369. Both journals offerreduced rates for multiple placements; color advertisements and those placed on the covers aremore expensive.

The two journals are hospitable environments for interest organizations to make themselvesand their policy views known to journalists; readership is concentrated among journalists,media executives, and government officials (“CJRmedia kit,” 2001; “AJRmedia kit,” 2001).The journals offer quality of readership among those who make and report the news. Why,then, would interest organizations, severely cutback on the practice of directing advertorials atjournalists throughAJRandCJR?

We examined 2,510 advertorials placed by organized interests in the press journals from1985 through 2000 (Brown & Waltzer, 2002). With occasional reversals, there is a decreasingnumber of annual advertorials from 345 in 1985 to a low of 58 in 1999. During the first half ofthe 16 years (1985–1992), the annual average was 239 compared to an annual average of 75for the second half (1993–2000). From 1985 to 1992, journalism advertorials averaged 153,while the corresponding annual average for 1993–2000 was 50. There is a similar decline inthe number of annual sponsors from 79 in 1985 to a low of 25 in 1999; the annual averagedropped from 70 in the first half of the years studied to 37 in the second half.

A central concern of the journalism review study was to find out what kinds of organizedinterests utilize advertorials. For presentation purposes here, we collapse 21 coded types oforganized interests into five categories: Corporations, Other Economic, Cause Groups, Insti-tutions, and Miscellaneous/Other. For the 16-year period, Corporations sponsored 46.3% ofthe advertorials. Adding in the Other Economic interests (includes peak business associations,trade associations, professional associations, labor unions and other employee organizations,and farm groups) raises the total by 29.2% to 75.5%. Labor and other employee organizationssponsored less than 5% of the advertorials. Cause Groups (includes citizen and public inter-


est groups, cause groups, social welfare and advocacy groups, civil rights groups, religiousgroups, identity and other social groups, and public interest law firms) sponsored 10.9% of theadvertorials. Corporations sponsored the most advertorials annually from 1985 to 1996, whenit was surpassed by Institutions. Institutions, a category that includes colleges and universi-ties, hospitals, and foundations, placed only 10.0% of the total, but sponsored an increasingproportion of advertorials in the 1990s. Our study of the “Op-Ed” page ofThe Timesalso docu-mented business dominance: Corporations sponsored 53.6% of the advertorials, other business,trade and professional associations placed 7.2%, while labor and other employee organizationsaccounted for only 3.7% (Brown et al., 2001, p. 32.)

Organized interests must decide whether to sponsor image advertorials that affect what thepublic thinks about them, advocacy advertorials that take stands on issues, or, in the case ofAJRandCJR, journalism advertorials that assist and recognize the press. Journalism advertorialswas the largest category with 64.7% of the total advertorials; 22.5% were image advertorials,and 13.2% involved advocacy. “Source only” advertorials, one of three types of journalismadvertorials, was the dominant type with 47.5% of all advertorials. Such advertorials are de-void of image or advocacy content; they simply offer the organized interest’s personnel as anauthoritative source to journalists. Almost 11% of the advertorials were of the award type andslightly more than 6% offered fellowships. If numbers count, journalism advertorials are verysignificant, especially source only advertorials.

We know that organized interests in the past readily utilized advertorials to interact with jour-nalists. The predominance of source only advertorials provides clear evidence that organizedinterests targeted journalists inAJRandCJR. This form of outside lobbying was dominateduntil recent years by Corporations. We fully expect organized interests to continue to cultivatethe media; if they have stopped using one technique, then we expect they have found an alter-native means of accomplishing the same objective. The question becomes what are they doingnow?

4. Research design and data set

This study involved searching for, collecting and coding information on, and analyzing theWeb sites of the organized interests that ran advertorials inAJRandCJRfrom 1985 to 2000. Wehypothesize that one significant contributing cause of the historically low level of journalismadvertorial placement is a shift by organized interests from “old” media (mostly print) to “new”media (increasingly cyber). Therefore, we logged on to the Internet to see which of the 368advertorial sponsors have Web sites and to what extent they are “user friendly” for journalists.

We used standard search engines, such as Google, Lycos, and Yahoo, to locate organizedinterest Web sites. Typing in the organization’s full name in the search field usually turned-upthe site within the first handful of “results,” making it easy to “click” to the organization’s Website. We imagine this is exactly what a busy journalist would do when working on a story.

The 368 interest organization sponsors are distributed among the five organized interesttypes as follows: Corporations (124, 33.7%), Other Economic (90, 24.5%), Cause (75, 20.4%),Institutions (68, 18.5%), and Miscellaneous/Other (11, 3.0%). Each was coded as to whetheror not it had a Web site. Next, if a Web site was located, it was coded as to whether or not it


had a news media link on the organization’s Home page; and, if not, whether it had a newsmedia link on an intermediate page that was linkable from the Home page. Although numerousdesignations are given news media Web pages (e.g., “press rooms” or “news rooms”), we referto them collectively as “Media Centers.” Also, the content of each Web site was examined todetermine the presence of ten “elements” that would be of assistance to journalists.

We searched for Web sites from July 11 to 28, 2001. Because Web pages change, it wasimportant to collect the data in as short a time period as possible. All relevant pages at anorganized interest’s Web site were printed out at the time of the initial search so hard copypages could be retained. We coded the pages in an expeditious fashion while the Web sites werestill fresh in our minds. When necessary, we went back to the Web sites to clarify information.

The research questions that structure this study of advertorial sponsors’ Web sites are:

• How many organized interests have Web sites? Is there any substantial difference amongthe types of organized interests in terms of having a Web site?

• How many organized interests have Media Center links on their Home page? How manyorganized interests have media links on an intermediate page? Is there any difference amongthe types of organized interests in terms of having an easily accessible media link?

• How frequent on Web sites are the ten elements identified as being of special assistance tojournalists? Does the presence of various elements vary by organized interest type?

• How many organized interests have “user friendly” Web sites for journalists?• Is there a relationship between sponsoring advertorials and developing a Web site?

In this endeavor we were guided by two contradictory theoretical expectations. One hypothe-sis, the “Interest Group Universe Bias” Hypothesis, expects economic actors, especially Corpo-rations, to be dominant in all regards (greater presence, greater sophistication, etc.) because ofthe resource advantage they have over other political actors (Salisbury, 1984; Schattschneider,1960; Schlozman, 1984). Another hypothesis, the “Democratization by the Web” Hypothesis,suggests that the Internet mitigates and overcomes the historical bias found among interestgroup actors because Web sites are inexpensive to set up and operate (Corrodo & Firestone,1996; Grossman, 1995; Heath, 1998). Our study of advertorials in the journalism reviews foundevidence of corporate dominance in the past along with a decline in corporate presence in re-cent years as Institutions and Cause Groups increasingly joined the mix (Brown & Waltzer,2002, p. 260). What has the Web contributed to this trend?

5. Findings

5.1. Frequency of organized interest Web sites

Almost all of the organized interests have Web sites. We found Web sites for close tonine-tenths of the organized interests (326, 88.6%) that placed advertorials inAJRor CJR.In only 42 (11.4%) instances did we not find a Web site. We are confident that these 42organizations did not have Web sites that an investigative reporter could find. As shownin Column 1 ofTable 1, Web site use is very high across the five organized interest cate-gories: Corporations (89.5%, 111 of 124 organizations), Other Economic (85.6%, 77 of 90),


Table 1Percentage and number of organized interests having Web sites, media center links on Home pages, media centerlinks on first intermediate pages, and Media Centers

Web sites Home pages First intermediate pages Media Centers

Corporations (N = 124) 89.5 (111) 55.7 (69) 12.9 (16) 68.5 (85)Other Economic (N = 90) 85.6 (77) 65.6 (59) 2.2 (2) 67.8 (61)All cause (N = 75) 86.7 (65) 58.7 (44) 4.0 (3) 62.7 (47)Institutions (N = 68) 94.1 (64) 42.6 (29) 7.4 (5) 50.0 (34)Miscellaneous/Other (N = 11) 81.8 (9) 45.5 (5) 0.0 (0) 45.5 (5)

Total (N = 368) 88.6 (326) 56.0 (206) 7.1 (26) 63.0 (232)

Cause (86.7%, 65 of 75), Institutions (94.1%, 64 of 68), and Miscellaneous/Other (81.8%, 9of 11).

5.2. Frequency of Media Centers and media center links

One clear indication of an organized interest’s desire to be of service to journalists is thepresence of a media center on their Web site. By dedicating a portion of their Web space to thispurpose, organized interests make it clear that they are more than willing to assist the press bymaking the organization’s information available and by having its spokespersons on-call.

There are multiple “how to” books on Web page construction. One of them, Steve Krug’sDon’t Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability(2000), stresses theimportance of making Web sites simple to navigate. Krug advises Web designers that surfersreason: “If something is hard to use, I just don’t use it much” (p. 9). Many Web designers agreewith the adage “Nothing important should be more than two clicks away.” The logic is thatusers do not like to drill through numerous levels of slow loading pages to find information(p. 41). So, we examined organization Web sites to see if they had a Home page Media Centerlink, and, if they did not, whether they had an intermediate page one click from the Home pagethat linked to a media page.

As shown in Column 2 ofTable 1, more than half (206, 56.0%) of all organized interests hada media link on their Home page. The distribution of Media Centers on Home pages for thefive organized interest types appears inTable 1, Column 2. Among the full data set, Institutionswere the least accommodating of the press (42.6% had Media Centers), and Other Economicorganizations were the most forthcoming (65.6% provided such a link). Of the 162 organizedinterests without a Home page media link, only 26 had a media link on a first intermediatepage (see Column 3 ofTable 1). By combining the data presented so far, 232 organizations(63.0% of the full data set and 71.2% of organized interests with Web sites) had a MediaCenter while the remaining 136 (37.0% of all cases and 28.8% of those with Web sites) didnot. Column 4 ofTable 1shows Corporations had the highest frequency of media links (68.5%)followed closely by Other Economic (67.8%) and Cause Groups (62.7%). Media Centers werepresent half the time or less on Web sites of Institutions (50.0%) and Miscellaneous/Otherorganizations (45.5%).


5.3. Frequency of journalism elements on Web pages

How could organized interests be of assistance to the press? How could they increase thechance that their side of a story would be included in the news items produced by journalists?What information and materials would journalists like to have available at their fingertips whenpreparing a story? To answer these questions we compiled a list of ten items that a Web siteshould contain if an organized interest wanted to be “user friendly” to journalists. The followingelements of the Web pages were coded as dummy variables (0 = not present; 1 = present):

• Press releases: did the site contain copies of recent press releases?• Press release archive: did the site contain press releases for more than the current calendar

year?• Issues/positions: did the site contain statements or position papers on issues?• Publications: did the site offer for free or for purchase materials (books, reports, etc.) pro-

duced or distributed by the organization?• Speeches: did the site contain transcripts of or digital presentations of remarks made by

organizational spokespersons and leaders?• E-registry: did the site offer journalists (and others) an option of signing-up to receive

information via e-mail distribution?• Multimedia materials: did the site offer graphics, audio files and video files?• Media contact information: did the site provide a means (name, phone, e-mail) for journalists

to contact the organization for additional information?• Navigational aids: did the site contain features that aided in the location of information

internal to the site?• Links: did the site contain hyperlinks to other related organizations?

The mean number of elements for all 368 organized interests is 4.12 with a standard deviationof 2.82. The range is from zero to ten. Because 72 organizations (19.6%) have no elements,the frequency distribution is skewed to the left (−.147 with standard error of .127).2 Web siteswithout Media Centers contained elements, such as site maps, links, and reports, and theyare counted in the totals. Focusing on the 296 organizations with at least one element, thedistribution peaks at 6 characteristics, the mean is 5.11 with a standard deviation of 2.18, andthe skew is−.236 with a standard error of .142. Two organized interests had all ten elements,and 13 others (including corporate mergers) had nine elements.3 Among Web sites that haveMedia Centers, the mode is 6, the mean is 5.79 with a standard deviation of 1.77, and the skewis −.228 with a standard error of .160. The mean number of elements offered on sites withMedia Centers is 1.67 more than all Web sites and 0.68 higher than sites that contain at leastone element.

Since there are no practical barriers to providing all ten elements, which features do orga-nizations provide? Our assumption is that organized interests will include features they feelwill attract journalists.Table 2lists the ten elements in terms of their frequency; elementspresent in more than 50% of the cases are highlighted in bold. Focusing on organizations withWeb sites (Column 1), five elements headed by press releases (70.3%) were present on morethan half of the Web sites; the others were publications (67.2%), navigational aids (65.6%),media contact information (56.4%) and press release archives (55.2%). Three other elements


Table 2Elements (% andN) on organized interest Web sites, Web sites with at least one element, and Web sites with MediaCenters

Percentage oforganized interestWeb sites (N = 326)

Percentage of Websites with at least oneelement (N = 296)

Percentage ofMedia Centers(N = 232)

Press releases 70.3 (229) 77.4 (229) 94.8 (220)Press release archive 55.2 (180) 60.8 (180) 75.9 (176)Issues and positions 49.1 (160) 54.1 (160) 57.3 (133)Publications 67.2 (219) 74.0 (219) 78.0 (181)Speeches 17.5 (57) 19.3 (57) 22.8 (53)E-registry 22.7 (74) 25.0 (74) 28.0 (65)Multimedia 23.6 (77) 26.0 (77) 31.0 (72)Media contact 56.4 (184) 62.2 (184) 74.6 (173)Navigational Aids 65.6 (214) 72.3 (214) 76.7 (178)Related links 33.7 (110) 39.9 (110) 40.1 (93)

(speeches, e-registry, and multimedia material) were present less than one-fourth of the time.The results from sites with at least one element, shown in Column 2, are substantially thesame as the Web sites data set. The rank ordering is identical: press releases lead (77.4%); sixelements, now including issues and positions, exceed 50%, and the same set of four elementsbrings up the rear. “Media Center” Web pages (Column 3) will be examined shortly.

Table 3presents the analysis of the 296 Web sites that contained elements. Organized interesttype use of the elements generally follows the rank order established inTable 2. Three elementsappear with relative infrequency (speeches, e-registry, and multimedia), eclipsed mid-range byrelated links, with the other six elements being present more often.

In Tables 3 and 4, the organized interest type that provided each element the most is notedin bold font. (The Miscellaneous/Other category is not eligible for this designation because ofits smallN; with only 11 cases, the percentages can be dramatically changed by a couple ofcases.) As shown in the last column, Corporations leads in offering five of the ten features.Other Economic is the top provider of four elements and Cause organizations lead once.

Table 3Percentage of organized interest types with specific elements (among Web sites with elements)

Corporations(N = 97)

Other Economic(N = 71)

Cause(N = 62)

Institutions(N = 58)

Miscellaneous/Other (N = 8)

All(N = 296)

Press releases 86.6 81.7 74.2 58.6 87.5 77.4Press archive 76.3 60.6 53.2 41.4 75.0 60.8Issues & positions 33.0 76.1 75.8 41.4 37.5 54.1Publications 68.0 78.9 75.8 74.1 87.5 74.0Speeches 26.8 22.5 11.3 8.6 37.5 19.3E-Registry 26.8 19.7 35.5 15.5 37.5 25.0Multimedia 35.1 19.7 24.2 19.0 37.5 26.0Media contact 67.0 73.2 64.5 41.4 37.5 62.2Navigation aids 79.4 73.2 66.1 63.8 87.5 72.3Links 12.4 69.0 46.8 36.2 87.5 39.9Lead user (N) 5 4 1 0 NA 10


Table 4Percentage of organized interest types with specific elements (among Web sites with Media Centers)

Corporations(N = 85)

OtherEconomic(N = 61)

Cause(N = 47)

Institutions(N = 34)

Miscellaneous/Other (N = 5)

All(N = 232)

Press releases 97.6 93.4 93.6 91.2 100.0 94.8Press archive 87.3 70.5 68.1 54.7 100.0 75.9Issues & positions 35.3 77.0 80.9 47.1 40.0 57.3Publications 76.5 83.6 74.5 76.5 80.0 78.0Speeches 30.6 24.6 10.6 11.8 60.0 22.8E-Registry 30.6 21.3 38.3 20.6 20.0 28.0Multimedia 40.0 21.3 27.7 32.4 20.0 31.0Media contact 71.8 82.0 83.0 61.8 40.0 74.6Navigation aids 80.0 78.7 70.2 73.5 80.0 76.7Links 14.1 68.9 44.7 38.2 100.0 40.1Lead user (N) 5 2 3 0 NA 10

5.4. Media Centers

We now turn to the subset of organized interests that had Media Centers on their Websites. In some respects, it is this set of 232 organizations that is of most interest to us. Thisdata set is composed of 85 Corporations (36.6%), 61 Other Economic associations (26.3%), 47Cause Groups (20.3%), 34 Institutions (14.7%), and 5 Miscellaneous/Other organized interests(2.2%).

From Column 3 ofTable 2we see that 95% of Media Center sites contain current press re-leases. About three-fourths of these sites have publications (78.0%), navigational aids (76.7%),archived press releases (75.9%), and media contact information (74.6%). Issues and positions(57.3%) is mid-rank. Speeches (22.8%), e-registry (28.0%), multimedia material (31.0%), andrelated links (40.1%) were the least offered elements. The rank order pattern of elements inColumn 3 is almost identical to Columns 1 and 2 (there is one exception).

The range of the average number of elements provided by the five organized interest types is1.22. Institutions had the lowest average (5.18), exceeded by Corporations (5.64), Cause (5.91),Other Economic (6.21), and Miscellaneous/Other (6.40). The variances of the groups are notequal. One-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) to determine whether statistically significantdifferences exist among the five group means producesF = 2.31 (p = .06) indicating nodifference at the conventional .05 level. Because of the marginal probability result and theunequal variances, three appropriate post-hoc comparison tests (Tamhane’s T2, Dunnett’s T3,and Games-Howell) were conducted; each failed to find any significant pairwise differenceamong the five group means.

Table 4indicates the degree to which each of the five organized interest types with Me-dia Centers supplied each of the ten elements. As expected for Media Center sites, moreorganized interests provided more elements. Press releases are available from almost all or-ganized interests. Media contact information, archived press releases, publications, and in-house navigational assistance was found on about three-fourths of the sites. Issue infor-mation was forthcoming from about 60%, links from 40%, and the other three elementstrail in their availability. Column 1 shows Corporations supplied five of the ten elements


Table 5Journalist friendly Web sites by organized interest type (N = 326)

Corporations OtherEconomic

Cause Institutions Miscellaneous/Other

Row totals

Very unfriendly (0) 22 (19.8) 14 (18.2) 14 (21.5) 25 (39.1) 2 (22.2) 77 (23.6)Unfriendly (1) 17 (15.3) 5 (6.5) 7 (10.8) 11 (17.2) 2 (12.2) 42 (12.9)Friendly (2) 33 (29.7) 19 (24.7) 16 (24.6) 16 (25.0) 3 (33.3) 87 (26.7)Very friendly (3) 39 (35.1) 39 (50.6) 28 (43.1) 12 (18.8) 2 (22.2) 120 (36.8)

Column totals 111 77 65 64 9 326 (100.0)

most often, Other Economic organizations lead twice, and Cause Groups were first in threecases.

5.5. Journalist friendly Web sties

How many organized interest Web sites were journalist friendly? What constitutes a jour-nalist friendly Web site? At a minimum, it seems to us, an organization has to have a MediaCenter on the Web to be of ready assistance to journalists. If it doesn’t have an area of its sitespecifically designed to service the press, then the organization is not making itself maximallyavailable and it is not extending a helping, welcoming hand to journalists. Likewise, it seemsespecially important that organized interests wanting to influence what journalists write andair would provide contact information so that journalists who visit the Web site can quicklyand conveniently get a hold of the organization’s staff for additional information and comment.Similarly, the more “bells and whistles” (i.e., the elements) organized interests include in theirWeb sites, the more they have anticipated the possible needs of the press, and the more easilythe information represented by those features might be used by the press in the production ofnews.

We created a 4-point “Journalist Friendly” Index from three variables that capture the aboveaspects of an organized interest’s Web site. First, if an organized interest had a Media Centeron its Web site, it received one point. Second, if it provided media contact information, itgot one point. And, if an organized interest was above the mean for all organized interests inproviding the nine other elements (media contact is being treated separately), it earned onepoint.4 Organized interests with none these characteristics were scored 0 and were designatedas “Very Unfriendly.” Web sites with all three characteristics were considered “Very Friendly.”Between the two pure cases, are “Friendly” (index = 2) and “Unfriendly” (index = 1) Websites.

Tables 5 and 6provide information on the distribution of Web sites in terms of their userfriendliness. Among cases with Web sites (Table 5), about one-fourth (23.6%) of the Web siteswere “Very Unfriendly.” More than a third (36.8%) of organized interests had “Very Friendly”Web sites. Two-thirds of the remaining sites had “Friendly,” as opposed to “Unfriendly” Websites. Overall, 63.5% are on the “Friendly” half of the Index while 36.5% are classified as“Unfriendly.” Table 5also shows the user friendliness of the five organized interest categoriestowards journalists. Among Institutions, less than 50% were “Friendly” or “Very Friendly.”


Table 6Journalist friendly Media Centers by organized interest type (N = 232)

Corporations OtherEconomic

Cause Institutions Miscellaneous/Other

Row totals

Very unfriendly (0) NA NA NA NA NA NAUnfriendly (1) 13 (15.3) 3 (4.9) 4 (8.5) 5 (17.6) 1 (20.0) 27 (11.6)Friendly (2) 33 (38.8) 19 (31.1) 15 (31.9) 16 (47.1) 2 (40.0) 85 (36.6)Very friendly (3) 39 (45.9) 39 (63.9) 28 (59.6) 12 (35.3) 2 (40.0) 120 (51.7)

Column totals 85 61 47 34 5 232 (100.0)

The other four types lean the other way with more than 50% classified on the “Friendly” half ofthe Index. Among those four, Other Economic organizations were the most amicable towardsthe press.

Table 6focuses on organized interests that have Media Centers on their Web sites. Now,slightly more than 10% (11.6%) fall on the “Unfriendly” side of the Index. (There is no “VeryUnfriendly” category because all organized interests have Media Centers, garnering at leastone Index point.) More than half (51.7%) are “Very Friendly,” with the remaining organizations(36.6%) being “Friendly.” Other Economic groups were the most friendly with 94.1% in thetop two categories, but all organized interest types exceed 80.0%.

5.6. Advertorials and Web sites

Is there a connection between sponsoring print advertorials in the past and operating a Website? We offer two pieces of evidence. First, 42 organized interests in the study did not have aWeb site. Those organizations sponsored 233 advertorials on the pages ofAJRandCJRfrom1985 to 2000: an average of 5.6 advertorials per sponsor. By comparison, among the top 42advertorial sponsors in the journalism reviews, 39 had Web sites (92.9%) and they ran 1293advertorials for an average of 33.2 advertorials per sponsor. Almost all organized intereststhat frequently sponsored advertorials inAJRandCJRhave developed Web sites while manyinfrequent sponsors have not. Second, the correlation between the number of advertorialssponsored and the number of elements provided on Web sites is positive and statisticallysignificant in a two-tail test for organized interests with (1) Web sites (r = .24,p = .00) and(2) Media Centers (r = .18, p = .01). There is a clear, although weak, association betweenadvertorial sponsorship and the development of multielement Web sites useful to journalists.

5.7. Summary

The analysis has shown that almost all organized interests that sponsored advertorials inthe press reviews have Web sites (Table 1). On this level, there is parity among organizedinterests. In terms of Media Centers, most organized interests provide them (Table 1). However,Corporations and Other Economic organizations made slightly more frequent utilization ofMedia Centers than Cause Groups and considerable more use than the other two organizedinterest types. This finding provides support for the Interest Group Bias hypothesis. When


examining the frequency of elements we found that sites with Media Centers had more elementsthan sites without Media Centers. Web sites vary in the provision of specific elements (Table 2),but there is no statistically significant difference in the mean numbers of elements providedacross the five organized interest types. Within this general pattern of equality, Corporationsare the leading providers of half of the elements. Corporations do not do more things than otherorganized interests, but among the things they do, they do them more often than other organizedinterests (Tables 3 and 4). The Journalist Friendly Index found considerable variation amongorganized interests with Web Sites in terms of catering to the needs of journalists (Table 5).Among organized interests with Media Centers, a large majority was journalist friendly; thereis little difference across the organized interest types on this dimension (Table 6). Finally, thereis a positive association between past advertorial sponsorship inAJRandCJRand maintaininga Web site with multiple features useful to the press.

6. Conclusion

Interest organizations of all types in large numbers have discovered the Internet and estab-lished Web sites. To be sure, they must lure visitors to their Web sites and make their sitesinviting and useful enough to be revisited. Organized interests hope that their Web sites willbe designated “bookmarks,” “favorites” and “shortcuts” by journalists and others.

The Web is a new medium offering organized interests dual if seemingly contradictoryopportunities: first, to obtain access to the news media and be sources for their stories, and,second, to bypass the press and communicate directly to publics via their Web sites. In thefirst instance, the Web is used daily by over 90% of journalists (Davis, 1999, p. 50;Garrison,2001). In important ways, the Web is changing how news is gathered. Journalist friendly Websites offer a vast array of materials, story tips and contacts, and can be used by reporters for“real time virtual interviews.”

The Internet also allows interest organizations to bypass the traditional news media anddirectly reach target publics in customized ways. It is dialogic, allowing audiences to makecomments, ask questions, and receive responses. Organizations can engage site visitors indirect dialogue, sample opinions and collect information. In 2000, according to the U.S. CensusBureau, 42% of households (44 million) had at last one family member who used the Internet athome. By comparison, in 1997 only 18% of households had Internet access (“Report Counts,”2001).

The advent of computers and the Internet in recent decades has led to predictions that the“Democratization by the Web” hypothesis will shortly prove true. Former NBC News and PBSPresident Lawrence K. Grossman in 1995 wrote: “As we approach the twenty-first century,America is turning into an electronic republic, a democratic system that is vastly increasingthe people’s day-to-day influence on the decisions of state” (p. 3). In sight for this school ofthought is an “Age of Internet Democracy,” a new political system in which citizens will beknown as “netizens” who use their computers to gather information and opinion from a diversearray of sources, and not only to cast ballots for representatives but also (or rather) to engagein true direct democracy and enact policy (Corrodo & Firestone, 1996).


To the advocates of this theory, the Internet is seen as eliminating the bias in favor of resource-rich economic interests. “Deep pockets” are not required to mount and maintain a Web site. Itsaffordable costs reduce the gatekeeper control of media people and government officials overthe voices that can be heard. Web sites “are a means by which any organization—no matterhow financially limited—can sustain its message over time and reach the world” (Heath, 1998,p. 275).

For every thesis, it has been said, there is an antithesis. In this instance, it is that ratherthan democratizing political power, the Web will be “dominated by the same political actors inAmerican politics who currently utilize other mediums. . .. Today, the production of politicalnews and information is the result of the interaction of official entities, interest group repre-sentatives, and the news media. Such interactions also will govern the Internet’s presentationof news and information” (Davis, 1999, p. 5). Moreover, it is asserted, the business sector willexpand its dominance, adding the new medium of the Web to the old media.

Those who argue that the bias of the interest group system will continue on the Internet notethat similar promises of democratization accompanied the arrival of earlier “revolutionarytechnologies.” The major advances in mass communication - the “penny press,” radio, andtelevision, all twentieth century innovations - were heralded as democratizing forces. But thehigh expectations were not met, as the then existing dominating political interests and mediaadapted to and incorporated the new technology. Rather than losing power, they retained andoften augmented it. So, they argue, will it be with the Internet. “The current forces dominatingpolitical news delivery, who dwarf the independent efforts, also will overshadow them onthe Internet. The news organizations, interest groups, and government entities with the mostinfluence in the mass news dissemination business will transfer that role to the Internet. Theirinformation will become the primary information source for the Internet users of the future”(Davis, 1999, p. 6).

The new technology has changed the lobbying game. The facts that so many of the organi-zations that sponsored advertorials inAJRandCJRhave Web sites, and that so few newsroomsare bereft of computers linked to the Internet, sit at the base of that conclusion. The substantialnumbers of these organizations that offer journalists highly accessible Media Centers filledwith features that meet their needs also support that conclusion. Our data do not support theassertion that Corporations and their business associations have added undiluted or unchal-lenged dominance of the Internet to that of other media. At least in terms of organizationshaving Web sites and Media Centers, we found a measure of increased equality among theseveral types of organized interests. While our correlation analysis indicates that organizationsthat most utilized journalism advertorials in the past have the most complete and sophisticatedWeb sites currently, the larger thrust of this study is that business interests do not dominate theWeb as they do the traditional, and more costly, media. While we are far from ready to assertthat a level playing field has emerged among sectors of interest organizations in advertorialcampaigns, there are substantial grounds to argue that on the Web at least several degrees oftilt have been eliminated in the politics of organized interests. In a few words, an importantmeasure of “democratization” has been added to the mix.

Lobbying the press is and will remain a basic feature of organized interest politics. Whetherusing traditional or new media, journalists often accept the recurring invitations to accessthe expertise and views of organized interests when they write and produce news. Organized


interests have not changed their goals of influencing public opinion and policy. Likewise, theyhave not changed their fundamental strategies of outside lobbying to achieve those goals. Butthey have changed their tactics by adopting the best available technologies and techniques toreach publics, the press, and government officials. In political communication, the players havealways sought to exploit the technologies and techniques perceived to be effective. Organizedinterests that no longer sponsor advertorials in theAJRandCJRare following in that traditionin establishing journalist friendly Web sites.

Notes

1. Exceptions areWaltzer (1988), Loomis and Sexton (1995), and our two studies.2. The 72 cases with zero elements include 42 organizations that did not have a Web site,

plus 30 organizations that had a Web site but none of the specific features we coded.3. The two organized interests topping the list were Brown and Williamson Tobacco and

ICI (Investment Company Institute). Those with 9 elements were: American OsteopathicAssociation, America Plastics Council, CARE, Du Pont, Exxon (now ExxonMobil),GreenPeace USA, GTE (now Verizon Communications), Mobil (now ExxonMobil),National Right to Work Legal Defense Fund, National Telephone Cooperative Associa-tion, NYNEX Corporation (now Verizon Communications), Phillips 66 Petroleum, andSouthern California Edison.

4. The mean for this variable for cases in the study (N = 368) is 3.61; for cases with “MediaCenters” (N = 232) the mean is 5.05. We used breakpoint = 4 to divide the cases.

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virtual sources: organized interests and democratization by the web

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